Below is my humble attempt to answer today’s poetry prompt: Write a tall tale.

After Steven King’s mother, a fallen fairy, got mixed up with a rambling warlock, Steven came into the world with a pair of oversized fairy wings. These enable him to travel to both light and very dark places. While still a toddler, he would flutter above his baby typewriter, writing stories for other two-year-olds. By the time he was ten, he was typing 90 words per minute and churning out books in a couple of weeks that were immediately translated into 10 different languages. At school, he was an all-state swimmer in butterfly, quite adept as a pole vaulter, and seemed to fly around the track as a sprinter. He was also a whiz at any class requiring essay questions. In math, he wrote story problems for his teachers, giving him automatic A+s. Once he discovered girls, he wooed them by scaring the be-Jesus out of them by reenacting the most terrifying scenes from his already famous books. They begged for more. He was called up by the draft board to serve his country, but once they examined him, they discovered that his wings would not fit into a regulation uniform and, besides, he had inherited his warlock father’s high blood pressure. (Rumor has it that Steven’s father stays amped-up over all the evil spells he loves to cast.) Steven, unable to use his remarkable skills in the military, instead married one of the girls who had loved being scared. Shortly afterward, he began delving even deeper into the underworld while disguising himself on earth as an ordinary schoolteacher. Unfortunately, one of Steven’s crazed fans re-enacted what he’d read in Steven’s book, Christine, and ran over him with his car, Consequently, Steven started to write only unscary stories. However, the world would not let Steven not terrorize them, and he has returned to doing what he does best. These days, Steven routinely slips into other dimensions to get new material. After he dies, he plans to continue telling scary stories both up in heaven and down in hell. Given his background, he’s welcome in both places, and he’s discovered that no matter where he goes, up or down, he’s never met a soul that doesn’t love a good old-fashioned horror story.