I don't own Pinocchio in any variety, but the Disney version will always be THE Pinocchio in my mind.
Please let me know what you think.
The fine line between cruelty and business is sometimes blurred.
Pleasure Island. The site of a legal amusement park with a checkered history, although nobody was really certain of what was true and what wasn't.
Some people in the law had trouble accepting the place existed; indeed, many believed the island to be an urban myth. And like all ignored myths, this one had grown and festered like an infection marring an otherwise perfect body.
There were rumours there was some kind of deadly curse on the island, as was told by the superstitious rabble of various towns and villages along the coast of this part of Italy. However, despite the rumours, other people swore blind the island was being used for criminal activities, and there were confirmed reports of the island being used as a brothel. It was an illegal place where criminals and children could roam free and do whatever they wished, which added to the notoriety.
Not only was the island being used as a massive brothel where hedonistic parties could take place, but it was also a place where narcotics could be traded and sold, criminals would be able to come and go, and there were many a rumour of people travelling to the island and just vanishing off of the face of the world, although what happened to them, nobody knew and nobody who even witnessed the event would say a word. As a result, the island's notoriety made it attractive for people wanting harmless fun.
Children, disobedient ones, were allowed to the island by its mysterious owner who wasn't stupid enough to reveal his ties to the island and was seemingly untouchable. The children went to the island and they came back, regaling their peers who weren't stupid enough to reveal the place where they could have fun to anyone who could put an end to it. Of course, one of the biggest attractions to the park was free, which was one reason why the law had problems accepting the place.
The amusement park was enormous, and aside from the usual rides, there were other 'attractions.' There were places where visitors could collect cigars, cigarettes, as well as things to eat and drink, and alcohols of varying types and strengths were issued. There was even a model home on the island, which was open for destruction. The place was a maze, but overlooking the island and the park, was the literal and figurative heart of Pleasure Island.
The Coachman was currently in his office, calmly going through the ledgers he had brought with him, checking over his receipts of purchase of the donkeys he had transformed from the Stupid Little Boys. While the park was open all year round, there were points in the year where the Coachman opened up the island and secretly went out, attracting the resort to children who were disobedient and played truant from school.
Stupid little Boys.
The Coachman meant that completely. The boys were so desperate to really express themselves, and while they had plenty of opportunities already open to them in their home towns and villages, none of them could resist the opportunity or the chance to visit Pleasure Island. The Coachman had allowed many visitors to come and go from the island to spread the word of the park's existence, but he didn't advertise it to the masses since he didn't want the police coming to his island. But the criminals and the children were exceptions. Once they heard about the island and were allowed to come and have as much fun as they wanted without worrying about the police or their parents, or even their teachers trying to instil order on them, was it any wonder they were desperate to come and have fun?
No, it wasn't.
However, none of the children who came to the island during those times realised there was a curse on the island which the Coachman was able to control. As soon as the boys arrived on the island and they began partaking in the parks' facilities, smashing the place up, and drinking and gorging themselves on the food and candies available, they expressed themselves and they transformed into donkeys.
That was the part the Coachman looked forwards to the most, and he inspected the transformed donkeys and shipped them out to farms, circuses, and other businesses which needed them for the profit.
It was slavery, trafficking, the Coachman knew that. Such businesses were always highly profitable. But his was unique since he hadn't kidnapped anyone, they came of their own accord. But even better nobody would ever be able to prove he was behind it since the boys were now donkeys, and the ones shipped out and sold would be forced to work for the rest of their lives.
In his own mind, the Coachman believed he was doing the world a favour. On the one hand, he believed he was allowing the boys to become who they were really were without being afraid of what their families would think. The boys acted like jackasses every day, and they had been given a priceless gift they would never have been able to attain as animals. The opportunities of being a human. They had been allowed to go to school and learn about history, maths, poetry, and they had the chance to go on with their lives. Instead of being grateful for those opportunities, and working to better themselves to contribute to society, some of those boys were figurative donkeys on the inside.
All he was doing was giving them the chance of becoming their real selves.
If he hadn't, then there was a chance those boys would grow to become men who were thrown into prison, or were forced to live on the streets and then they would never work for society.
Yes, many of them were heartbroken they would never see their loved ones again, but the Coachman often speculated the boys who were changed for years came to enjoy being their real selves so he never really cared. That and the coin he received was an extra incentive.
After he sold the donkey batches, the Coachman always inspected the key components to his business empire. The plantations he owned in the remote lands where people had written them off as potential areas for growing land, but thanks to his abilities that was not a concern.
Where there was once barren nothing, there were plantations in the remote regions, and since everyone in this part of the country was more than aware those regions were worthless, there was no worry on the Coachman's part of discovery before he returned to Pleasure Island.
After a long five days of selling the donkeys and looking over his empire - while he had many contracts with different organisations such as farms, circuses and mines, and a few new companies which needed donkeys to do the hard labouring jobs, there were always several donkeys that were left over, the Coachman had returned to Pleasure Island, one of the places he reigned supreme. Sometimes he felt like building a kind of throne room when he entertained thoughts of comparing this island to a palace. He lived and worked here, and had a booming business, but he knew better than to give into delusions of grandeur. He had done that in his youth, and he had suffered for it. He had made a solemn vow to never again take things for granted and swore to always think twice before making a mistake he could never undo.
After he had returned to the island on the ferry, the Coachman had made a brief inspection of the park once he had had the trunks containing his ledgers and the coin he'd earned from this latest collection of deals. His minions were doing their tasks well enough, but then again they had the practice for it; his abilities led to the activation and the deactivation of the curse he had on the island which transformed the island's visitors into donkeys, and he had the means of cultivating land where normally such crops like cocoa, sugar, barley and tobacco and dozens of other ingredients needed for the park could not grow, but he couldn't just wave a magic wand and rebuild the island from scratch.
And it was always left in a massive state following the chaos caused by the Stupid Little Boys; discounting the garbage from half-eaten food stamped into the ground, cigars and cigarettes littering the place, and smashed and thrown beer bottles and tankards, there was the physical damage to the park as well. Many of the park's attractions suffered damage whenever the boys went mad, crazed by the amount of alcohol they ingested which only accelerated the effects of the curse on the island on their personalities, but luckily the Coachman had his minions to do the job of repairing the damage.
His men were always divided into teams; while one group of his minions would be sent around to fumigate and air the park by burning really strong incenses and hot vinegar to remove the stench of donkey, one team would sweep up the collections of garbage before disposing of it all, another team would remove the damaged park attractions and other fixtures, while the Model Home which was open for destruction would be swept out and rebuild and redecorated from scratch. It was a long tedious job and since the Model Home with its tempting openness and the lack of authority figures which prohibited such things was one of the biggest attractions on the island, it was one of the bigger priorities.
The Model Home was a major lynchpin in the island's curse. The boys who came to the island were always giving into temptation, and in a world of pure chaos and anarchy they would smash every house and shop and school to pieces if given the chance; all he was doing was giving them something to smash.
The island's curse judged the boys, in fact, it judged everyone who was not protected from it - the Coachman and the minions brought in to work on the island were protected, the Coachman made sure of that - on the level of their badness, and the more the boys were bad, the stronger the curse on them. That was one of the laws of magic, the stronger the intent, the greater the spell would be woven into the very being. To be transformed into something like a donkey, they had to act like donkeys and the more they did and the more they thought up bad thoughts the stronger the curse, and even if their actions weren't as severe as with others, the curse would still affect them.
That was why he was always inspecting the donkeys. If one of them talked to their new owners, they would raise the alarm and the authorities would find the park. It was a tedious job, asking the same question over and over again, but it had to be done.
However, while he wished often the park was open all the time, he knew it couldn't, and the Coachman wished the island had the magical ability to be rebuilt after a short period of time to return it to its pristine and undamaged condition.
Alas, it was not to be.
The entire park had to be manually rebuilt and cleaned up before he could reopen it again. Pleasure Island wasn't just used as a trap to transform stupid, disobedient boys into their true form of jackasses; he entertained a wide variety of customers, ranging from families wanting to have a day out while they didn't know about the island's reputation since so many people were under the illusion Pleasure Island didn't exist and he made sure to advertise the park as something different. Visitors like that were also responsible for a nice income, and the Coachman was determined to keep it like that.
As he worked he took the time to muse about the latest batch. The Coachman grinned wickedly and cruelly as he saw the varying amounts from the different companies whom he'd sold the donkeys to, some of them were higher than the others and yet some wealthy farmers and traders were independent of each other.
One of the things the Coachman smirked at were the new contracts he'd been given which had come from the selling of small batches of donkeys that he hadn't sold to any single organisation. One of them was a freight/transport business, but those were always the type of business the Coachman liked the most since they demanded a continual number of donkeys since they were continually expanding their businesses, so as a result, they needed many donkeys to keep up. Those donkeys ferried freight and passengers every day, and the people hiring such businesses paid top quality for their services, therefore the Coachman received a nice little profit from the sales. The Coachman had contracts with several other businesses like that, and they always paid as well as the farms, mines, and circuses. However, as he went through the receipts for his records, the Coachman recalled the offers he had received from a few who were looking for meat and skin and fur.
It was tempting, but while the price was right, even the Coachman had his scruples and he didn't like the thought of the boys whom he had a hand in transforming, changing society by feeding it. For a long time, the Coachman had avoided those offers, but there were moments where he believed he would have to sell a few of the boys for skinning and butchering.
The Coachman pushed those thoughts aside and he returned to his ledgers before he sighed, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. Five days of working, selling the donkeys that he and his island had transformed, forming deals and going through new contracts and going over his empire before returning to the island, and having to calculate his profits while focusing on his extremely small handwritten notes and numbers and going through the receipts.
Deciding to take a break the Coachman stood up and he walked over to the window. From where he was standing he studied the progress of his minions. They were doing well thanks to years of practice.
This batch was a good one. He had sold many donkeys to new farms and new companies looking for them to do the hard labour chores. But he was disappointed. He had checked all of the donkeys, but there was no sign or evidence of the enchanted marionette sold to him by Honest John. The Coachman's magic wasn't as good as the Blue Fairy's, but the moment he had seen the wooden puppet he had recognised him for what and who he was and who had enchanted him, and that alone had terrified him although the laws of magic and the laws governing her made sure she could not stop her abomination from coming here and she could not stop him from his business endeavours, but the Coachman knew that would only get him so far. That was why he had been angry.
The moment he had seen Pinocchio, the Coachman had wanted to strangle that stupid fox.
Honest John was an opportunist and it often made him foolish in the extreme, but the Coachman had needed to swallow his rage, and he decided to just take the puppet to Pleasure Island and hope for the best. The Coachman didn't know for sure if the puppet could transform into a donkey considering the nature of the enchantment on him, but that was all he could do, really, hope for the best.
And all for nought.
The Coachman always counted the boys who came to the island on nights like that, and he mentally kept count whenever he sorted the donkeys when they transformed, and he always had the island searched by his minions whenever the sorting was going through but the park was vast. There was no sign of the puppet, and there had been no donkeys found in any other part of the island before the ferry was launched. His minions reported finding a donkey wearing the clothes of the boy the puppet befriended, but there was no sign of the puppet himself.
Where could he have gone?
Had he escaped, somehow?
It was possible. The donkey who had been found, and was positively identified by the Coachman himself to be the puppet's friend, had been found near a cliff edge. While a donkey fully transformed couldn't climb, it wouldn't be hard for a human boy or man to climb, and once there they only had to jump into the sea to escape.
Nobody had ever escaped Pleasure Island and next time, the Coachman would be ready.
Author's Note - One thing about Pleasure Island that baffled me was how it gained notoriety. It occurred to me that the Coachman advertises the place as a simple amusement park while turning the island's curse off and on at his leisure while he opens it for criminals for fun, and he allows word of it to be leaked out so the Stupid Little Boys are lured to the place. Occasionally he'll let them go, but other times... well, we all know what happens there.