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Careers for Magical Creatures: The Downward Spiral to Toilet Fairy
by Sarina Dorie
Sarina Dorie is the author of award-winning, YA paranormal romance novel, Silent Moon. Her Puritan and alien love story, Dawn of the Morning Star, is due to come this year with Wolfsinger Publications. She has sold over 80 short stories to markets like Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's IGMS, Cosmos, and Sword and Laser.
By day, Sarina is a public school art teacher, artist, belly dance performer and instructor, copy editor, fashion designer, event organizer, and probably a few other things. By night, she writes. As you might imagine, this leaves little time for sleep.
You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website:
sarinadorie.com.
Toilet Fairies Inc. Now Hiring!
So you've tried every other occupation in the fairy realm and you've decided you pretty much suck at all of them. Or maybe you've tried tooth fairy and you keep spending the quarters at arcades, or you've worked as a grim reaper, but hate ferrying whiny souls across to the other side. Sure, there are correspondence schools out there run by Charming Industries, but many immortals aren't good test takers and there are few other opportunities for career advancement. Whatever your situation, here you are at a major crossroad in your existence. You have a few choices at this point.
Option A: Give Up Immortality
This would involve turning in all magic, leaving the fairy dimension where clouds are made of cotton candy, every day is filled with sparkling crystal castles, rainbows and blue skies, and you have the ability to fly free. If you choose humanity, it means your wings are chopped off, you leave behind friends, and you join the world of mortals. Hello, human diseases, wrinkles, and taxes. If you didn't excel in a fairy occupation after a thousand years, there's no guarantee you will excel as a mortal. One in three immortals who resort to mortality die within the first year.
The ones who survive the first year eventually die too. They are mortals, after all.
Option B: Become a Lower Worlder
If you don't want to give up magic and a tax-free lifestyle, and aren't ready for disease and death, your next option is to try one of the many occupations within the lower dimensions. Because Lower Worlders no longer work with cheery, goody-two-shoes fairy magic that comes from aiding humans, their career path causes them to exist in the darker, muckier energies that make up the spectrum of the fairy realm. The days are a constant gloom of darkness and the nights dismal, dreary, and filled with despair.
Many of the creatures who exist in the energies of these dimensions perform vital roles in the fairy realm, such as devils who punish deserving humans, banshees who warn mortals of impending death, genies who give humans their just desserts, and used kidney salesmen. Although all of these are necessary jobs, the toll on the psyche of a former cupid or muse who is used to helping humans rather than punishing them can be severe.
On the other end of the mucky spectrum that makes up the careers of Lower Worlders are darker creatures who work only to better themselves such as succubi, yokai, and the blood sucking el Cuero. If you're an immortal who values the humans you serve, consider how choosing this slippery slope might conflict with your values.
Option C: Keep the Benefits of Immortality and Avoid the Demon Dimension by Becoming a Toilet Fairy!
What do toilet fairies do? We don't do shit! Well, actually we do.
A Toilet Fairy isn't just a job, it's a career. Sure you have to hang out in bathrooms all day, but it feels like being a genie--only, one who gets to help grant wishes to the fiber-challenged. We realize you are probably worried about the required token you have to collect from humans as part of the job. Let's just say not everyone can be Santa and be paid in cookies, but you get used to it. Perks include a fashionable tutu, hygienic rubber gloves and the ability to bring assistance to deserving humans who have never heard of Ex-lax. Think of yourself as a muse--only one who inspires those wonderful poop factories we call humans.
Also, you get to remain tax-free for the rest of your immortality. If this sounds like the job for you, contact the Department of Toilet Fairies today!
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, September 14th, 2016
Author Comments
I imagine being a toilet fairy is a lot like working as a substitute para-educator. It was the job I hated the most when I worked as a substitute: half the pay and getting to change adult student diapers. I thought up the job of toilet fairy when I was also at the lowest in my teaching career. In the Wrath of the Tooth Fairy World I write in, the lowest job before a fairy turns to the dark side--or becomes human and has to pay taxes and get wrinkles--is toilet fairy. In my Daily Science Fiction "Dear Jezzy" stories there are references to this lowly career--Jezzy even worked as one once. I write about this career path in the quirky comedy, "Confessions of the Orgasm Fairy," published by Tripytic Tales. http://triptychtales.net/confessions_of_an_o_fairy.html
Other stories from this world can be found on Daily Science Fiction at:
Dear Jezzy or Careers for Magical Creatures.
Several "Dear Jezzy" stories have been performed for live audiences as part of No Shame Eugene, a live variety show which features 5 minute acts. To watch videos of "Dear Jezzy" stories, visit:
sarinadorie.com/writing/news.
- Sarina Dorie
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