Fairytales Revisited: Little Red Riding Hood's back - and she's in a mean mood!

We're great fans of traditional fairytales being revisited either for the purposes of a sequel or to receive a modern twist. In our latest flash fiction, one of the Angel's favourite contributors Christina Sng* is back with a new spin on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.


A Little Red
by Christina Sng

It was her 28th birthday when Little Red decided to go visit the Wolf. 

Bring some kindness into the world, Grandma loved to say. 

That was rich coming from her, having narrowly survived being eaten by said Wolf twenty years ago. But her life did get better after that. The ranger who rescued them was an elderly widower who rocked a Kenny Rogers look she dug. They married and lived happily ever after.

Naturally, the story forgot about her, the girl whose world went sideways after the attack. Her parents sent her to some brattish boarding school that turned her into an angry melodramatic teen, and afterwards, an angry melodramatic adult who loved knives.

So when her boyfriend decided to grow a Wolverine beard, she snapped, donned her red cape, and made her way back to that point in her life when everything fell apart.

The wolf was older and grayer, but he recognized Little Red from her cape and backed away when he saw her gleaming knife.

“Payback time,” she crooned.

The wolf frowned, “Hang on, I don’t know you. Where did you get Little Red’s cape?”

He peered closely at her. “Wait, you’re that Snow White girl! I remember you from the glass coffin! You got all stabby with the prince and those poor dwarves when they woke you and offered you an apple. Didn’t they send you to that place with Little Red? I heard you were roommates! How is she?”

Little Red ignored him and got stabby.


* Christina Sng is a poet, writer, and artist. Her work in Japanese short form poetry, science fiction, and horror has received numerous accolades including Second Prize in The 2016 San Francisco International Competition for Tanka, nominations in the Dwarf Stars and Rhysling Awards as well as Honourable Mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She is the author of several collections, including A Constellation of Songs (Origami Poems Project, Allegra Press), Catku (Allegra Press), Astropoetry (Alban Lake Publishing), and A Collection of Nightmares (Raw Dog Screaming Press). http://www.christinasng.com/