A boy was born and is perfectly normal, arms legs ears, and stuff, except one tiny detail: He had a screw on his bellybutton. Parents send him to all doctors imaginable; none seems to know what that thing was. They decide to keep it a secret, so he wouldn't feel embarrassed like some kids have blue eyes, some brown, some have bellybuttons some have screws.
So the kid grows up, everything goes smoothly, he is smart and kind and a good boy, he reaches high school, falls in love, he makes out for the first time, all is teenage-smooth, he takes off his blouse and the girl goes "Woah, WTF is that!" and the boy realizes for the first time that his screw is not so normal, the girl flees with disgust, calls him a mutant and body-shames him, he goes back home shamed and desperate.
To ease his pain, parents try doctors, surgeons, engineers, nothing works. The boy turns to mystic stuff and spiritual shit to find answers and ends up to a witch of sorts, with crystal ball and bat poo and rat intestines and everything. The witch informs the boy of an old curse, and that many have suffered. The answer, she claims, is to be found on a sacred lake up in the mountain, where he has to pray on its shore for three days and nights, nude, without intermission.
Desperate, the boy, goes to the lake. He stands in the shore, stark naked in the cold, and prays. One day, two days, three days. On the third day, before it ends, full moon on a clear sky, peace and quiet, exhausted the boy hears a -pop-. And another. And another. Pop, pop, pop. Bubbles start forming in the center of the lake. More and more. Little waves start coming to his feet. A cloud covers the moon. Wolves start howling, wind starts blowing, birds start fleeing, waves start crushing the shore. Roars from within the earth, like a volcano.
The boy is scared shitless. And then, right before his eyes, a glorious purple elf with a long hook nose, in the size of a big tree, rises from the lake, holding a huuuge screwdriver, his yellow eyes bright in the darkness. The elf sees the boy and thrusts the screwdriver onto his bellybutton. One, two, three, there goes the screw. It submerges again in the lake, wolves shut up, clouds retreat, no wind, peace, again.
The boy catches his breath. I'm alive, he contemplates. He touches his bellybutton, all normal and pure like all bellybuttons.
"I'm free! He shouts! Normal! A real boy!", the boy shouts.
His joy is enormous, his exhaustion gone, his lifeforce fully restored. He takes a deep exhilarating breath; he tries to get up and his ass falls down.
P.S. Sorry.
Image: ©Storyteller/ร Firestone
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