Once upon a time there were three sisters, oldest, middlest, and youngest, and they did inherit their parent’s food truck. But alas, the kingdom was in an economic slump, and few purchased complete meals for lunch when instead they might buy their own bread. So the fortunes of the sisters dwindled, and although they refused to compromise on the freshness of their ingredients there came the day when they soon would no longer be able to afford rent for their apartment, and the oldest sister proclaimed that she would seek out the sand witch.
“Sisters,” she proclaimed, “I would seek out the sand witch.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” said the middlest sister. “She’s capricious and cruel and vexatious and she refuses to share tips.”
“Nonetheless,” said the oldest sister, “she is wise in the ways of food service, and it is said that whosoever does bring her a sandwich the likes of which she has ne’er before seen shalt be rewarded beyond measure, for she is both old and rich.”
“You’re going to get absolutely cooked,” said the youngest sister.
“Fear not for me, my sisters!” cried the oldest sister. “For I have a weapon most secret and cunning! I go now to bring us our fortunes!” And she departed, weep and whinge though her siblings might – which they did, a lot.
The oldest sister travelled down the lone and level sands of the beach upon which the three had plied their trade long into the evening, and as night fell she hid underneath an umbrella painted black and made no sound, and so she was witness to the rising of the sand witch’s castle from the depths of the waterfront, grit and froth spraying and wheezing from its silica parapets and cold dark water streaming from its dim and damp windows, empty of pane and emitting odours most tempting and disturbing. Ten thousand gulls orbited it in ten thousand ways, and when the oldest sister doffed her umbrella they gave ten thousand screams and flew down at her with fierce speed – but she had brought some fries from the food truck, and threw them into the air, and so it was that each gull fought every other gull ten thousand different ways and she was permitted to approach the little bell affixed to a pillar at the edge of the castle’s great fisherman’s-itch-filled moat.
This bell she did ring four times, with a little pause before the third, and only then did she announce herself. “Sand witch! Sand witch! Sand witch! I am here, I am here! I am come to bring you that which you seek!”
And the great drawbridge fell open, which was made of a thousand broken and shattered and long-lost little toy plastic shovels, and the oldest sister passed over it safely for she had worn her sandals rather than gone barefoot.
Within was the sand witch’s lair. And within was the sand witch. Her legs were caked knee-deep in damp sand; her eyes were thick with crusted salt; her body was wrapped in a sodden and worn beach towel; there was sea-weed in her hair and her skin glowed red-hot with sunstroke.
She was baking bread.
“You have come to offer me that which I have not seen, and for that your rudeness and presumptuousness in besting my castle’s defenses are forgiven for the moment,” said the sand witch. “Now show me what I seek. Show me what I demand. Show me a sandwich the likes of which I have never before imagined.”
“Lo!” shouted the oldest sister. And she reached into her delivery satchel and brought out a bag, and brought out a wrapped foodstuff, and brought out a single, immaculately grilled hot dog with mustard and relish and onion.
“A hot dog is meat and condiments placed betwixt a bun,” said the sand witch. “It is both obviously and trivially a sandwich. Now come here, for you have kept me from my baking and now you shall speed it along its way!” And with a snap of her flour-coated fingers and a dash of salt the oldest sister was no more, but was instead made into bread, and the dawn found her sister’s food truck one staff member short.
***
It was a hard thing to run a food truck short a set of hands (especially when those hands were the quickest and surest at the griddle), and although the two remaining sisters did their best and held their tears inside and never once compromised on the freshness of their ingredients, their fortunes continued to dwindle and there came the day when they soon would no longer be able to afford gas for their truck.
“I hate to say it, but I think I need to go and visit that sand witch,” said the middlest sister. “We need an actual miracle to get us out of this hole.”
“You’re going to get utterly creamed,” said the youngest sister.
“Well, I’ve got a plan,” said the middlest sister. “Just take care of yourself, okay? And if I don’t come back, don’t call the police because you KNOW they still remember what happened in tenth grade. Love you.” And she left, not looking back so as not to see her sister’s grumbling tears.
The middlest sister walked on the sand in a particular way; her left foot dragged, then it jumped, then it skipped, then it hopped, then her right did the same, then her left did the same, then her right, and as she did this she turned and spun and wound until she had treaded a particular sort of thing into the beach and from that particular sort of thing the cool evening air of the empty beach slid aside and there! Standing as if it had been there all along, towering and grim, bannered and ribboned, it was the sand witch’s castle.
Immediately after doing this a million crabs arose from the sands and clicked their pinchers with rhythmic and menacing intent. But the middlest sister knew this trick, and she threw to the beach a handful of chicken bones left over from the day’s cooking, and each crab took one end of one bone in one claw and the end of another in the second claw, only to find that some other crab was holding the far end of each bone, and the resulting fight had three million sides and a million losers, which left the middlest sister clear to walk up to the great barred gate of the sand witch’s castle.
“Sand witch!” she called, knocking four times with a little pause before the third. “I’ve got what you’re looking for!”
There was no reply, but the gate slid open and upward into the ceiling. The middlest sister walked into the dripping shade and the noxious droppings of the ten thousand seagulls from the day before oozed and showered and splattered from the ceiling high above, but she had worn a big sunhat and so it troubled her little.
Beyond the foul vapours lay the sand witch’s lair. And within was the sand witch. She was wearing a slightly torn one-piece and two sandals mismatched in size and shade alike, and in her free hand she clutched a plastic tumbler filled with ice and cocktails.
She was stirring sauces.
“You have come to offer me that which I have not seen, and for that your rudeness and presumptuousness in besting my castle’s defenses are forgiven for the moment,” said the sand witch, without looking up from the swirling motions of her spoon. “Now show me what I seek. Show me what I demand. Show me a sandwich the likes of which I have never before imagined.”
“Alright, here goes,” said the middle sister. And she pulled a paper bag from her backpack, and pulled out a foil wrapper, and pulled out a tortilla, freshly-baked and filled with finely-seasoned beef, salsa, and guac.
“Although this is a single piece of folded flatbread, it still clearly contains a filling of various other ingredients and sauces, and is thus easily and readily identifiable as a sandwich, the likes of which I have seen many times before,” said the sand witch. “Now come – you have nearly paused me from stirring my sauce, and now you’ll prevent it from breaking!” And with a wave of her spoon and a shake of her salt, the middlest sister was emulsified into the sand witch’s saucepan, and the next day’s sun rose upon a food truck manned only by one.
***
The youngest sister was fast, the very fastest of her family. She was not the most careful cook, or the most skilled, yet she could put together three chores before her sisters finished one each.
But even she could not run a whole food truck with a menu intended to be prepared by three all by herself.
So shockingly quickly, despite everything the youngest sister did, and everything she could do, and all her speed and skill and threatening anonymous letters to the police, and her utter and TOTAL refusal to compromise on the freshness of her ingredients, there came the day when she soon would no longer be able to afford the truck’s license
She stared at the pile of bills (charges) and pile of bills (tips) and she stared at the beach and she stared at the bills (of the nearby seagulls) and she thought to herself and she said “the hell with it.”
So she put up the ‘CLOSED’ sign and she left. She did look back though, and more than once. The truck looked so lonely.
The sun was setting, leaving a golden trail over the quiet water. The youngest sister walked that golden trail until she met the horizon, where the sand witch’s castle rose up from the water high into the air, earth-toned and smug. Under the water’s surface boiled a trillion angry little fish with angry little mouths, but the youngest sister was in a vicious mood and personally kicked each of them to death one after another very very quickly. Then she stamped up to the door of the castle and kicked it four times really fast without pausing.
“Hey fuck-o!” she shouted. “Open up!” And this caught the door by surprise, and it did so. The youngest sister passed beyond it, through deep earthenware tunnels still glowing with the hot red-and-pink burn of the setting sun, and if she hadn’t put on sunscreen she would’ve been in for a real pickle but she had, so she wasn’t.
Beyond lay the sand witch’s lair. And within was the sand witch. She wore sunglasses (cracked) and a bikini top (faded) and some short shorts (ripped, both intentionally and otherwise).
She was slicing meats.
“You have come to offer me that which I have not seen, and for that your rudeness and presumptuousness in besting my castle’s defenses are forgiven for the moment,” said the sand witch, without looking up from the quick and decisive cuts of her knife. “Now show me what I seek. Show me what I demand. Show me a sandwich the likes of which I have never before imagined.”
“Here,” said the youngest sister. And she held out her hand.
The sand witch looked up. Then she looked on. Then she raised her sunglasses. Then she raised her eyebrow.
“It’s an open face sandwich,” said the youngest sister. “So it only has one slice of bread.”
“Huh.”
“And it’s gluten-free, so it doesn’t have that slice of bread.”
“Ah.”
“It’s vegetarian, so I held the meat.”
“Oh.”
“And it’s low-fat, so no sauce or condiments.”
“Hmm.”
The sand witch’s claws tapped thoughtfully on the handle of her knife.
“Where’s the vegetables and other toppings?” she asked, voice curious and entirely unhostile.
“Shortages. End of the season and we don’t want to overstock when we have to close down tomorrow.”
“Reasonable,” said the sand witch. “Now THAT is clever.”
“Thank you, sand witch,” said the youngest sister.
“Weaselly, too. I like weaselly.”
“Thank you, sand witch.”
“If only this exact argument hadn’t been the principal topic of my crone’s thesis,” sighed the sand witch. “Now, I think I’ll carve-”
“I believe that the freshness of tomatoes is irrelevant to their worth as an ingredient,” blurted out the youngest sister, and this lie brought upon the sand witch a fury so immediate and all-consuming that it ate her out of existence before she had time to stop.
The youngest sister searched the sand witch’s castle top to bottom, and she found three things: a throne of sand, a hoard of lost wallets and watches, and a big cooler.
She sat on the throne and commanded the gulls and the crabs and the fish to take the castle to the food truck. She raided the hoard and paid for the apartments’ rent and the gas and the food truck’s license. And she opened the cooler and pulled out some fresh bread and bottled sauces, and when they touched the air outside the castle’s walls they were her sisters again, and after that everything was all right until the next summer.