The years after Snow White left the forest to marry the Prince proved to be difficult for the seven dwarfs.
Speaking at their annual meeting, Doc identified two clear threats to the mine’s future. First was the obvious demographic time bomb: all of the dwarfs were ageing, male and childless. Secondly, production was suffering from the fact that only three of the seven dwarfs – Happy, Grumpy and Doc – were actively working regularly. Sleepy was often absent on account of his chronic lethargy, Sneezy was almost perpetually off sick. Dopey, meanwhile, frequently simply forgot to turn up for work. Bashful suffered such from such chronically low self-esteem that he could rarely be dragged out of his room.
In addition to a long-term suggestion that in future, dwarfs be given more promising names (Doc’s own name was conveniently vocational, but what chance had Dopey ever stood?), Doc proposed a recruitment drive. Within weeks, the mine had five new dwarfs: Botany, Philately, Arty, Greedy and Paranoia.
Doc privately anticipated problems with Greedy and Paranoia while Dopey was forced to admit he had thought there was a dwarf in the group called Greedy already. But with their respective private interests in flowers, stamp collecting and art, Botany, Philately and Arty soon became a credit to the team. That Easter, Arty even produced a long portrait of the twelve dwarfs sitting at a long table, eating supper together. Noting one of the dwarfs in the picture didn’t have a beard, Paranoia began to speculate that one of the dwarfs was secretly female. But it actually turned out to be Dopey.
Greedy betrayed the other dwarfs soon afterwards. Paranoia exposed him: he had privately sold the mine on to unscrupulous developers. The mine was closed almost immediately and converted into luxury flats
Confronted by Grumpy at a meeting, Greedy defended himself:
“It’s simple economics.” he argued, lighting a cigar. “Sure, the mine’s making money now but what about in ten years? It was only a matter of time.”
Some thought Greedy sounded like the evil Queen who had been overthrown some time before. “There is no such thing as society, only individual dwarfs.” He went on. “The state doesn’t owe you a living, you know. You should all get on your bikes and whistle while you look for work.”
In practice, the community was devastated. Some of the dwarfs briefly found employment when Greedy opened a call centre but they lost their jobs again when he relocated it to Mumbai a few weeks later.
His self-esteem shattered, Bashful spent more and more time in internet chat rooms. Dopey spent more time in bed than Sleepy and the other dwarfs noticed his room started to smell suspiciously of acrid smoke. Doc, too, who actually had no formal medical training (his doctorate was in Media Studies), struggled to find work. Even Happy was on Prozac.
The only distraction for the dwarfs was that Snow White had returned, her marriage having failed after the Prince had cheated on her. “There were three of us in this marriage,” she said. The dwarfs weren’t sure about the Prince’s new wife at first but ultimately concluded she was closer to the Prince in age and intellect and probably had more in common with him than Snow White had.
But aside from that, Greedy aside, nobody lived happily ever after.
Chris Hallam's World View 