Patience

The window was open in the ballroom. Tickling the necks of onlookers, the breeze pushed her hair off her face.

As Prince Charming danced with his suitor, all of a sudden, the room stopped.

Unlocking the phony bond made between stranger’s hands, he let go of his suitor, and approaches his destiny.

“Dance with me,” he whispers in her ear.

They float. Snares and base drums were no match for the intensity their hearts. They dance.

“Kiss me?” he asked, “Midnight,” she replied.

When the song ended, he asked her name, “Cinderella,” she answered in a soft, yet matured, sound. “Cinderella, hunh? Sounds like we belong together.”

She giggled, and they talked for hours. Glancing down at her feet he saw clear slippers. Reminded of a story he heard his whole life, he asked, “Are you really thee Cinderella?”

Hope filled his eyes while he waited for her reply. “I…” she says, “Stop.” he interrupts her. He already knew, he had dreamed about this moment.

Running over to his father he expressed his joy. “Father, I know it is her, please tell me, am I right?”

“Yes.” answers the King, “But you have to make it through the end of the night.”

At the top of the steps entered another. Housing the grace of a horse past its prime, Prince Charming saw something different.

11:55. He wanted to get to know her. They talked.

11:56, 11:57, 11:58, 11:59.

Cinderella sat, looked on, still content. Another called her by her name, “Cinderella, kiss me.”

Midnight.

Hearing the loud interruption. The prince made haste to his feet. Dashing back to the place her left her, frantic, screaming for her. “Cinderella! Cinderella! I came back.”

Shocked, looking on in dismay, with another, Cinderella faded away.

Walking over to his son, the King asked, “How does it feel to know you had Cinderella, but could not wait until the end of the ball?”

Small steps

I stared into the lifeless knobs on the cupboard in my Grandmother’s living room. I knew it was bigger, tougher and stronger than me. But I was young; I was 12, and it had been mocking me ever since I was eight years old. I was anticipating the day when everyone else would be gone and I would be able to climb atop the cupboard and retrieve my pride.

Years ago, as some type of punishment, I lost something. I never knew where it was and didn’t even understand I lost it. But one day I looked at the cupboard in an awkward stare off, that I was of course losing, and I noticed something of mine it had. I was too weak, frail and small to get what was rightfully mine off its weathered chestnut finishing plate on the top. So for years I walked past the cupboard pretending I didn’t see my stuff atop it’s head but always plotting on the day I’d get back what was mine.

Moving day came.

Everything was gone, moved out of the house, except for the cupboard and me. I could hear those knobs turning,its screech across the floor as its golden knobs scraped the hard wood floors I had just mopped. Without introduction, I let loose on the cupboard. “You took something of mine, and I want it back,” I said. Opening its top door, made of glass, I could see right through him. It gave an expression that I interpreted as a lure. “If you ever want it, you will have to take it back,” it personified.

I did.

I crushed it and regained my innocence.