Penny Post #36: Happily Ever After

Leaving behind a glass slipper.

We all know the story. The clock strikes twelve and you race out of the castle, down the steps, and past the unsuspecting-turned-suspecting passerby. You race in the woods, knowing your fairy godmother’s magic is fading by the second. You leave behind a glass slipper and the naiveté that brought you there in the first place. You return to reality: the most cruel destination. Pumpkins are actually pumpkins and mice are actually mice and glass slippers leave blisters no band-aid can fix. You return to rags and dishes and an evil stepmother that makes you forget Prince Charming ever existed.

You make friends with the rodents and collect dust all the same, wondering why you ever believed in that fairytale anyway.

The weight of reality is crushing. One night spent in gown and ballroom; eternity spent in a locked tower. One night spent dancing with a mysterious prince; eternity spent with a fat mouse as your only friend. One night spent as the embodiment of magic; an eternity spent without so much as one stroke of luck.

The glass slipper will eventually come find you, despite your evil stepmother’s best attempts. It will reveal your truth and unshackle your burdens and whisk you into your destined life. Gus will come with you because the cheese at the castle is much better than what you can offer him now.

Your evil stepmother and stepsisters will grovel and bark, your eternity of suffering becoming theirs. The fates are aligned and sealed. Happily ever after.

You realize the true magic was in that glass slipper you abandoned on the castle front steps. You realize that if you were not in a hurry and stumbled down the steps trying to shield your unraveling, you would have never left the thing that promised you something different, something better. You realize that without that glass slipper - which never lost its magic - you never would’ve found your own. What you left behind became the bridge by which to connect you to an alternate truth promising peace and prosperity.

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Like Cinderella, I’ve stumbled down castle stairs doing my best to shield how I was unraveling. I hid under metaphorical gowns and glass slippers and my fairy godmother’s magic was put to great use. I knew the moment anyone saw my truth, my raggedy, friends-with-mice truth, I would be exiled and doomed. I, too, left behind a glass slipper. My glass slipper was a little less pristine and shiny, yet magical all the same.

Unlike Cinderella, that glass slipper did not come looking for me because of the orders of one very powerful prince with the protection of the royal guard. Much of the time I had to sneak out in the darkness of the night to search high and low. Gus was kind enough to accompany me. We evaded my evil stepmother, searching until the dawn before returning in defeat. Many nights were spent in the company of mice and one measly flashlight, desperate for the glint of glass. Many nights ended in uncertainty, doubt, and fear. If I could not find the glass slipper, would would become of me?

I start to forget what the glass slipper looks like, feels like. I misremember its shape and its temperature and its height. I only remember that it is lost and can’t be found. I find myself similarly lost, losing more hope by the day. Gus has all but abandoned the quest and left me alone in my delusion.

One night - the night I decide will be the final night searching for something I once lost [I don’t even remember what I’m searching for anymore] - I hear a bell. I follow the sound, guided by the echoes. I arrive at a clearing in the forest where the bell rings again. In the middle of a clearing sits a mellow pond, not more than a few feet wide. I approach with curiosity. The pond is still, not a single ripple on its surface. Its stillness I feel inside me as my heart slows and my breath hitches. The water’s glint reminds me of glass.

I kneel down, my calves muddied by the shore. The bell rings once more, this time fading into complete silence. I look at my reflection in the water’s surface. My face is unremarkable, not one I recognize. I send a ripple into the surface with my fingertip. My face distorts, shadows of all expression present, none of which is plastered on my face now. A subtle smile appears in the ripple of the pond’s surface. This smile is one I recognize yet don’t remember. I find myself wanting to remember, confronted with this fairytale that so darkens my current reality. I’m lured into the mystery of the water and my past. I submerge.

Under the surface there is nothing but darkness. The pond’s width belied its depth. I sink. My lungs fill up with murky pond water, oxygen escaping through my nostrils. There is no smile under here. Only gravity. I resurface.

The water now relentlessly ripples, the moon’s light my only guide. In a muddied mess, I hoist myself out of the water and begin the trek back to the locked tower and Gus. I don’t look back.

As I walk - dripping in wetness, covered in unidentifiable pond filth, and shivering from the cold - I’m curiously aware that I’ve finally found my glass slipper.

Until next time,

Kiera