aba Yaga
was a little irked
the next morning
to discover that

somehow

Vasalisa had managed
to complete all her chores.

She had been looking forward
to a little breakfast of girl
but settled for a bowl
of instant oatmeal

and a Pop-tart.

Before she blew off for the day,
the hag gave Vasalisa a few more assignments.

“See this?”

Baba yaga pointed to an enormous heap of

dark tidbits
black specks

“You must Pick out:

the poppy seeds from the dirt

the periods from the pixels

the dashes ---- •••• from the dots”

“And over here...
See this pile?”

Vasalisa looked at an even larger mound

“You need to SPECIFY these for me:

the good grain from the rotting wheat
the CMYK Gold from the RGB yellow

the elegant typeface

from the grungy font


“AND HERE
Here’s the MOST IMPORTANT stack”

The Yaga gestured toward a tower of paperwork...

“You need to separate:

the fresh corn from
the mildewed corn


the beautiful images

from the ugly images

the thoughts
from the feelings



And if you’re not done by the time I get back...

Then I’ll have YOU for supper!”

She ran a wicked tongue across her own zig-zaggy grin
and pretended to be reading from a cookbook:

“Let’s see...
How to Prepare:
Vasalisa Surprise...






When the hag was gone,


Vasalisa looked at the rubble





and crumpled down into herself.
No Way.
No Way!

Not humanly possible!

She was teetering
on the edge of a tantrum.

But then again,
up popped the little doll,
(pocket protector that she was.)

“sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
She said to Vasalisa.

“Don’t Worry!
I’ll help you, and ALL this work will get done.”

And so Vasalisa’s
personal assistant
her tiny search engine
went on automatic pilot

sorting
separating
rasterizing

optimizing

batch-processing

all the tedious
and time consuming
operations
that needed to be finished
by deadline.


When Baba Yaga
returned home that evening,
she was surprised

by how much the girl
had been able to accomplish

.