Are you looking to travel in opulent luxury while minimising your environmental impact? Sick and tired of bog-standard hum-drum wooden horse-drawn carriages? Then the Fairy God Mother is here to fulfil your wish with the FGM Pumpkin Carriage! Made from the realm’s finest organic pumpkins, magically enhanced to provide a sustainable and comfortable ride. Make a statement. Drive a pumpkin. FGM Transport – making transportation wishes come true.

“Who knew that ad would be so damn effective?” Bert put down the printed advertisement and rested his elbows on the boardroom table. He pressed his fingers to his temples, failing to massage away neither his migraine nor his problems. 

“It only ran for a few weeks and the demand has been beyond anything I could have imagined. I thought at most we’d sell twenty, maybe thirty at a push.” 

His hands flopped from his face in exasperation revealing the dark bags beneath his eyes and the dark stains beneath his armpits that told sad stories of his recent overtime. The pressure of leading the Fairy Godmother’s new enterprise’s legal team was taking its toll and had left Bert tired and unkempt. 

Across the desk from him his comparatively neat colleague swings aloof in his chair, resting his brown leather shoes on the desk. He turned a small cube of cheese in his hand before popping it in his mouth and replying – “Sure. The ad was a neat bit of marketing but you know what sold it, right? It was the girl. She takes one ride in the prototype through the city on ball-night and boom – that was all it took. Hundreds of eyes on her riding in a souped-up pumpkin and the news spread like plague. Influencer marketing, it’s called. She might be old but the boss-lady knows how to create demand.” Luke had never planned on becoming Head of Marketing for a product that sold itself but now that he was, he found that the role fit him quite comfortably. 

“Yeah, unfortunately for us, she’s created too much demand before she’d done enough R&D. And now it’s coming back to bite us.” Bert reached into his satchel and placed a thick pile of dog-eared papers on the desk with a thud. 

“You’ve seen these reports we’ve been getting in, right? Luke, we’re getting more and more everyday.” The last few words were said in a near conspiratorial whisper. 

“I don’t see how that’s our problem to be honest with you, Bert. The ad never mentioned any guarantees. You’re worrying over nothing.” Luke took his feet off the desk, planting them on the boardroom floor to lean forward, plucking another cube of cheese from a serving plate. “They are pumpkins after all.” 

“Yes, pumpkins with a shelf-life of around five weeks. According to reports, at around three weeks the chassis integrity starts to go and the handling goes with it. Luke – this is bad news.” Bert’s pit stains claim more territory. 

“Oh come on. It’s not like anyone’s died.” challenged Luke. 

“Actually, nine people have died. And three horses.”

“Jesus Christ.” Luke paused and stared into space. Another cube of cheese found its way into his mouth. 

“For the love of God, could you stop eating cheese for two minutes and listen?” hissed Bert. 

Annoyed and cheeseless, Luke replied in a raised voice “And what do you suppose we do about it? Recall 1,000 decomposing pumpkin carriages and offer compensation? Oh yeah, the great charitable Fairy God Mother will be up for that.” Luke scoffed and grabbed four cheese cubes at once. 

“Keep your voice down, would you? You don’t know where she could be listening from. Someone needs to talk to her.” Bert said, sweatily. 

“Well I ain’t doing it. I’ve got a good thing going here and I don’t see how it’s my responsibility.”

“And how do you propose to market a product once everyone knows it’ll melt after a month? Like it or not, this is your problem too, Luke.” 

Silence hung between them as they considered how they might prevent an abrupt return to a life that they’d both been grateful to escape. Bert nervously rubbed his hands together and twitched his nose unconsciously as he thought. Luke broke the silence.  

“You know what’ll happen if we tell her. Remember Jaq and the supply issue last month? Lost an order of 300 pumpkins and all of a sudden – gone. Vanished. No prizes for guessing what happened to him.”

“I get it. This place doesn’t exactly have the best redundancy package.” Bert conceded. 

“I’m not doing it, Bert. I can’t go back. Not now.” 

Silence hung heavier between them. Luke sat back in his chair again and gazed around the room as if looking for a solution. His eyes paused on the skirting board in the corner of the room and his face froze, eyes wide. Spotting his distraction, Bert followed his gaze to the small hole in the wall and the mouse trap that had been placed in front of it. A cube of cheese perched enticingly on the trap’s release. 

Luke’s nose twitched. “I’m not going back.” 

To start every new year I make a list of ambitions to indifferently push me in the direction of growth when all my in-the-moment thinking-power has been consumed. Almost every year for around ten years I’ve included Attend a Creative Writing Class/Course. Every year that has been ignored, until this year! After moving to a new house that’s inexcusably close to a community centre with a wealth of classes I took the plunge. It’s a fab wee class and we’re given homework assignments that get the juices flowing. Below is an sample of such juice. The subject was writing style and the brief was to take Cinderella as a starting point and apply your own style. Inspired by contemptible car manufacturers and the tragic legacy of the Ford Pinto, I wrote the above.