Cinderella: Part I
“The Love Story. The Fairytale. The Fable.
(…but not as you know it.)”
Once upon a time, there was a man whose first wife had died. He was lonesome after his wife. Sure, he had his daughter, Cinderella, for company, but she failed to fulfil certain needs and desires of the widower. Not like that; more in the realm of domesticity.
Yes, despite being beautiful, good-natured and kind, Cinderella had never learned the dark arts of ‘keeping the house’ from her mother, so that she and her father lived in a mire of filth. Furthermore, she was a bit given over to fantastical stories and daydreaming.
So, after a period of mourning, the widower remarried, having answered a lonely hearts ad in the paper, the Daily Fairytale:
Wanted: Man with positive bank balance. Can offer well-maintained body. One previous careful user, minor repairs to chassis. T&C apply.
PO Box 36DD, Fairyland.
This new fancywoman, Cinderella’s stepmother, was a mean and haughty lady, and had two daughters already: these prize specimens had inherited all of their mother’s vanity and selfishness. Cinderella’s father, however, was thrilled with his new wife and the domestic changes she brought about.
Within weeks of the stepmother’s arrival, Cinderella had became a whizz at washing, cooking, cleaning, darning and scrubbing. In her few spare moments, Cindy avidly watched the shopping channel for news of the latest labour-saving mops and dusting-cloths, but her list of tasks still seemed neverending. Her stepmother had co-opted her into de-facto slavery.
As for Cinderella’s father, he had became distant from her, doting on his new wife and ignoring her harshness towards Cinderella. His every moment in the house seemed to be spent in the bedroom, where Cindy’s stepmom and him fought all the time, if her screaming was anything to go by. [Poor little Cinderella.] Outside of that, Cinderella’s father squandered all they had inherited from Cindy’s mother in the local bars, before staggering home to go upstairs and fight some more.
By the time Cinderella finished her daily chores, she was so exhausted that she fell straight asleep on her cold hard bed in the damp and draughty cellar, dreaming of better days ahead, when she might own a Mop-U-Better or a Cleany-Clean Cloth, (if she could only save enough from her meagre allowance). It seemed as though Cindy was destined to be a poor and miserable maid.
Then one day, Cinderella heard great commotion in the drawing-room and ran from the scullery to see what all the excitement was about.
The stepsisters and Cinderella’s stepmother were giddy with anticipation: the Prince had sent a royal invitation to all the young ladies in the land, to a grand ball. It was his intention to choose a princess from amongst them. Whichever lucky lady he chose to be his wife would get to live every little girl’s dream (though not any self-respecting woman’s): a palace to redecorate; as many shoes and ponies as they could bear to own; the various joys of bearing future heirs; becoming the object of political intrigue; immersion into the spicy world of petty jealousies surrounding pretty young maids and foreign ladies about the palace; and, in time, envy of the innocent ignorant freedoms of the impoverished. Alternatively, they could reject the Prince’s advances and be immediately beheaded. (No one ever said royals had class.)
In this particular case, not only was the Prince somewhat of a looker, but a progressive, too, believing in fairer distribution of wealth, equality of justice and treating his wife with respect. (Not surprisingly, in the year 3HEA (Happily Ever After), he narrowly avoided being viciously murdered by a coterie of minor nobility in order to protect their property from being confiscated and redistributed to the common rabble.)
The two stepsisters, Claudine and Cynthia, taunted Cindy as they got ready for the ball, saying that maids were not to be invited to the ball. Technically, this was not true, as the Prince had invited everyone to keep his options open, but Cindy couldn’t read so good, and wasn’t shown the royal invitation in any case.
As the sisters departed to the ball with the wicked stepmom, Cinderella cried in despair, and ate a whole tub of the magic icecream her stepsister Claudine had made. After giggling and generally feeling a little better, Cinderella began to feel sleepy. Just then, a loud pop! in the kitchen startled her.
“What was that noise?” she wondered. “I had better go and check.”
Then she remembered the popcorn she’d put in the microwave. She ran up the stairs from her cellar to the kitchen and was amazed at what she found there. What was there? Why, a little old man with wings sitting at the table, inspecting the remnants of the icecream tub with a sharp knife.
“Who… who are you?” said Cinderella.
The little old man ignored this question, then, looking at Cindy, raised his eyebrows, the empty icecream tub and the popcorn box.
“Really…” he said. “Getting fat is going to help you find a man, is it?”
“What?” said Cinderella.
“Oh you heard. Feeling sorry for yourself because you couldn’t go to the ball, sweetheart?”
“I– who are you?”
“A social worker. Your Fey Godmother. Take your pick.”
Cinderella stepped deftly backwards to activate the panic alarm beneath the kitchen countertop.
“Oh, I wouldn’t waste my time with that,” the Fey Godmother announced. “I’ve disabled it.”
Cinderella gasped, for lack of anything better to do.
“Look, lady,” said the Fey Godmother. “I’m here to help. Your pitiful cries were heard. I was in the neighbourhood, so I said I’d check it out. Here I am, I answered the call, so go: whaddaya want from me?”
“What?”
“If you were crying, you obviously had some injustice that you thought I could fix, so here I am, let’s fix it, let’s go, let’s do something. The narrative’s growing cold while you dither…”
“Well, I wanted to go to the ball, but the stepsisters said maids couldn’t go–”
“Those two slags? Ha!” said the Fey Godmother. “Lady, you got it all, if you want it. You want it?”
“Hmmm, I dunno,” said Cindy. “I stopped listening midway through.”
“Sheesh,” said the Fey Godmother. “You wanna marry the Prince?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” exclaimed Cinderella. “More than anything. I hear he’s very handsome, and a progressive, too.”
“Right,” said the Fey Godmother, “then let’s get you looking beautiful.”
In less time than it would take an adoring audience of prepubescent teens to scream ‘Makeover!’ for the cameras, Cindy was transformed.
First, Cindy’s hair was doused in licekiller, then bleach, then horsepiss, then almond butter and palm oil, then back into the licekiller, before the Fey Godmother pulled out the hair straighteners and got to work on Cindy’s up-do.
Next was a full-body honey-and-cocoa scrub, Cindy’s dirty rags were whisked away to be tested for signs of life, and replaced with a couture garment: a plunge-cut backless strapless slit-side full-length corseted ballgown.
“This is amazing,” said Cindy. “How does it stay on?”
“Magic,” said the Fey Godmother, “plus semi-toxic epoxy resin all over the inside. You may not ever be able to get this off your skin if you don’t wash it off before the morning, and if the Prince tries any sudden funny business, the skin’s coming with the dress. You’ve been warned.”
“Oh,” said Cindy, “I’ve heard he’s not like that.”
“Ha! They’re all like that, believe me sweetie,” said the Fey Godmother.
Next, the Fey Godmother got to work on scrubbing Cindy’s face clean before applying makeup liberally to her pretty face.
“Isn’t this too much?” asked Cindy, who had never worn makeup, but had seen a glossy mag or two in the past.
“A wise woman once told me,” said the Fey Godmother, “just keep slapping it on until it starts to fall off.”
Finally, Cindy’s nails were cleansed of the black filth beneath them, before being polished and buffed to a mirror-like shine. The Fey Godmother accessorised his creation with a delicate pearl necklace, soft-gold bracelets and earrings of the finest fairy craftsmanship.
“Perfect,” said Cindy, glancing at the clock in the kitchen. “I’d best get my trainers and get on the road.”
“Whoa lady, the hell you will.”
“But–”
“But nothing! You either go all out or you go not at all.”
So saying, the Fey Godmother whipped out a pair.
Of shoes. No ordinary shoes, mind you. The most delicate kitten-heel peep-toe glass slippers.
“Try them on,” said the Fey Godmother.
Cinderella did so.
“To-whit to-whoo,” said the Fey Godmother. “So, whaddaya think?”
“Jesus mercy,” gasped Cindy. “I can’t walk in these. They’re glass. No padding, nothing. Who in the name of Fairy designed these?”
“I did,” said the Fey Godmother sniffily, “and tough, that’s the price of beauty. When you’re a Queen, you won’t have to worry about expensive foot reconstruction anyway. The important thing is to bag the man in the first place. Now, let’s get you there before some slag tries to steal his heart.”
Outside, the family donkey was tethered to their rickety old wooden cart in a jiffy. With a Hyah! and a lash of the whip, Cindy and the Fey Godmother hurtled along the old dirt road, the cart doing nothing to protect Cindy from the bumps and potholes of the lane.
“Ouch,” said Cindy.
“What’s the matter?” said the Fey Godmother.
“Oh nothing,” said Cindy, “though I would have expected something more in line with my attire — you know, a flash carriage, noble white horses–”
“White horses?! Have you any idea how much those fuckers cost? Look lady, I do makeovers, not miracles. Besides, no one’s gonna care how you arrive to night: with these Baltic temperatures, everyone who’s anyone will be well inside the palace, by a fire at the ballroom, schlepping on a brandy or perving on the ladies powder room.”
“But–”
“But nothing. Sweetie, once you’re inside, you can tell them you arrived in a pumpkin for all I care.”
Clattering along the cobblestones of the city, they arrived at the entrance to the palace, and Cindy found herself thrust from the cart by the Fey Godmother.
“Okay, I’m not riding up to the front in this, Cindy,” said the Fey Godmother. “I have my dignity. It’s down that lane, to the left, you can’t miss it. Big building, lots of guards. Go go go!”
“But, but–”
“C’mon Cindy,” said the Fey Godmother, blowing hard on his ungloved hands. “Haul ass, pretty lady, or someone else will be queen. Don’t worry, I’ll be here when you return.”
Cindy alighted, glad to be off the cart before her bones shattered, and began tottering painfully along the lane to the palace.
“Wait,” called the Fey Godmother. “Don’t forget, Cindy: be back before midnight.”
“Why?”
“Dramatic tension.”
“What?”
“Just a private joke… But seriously, if we don’t get to work on removing that dress by then, the resin will get to work on your skin like necrotising fasciitis.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, sweetie. Just go nab your man.”
Cinderella, in all her finery, stepped into the ballroom, and the congregated multitudes gasped as one.
Why did they gasp? What happens next? Find out in the thrilling Part II, right here.
Benny Neylon is fascinated by everything — from the shape of air (mostly round) to the colour of invisibility (sort of a light mauve, unexpectedly). The comic thriller NSA was recently called “the greatest work of fiction since the Bible” …which, incidentally, he also wrote.
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