Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Shattering of a Glass Shoe

Cinderella sighed. She supposed, all in all, that she didn't really have a right to complain. She went from practical slave to princess. Soon queen. She lived in a giant palace. She had everything she could ever ask for in that palace, with a man who loved her, who she told herself she loved.

Then why did she feel so empty?

It took a lot to survive the years in her stepmother's "care" after her father's death. It took dreams and a hope she had no reason to cling to. Cinderella had spent every moment she could dreaming of a future for herself better than what she could really hope to expect. As soon as she was of age, she would leave her stepmother's house and forge a life for herself. Make it what she wanted.

In the end, she ended up doing nothing but filling the hollow role of damsel in distress. Cinderella had always dreamed of saving herself, but her prince had saved her first. Prince Charming. Who in their right mind would name their son Charming? Maybe she was just bitter because he managed to charm her.

So even now, in what many would consider a perfect life, she dreamt of how life could've been. She imagined leaving her stepmother's house as soon as she could. She imagined getting a meager job to support herself until she could open her own bakery. She dreamed of being herself. But she knew everything she had ever dreamed to be had died when she let her prince rescue her, shattered with a glass shoe.