Bucket of Anvils

Bucket of Anvils
By Scott Wilson
Word Count:286

“What in the world are you doing? Damn it, stop it, stop it I say,” said Mervyn the Beige Wizard.

“I dun put it where you said to,” Geoffrey the Golem said.

Mervyn waved his wand around in a swirl of colorful lights and sparkling stars. A loud pop shattered the silence in the workshop and Geoffrey stop dead in his tracks.
Mervyn walked across the workshop, filled with bubbling beakers and vials of bright and luminous fluids. The Golem’s hand still rested on the bucket of anvils. There was no way Mervyn could move this delivery himself.
He waved his wand again.

“Apples, I said. Apples.”

“Appuls?” Geoffrey said.

“Yes, small round pieces of red fruit. You know, used to making pies, eating for a snack or a meal in some cases.”

The expressionless face of the Golem gave nothing away, no glimmer of understanding or puzzlement.

“You don’t want the anvils, den?”

“No, no, no. Take them away and get me a bucket of apples. Big fresh red apples.”

“No one left at the shop where I got these,” Geoffrey said. “Kind of had an argument bout how many anvils I could buy. Blacksmith no wanted to sell me any, but I twisted his arm into selling them, selling them all.”

Mervyn shook his head, imagining just how much his servant twisted the local blacksmith’s arm, literally.

“Just get rid of them, then and get me those apples before my potions bubble over.”

He shook his head again, disbelieving how hard it was to get such a basic, common ingredient. The dragon’s tooth, dryad hair, scales of a hydra, mushrooms from the high Alps of the Boogaloo Mountains. All these had been easier for his Golem to retrieve compared to a bushel of bloody apples.