The carriage was not there.
This was not what she had bargained for with the fairy godmother, she cursed, especially with a smitten prince at her heels.
She ran outside the palace yard and whistled for a cab by the gate. Not a minute too soon either; her ball gown dissolved into the usual tattered dress as soon as she closed the carriage door behind her.
"To stepmother's house, please."
Entering from the back of her stepmother's house, she saw the pumpkin smashed on the side the gate. Mice and vermin circling it, merrily eating the pieces.
A horse's reins were tied tight to a tree nearby. It never left the house to pick her up from the ball.
Entering her cold room, she washed her face and tried to diffuse the smell of merriment off her. She did not want it to show even in her dreams. And especially not to him, the faithful drunkard sleeping there.
He stirred groggily as she removed his shoes and pushed him aside, making room for herself in their tiny cot. He reeked of cheap wine and whiskey, the smells of jealousy and grief.
When she felt his eyes on her, she said, "You forgot to pick me up."
"I thought you wanted to live there." He looked at her, the drunken glaze gone from his eyes. "Did he take bait?"
"For certain."
"Well. Then."
He scooted further away from her, as if there was any room left in their cot, his back turned to her, avoiding the sad thought of her leaving him for something better.
She sighed. Caressing his back, she saw that her hand was bare. Taking it out of her pocket, she slipped the ring back on her third finger.
They still had time until the prince found her, she thought. She refused to spend it in argument with him, the simple man she married out of loneliness in that big, cold house.
5 afterthinkers:
I didn't count them but I guess in less then 500 words here is a complete story ( for free) :).
A fairy tale for adults. Naughty, cool and no unreal happy endings. A Cinderella who resigned to the facts of life.
That's the way I like it.
324 words, actually. I regress, wine and whiskey are very American smells for grief and jealousy. I imagine that they smell of vodka in Russia, of arak and Bintang Beer in Indonesia.
What does it smell like in your country, Coles?
I'm not very sure because a lot of my compatriots, jealous and grieving compatriots included, imitated Anglo-Saxon lifestyles since WWII.
Though wine is very popular now it is the French drink of self pity and melancholy in the nineteenth century.
The real Dutch macho man, who is resentful and jealous by nature, will drink beer - a lot of beer, like Heineken, Grolsch or Amstel- if he is a Prince ( Crown Prince Willem Alexander), University student or hooligan and he will drink Genever if he is a broken hearted real man. That is, or rather was, the national hard liquor (which unfortunately by now has been replaced by whiskey for the drinking wankers)
I would have called that book
"The History of Grief, in a Bottle."
Amazing shoes. Anyone who would wear that glass shoes will feel like Cinderella.
alegria clogs
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