It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

Write a short piece of fiction, around 300 words, using the song title as your story title but don’t listen to the song.  You can pick your own genre or use the one suggested to me.  Remember to link back to this post so I can find yours.

If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page.  You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

Stuff are supposed to come in threes, they say, so I’m giving you the third and final children’s story suggested by bumblepuppies: Spoonman by Soundgarden. Read at own risk.

Spoonman

Once upon a time there was a spoon called Spoony O’Spoons. Spoony lived in a kitchen drawer with all his O’Spoons brothers and sisters, and their cousins, the Forkers and the MacKnifes. Life consisted mostly of ladling food into people’s mouths, visiting Soapy Sink hot springs, and lying around in the drawer.

But Spoony grew bored. There had to be more to life than eating, swimming and lying in the dark, crowded drawer, he thought.

One night he waited until all the other cutlery was asleep and he sneaked out of the drawer. He wandered through the darkened kitchen, wondering what to do, when he heard a noise behind the microwave. On closer investigation he spotted a rat nibbling at the power cord.

Spoony had to do something. He slammed his head down on the counter with a great big bang, and the rat took fright and ran off. And Spoony knew what he had to do.

The next night he made his way into the tool drawer. He scrounged around for a while, then headed for the cupboard.

The cupboard door swung silently open and out leapt Spoonman. With a couple of washers for a mask and a dish towel tied around his handle for a cape Spoony was hardly recognisable.

From that night onwards Spoonman prowled the kitchen at night, defending appliance power cords from rodents and chasing off roaches behind the fridge. Come morning he would slip back into the drawer with his brothers, sisters and cousins for another day’s work, but Spoony was much happier now knowing that he had discovered a higher purpose in life than merely shovelling food. He was Spoonman, protector of the kitchen, watcher in the night, and all was well.

Copyright © 2014 Herman Kok

I reckon that just might be the worst children’s story ever written. You decide if it’s better or worse than the song.

• Fiction
• Song Title Challenge