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 The Shoe That Never Fit By Jesyka
Once upon a time there was a girl, a girl who was left alone in the world. An orphan brought up by her stepmother, then forced to her knees as payment. This girl, beautiful beneath the dirt and rags, was happy. She was happy because she held hope in her pocket, hope in the form of a glass slipper and a slip of paper announcing the prince’s search for his tiny-toed bride.
There was a knock at the door and her heart soared with the trill of the trumpets. She left her mop were it was, formulating her dramatic entrance. How happy he would be when she entered. She’d wait until her two step-sisters had tried the shoe on, and maybe even her stepmother too, and then she’d step out from the shadows, the glass slipper in hand. The prince would look up and their eyes would meet. He would take her up into his arms, and kiss her passionately before whisking her away from this horrible place to marry him at the palace.
She peeked around the corner and watched her first step-sister slip her foot into the glass mold. It didn’t fit, but she tried to squish her foot in anyways. Even at a distance, the cinder-girl could see her sister’s foot stuffed like dough and falling over the edges of the shoe. The prince shook his head and took the shoe back, handing it to the second step-sister. From her angle, she couldn’t see the step-sister’s shoe. It was hidden behind her sister’s dresses. She let out a gasp as her step-sister moved to a standing position, the shoe a perfect fit.
“No!” She gripped the shoe in her apron and ran out to meet the prince. “No! I’m the girl from the ball!” She slipped the shoe onto her foot. The prince looked from the step-sister in her clean, vibrantly colored clothes to the cinder-girl, in little more than rags. His reputation weighing too much on his mind, he turned away from the cinder-girl, convinced he would never dance with a scullery maid.
He scooped up the step-sister and nonchalantly left the house, never giving a second glance to last night’s affair.
* * * *
Wouldn’t that be a horrible story? Could you imagine being a little kid and actually understanding the real world? Wow, you’d be scarred for life by life.
When did you realize that it was impossible to have the smallest feet in the entire kingdom? When did you realize that the man in a red suit at the mall didn’t bring your presents on Christmas Eve? And that reindeer couldn’t fly? When did you realize that the footprints smashed in the mud weren’t the Easter Bunny’s, and that while you were sleeping a fairy didn’t come to your house and pay you to take your tooth? When did you realize that no matter how happily you thought, Peter Pan was never going to come and you would never fly?
Dear Diary,
Looking back now, I think I realized it all too soon. I was the only kindergartener that had already figured out that if a man came down your chimney you should call the police, and if somebody leaves candy in your yard, you probably shouldn‘t eat it. I was too smart for my own good, and I guess that messed me up, because first it was ‘the shoe would never fit,’ and now it’s ‘love at first sight is stupid and fake.’ I know that no prince will come, and that my heart will break. I know that the presents are bought and the eggs recycled from last year. I know that I’m no fair maiden, and if I drop my tissue, the only reaction I’ll get is a grimace.
But what if I don’t believe, but WANT to believe? What if I look and stare and search all the time for magic? What if I look at every boy hoping they’ll see something in me that will stir their emotions? What if I write long stories and read long books about the impossible becoming possible? Does that make me more than a pessimistic teenager that’s afraid of vulnerability? Does the ability to dream help or hinder? Does knowledge bring pessimism and skepticism?
****
It started one day my freshman year in high school. My head was pounding, beads of sweat forming and my stomach squirmed like a baby wanting to be put down.
“Can I go to the nurse?” I asked. My voice sounded too strong, and I wanted to ask the question in a voice more fitting for my condition. But apparently my face showed my feelings because the teacher nodded with little more than a glance, and I grabbed my stuff and left. A few people turned to look, but most kept their faces down to their desks as though the sounds echoing in the quiet room were not being made.
I weaved into the hallway, my vision narrowing into a small circle surrounded in darkness. I put my hand out to open a door. I saw it move slowly in frames, like a ghost fluttering by my eyes. The door was locked.
I was going to have to turn around and find another way out. I stopped for a moment to rest my head against a locker. The metal was uncomfortably cold, but it helped stop my sweating. I felt my knees start to give, and then a sound I didn’t want to hear--the passing bell.
I pushed myself from the locker and tried to find my way as the echo of voices spread. The sound they brought with their footsteps made me sick-- sicker than I already was-- and I eventually fell into a corner to wait out the storm.
The way their feet hit the ground, never at the same time or at the same pace, reminded me of insects; bugs crawling around, ants in their hill, scorpions ready to strike. I was alone in a spider’s web. It was on this day that I made my first realization: high school sucks.
There are always those clichés that say that your high school years are the best years of your life. But at that moment I was begging any supreme being with control of my life to tell me this was not true. ‘If I’m at the peak of my life,’ I thought, my eyes squeezed shut and my mouth hanging agape, dragging in long breaths to hold back my nausea. ‘Please, just kill me now so I won’t have to struggle on in a life that has little for me to enjoy.’
I didn’t die, so there must be more to life than high school, or this supreme being was too cruel or hard of hearing. And the ants went marching on.
****
Do you remember back in grade school when teachers preached equality? Do you remember when you could wear high-waters and not be embarrassed because chances were two or three other people would be wearing them too? Do you remember when your circle of friends was so big your mom had to limit you to ten guests at your birthday party? And your whole class would fawn over you to get an invitation and then cry if they weren’t invited? I miss those days.
Dear Diary,
It’s September 12, exactly one week from my birthday, and I don’t have a single person fawning over me (In fact, I‘ll probably have to remind people it‘s my birthday anyways). I don’t have enough friends to have my guest list limited. And to top it all off, today I wore those horrible, awkward-length socks (You know? The ones that go past your ankle and stop at the bottom of your shin?). I didn’t realize it, and I can almost feel the disgusted stares.
Why should I care? I can wear what I want and I can say and do what I want, and it doesn‘t matter how many friends I‘ve got, right? No. This is my society and I’m bound by these unspoken rules. I could say that I don’t care, but that wouldn‘t be true. Don’t lie, you would too. Why do we gussy up everyday for school? Why do we contemplate changing out of our sweats to go to the supermarket? Why can’t we wear awkward length socks with our low-top Chuck Taylor’s and not feel like an idiot? Because we need to belong.
Nobody wants to be the sore thumb. Nobody wants to be pointed at or laughed at, so we dress to please, even if our best won’t be enough. It’s sad, really, that we’ve come so far only to fall off a cliff.
Guess what? I have a dream. I have a dream that my future children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color or length of their socks, but the content of their character.
****
Have you ever tried to create a moment? You saw it in your head and you wanted it to come true, so you did this or that, hoping this sequence of events would lead to a happily ever after?
Dear Diary,
When I was younger, I used to grow my hair out. I used to think that I could “attract a mate” with my long hair. All those skinny little princesses had long hair, but I couldn’t get it to flow like hair in water. I used to fall asleep and dream about my handsome prince and hope that if I stayed asleep as long as I could, my parents would get worried and send for a prince. I used to dance in the woods behind my house and sing the melodies from the movies in my child-like voice. Once I even ran away from home, hoping that when I got lost in the farmers market, someone would find me and take me away to an Arabian kingdom.
But then one day, I guess I just woke up. I stopped with the singing and dancing. I cut my hair short and I stayed home on the weekends, but something inside would always want some guy to come and sweep me off my feet. Some sweet way that would make me chuckle. I’m wishing…
****
Dear Diary,
…
I set the black and white speckled composition notebook down and tried to come up with something witty to say. Something selfish inside of me always made me think that I’d be famous one day. Someday I would be long gone, and people would research me. Some historian would buy my diary off my kids for hundreds of dollars (maybe thousands due to inflation), and they’d crack open one of my dog-eared notebooks, and their eyes would be glued. There was a picture in my mind, like one you’d see in the Funnies, of my diary with hundreds of those black googly-eyes twitching around, glued to the cover. There’d have to be some cute, little kid making a comment like, “Gee, wiz!” And people would snicker and know whose famous diary that was. I’d kick Anne Frank out of the running someday.
But if people were going to read my diary, I needed to sound intelligent. They’d put my words of wisdom in fortune cookies and history books. They’d make dolls that recited passages. Yes. Someday I would be famous, and I wanted them to think I was nothing but amazing-ness in the form of a human girl. I was a wistful, thoughtful, intuitive teenager. I’d be nothing like the ones that do drugs and get pregnant their freshman year. No. I’d be the shiny penny in a bank of moldy, green ones.
That was just dumb. Did I pity myself? Most definitely. I reached across my bed to turn off the light on my bed side table. I needed some space to think and the clutter of my room wasn’t helping.
The darkness felt good, soothing almost. Ironically enough I could see so much clearer. But then again I couldn’t. It was all so distorted. Prejudice lined so many thoughts, assumptions filled the gaps, and pity rained down like confetti. I’d try to blow it away, but deep down, I knew I secretly liked the confetti that stuck to my face and made me cry.
I’m feeling horrible. I’m so angry and confused. I go to school everyday, and I’m myself, just like everybody always says to be. But I’m a people deterrent. They don’t like me…why? I wish I could say it was jealousy, but I don’t think that’s it. I wish I could talk to people. I wish I could be pretty and funny and rich, but I’m not. I’m awkward and quiet and I couldn’t carry a conversation even if it had handles. I’m pathetic. I’m scared though, too. Will I live my life alone? Without friends? Without love? Everybody finds love, right? My parents found each other and they’re just as awkward as me…but they weren’t always this way. I’m going to die alone and I can’t change that. I was brought into the world alone, and I’ll die alone. It’s who I am and I can’t change it.
I hate teenagers.
I shut the cover of the journal. I had enough pitying for one day. I knew it’d only make more angry.
****
Dear Diary,
Why are people so cruel? Is it part of human nature to make people steal? Is it because of that damned Eve? Did she bite the apple and therefore give humans the ability to steal? What happened to the golden rule? Or is the golden rule now, ‘If it’s gold it’s anybody’s‘? Or ‘If it’s there, it’s yours’? No. that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
And who would even have a need for a stupid beat up pair of converse? They’re not pretty or valuable or anything. They’re just some stupid teenager who thought it’d be cool to steal my shoes. Not even shoes. SHOE. They stole only one and left the other there to taunt me. That’s sick.
I whipped the book shut and stared around the room of my Spanish class. Although only two of them were in my gym class, I felt like they all had some sort of role in this grand theft game. They thought it’d be funny to pick on a loser. Here’s a little joke for you! “What’s funnier than a misfit? What? A misfit missing a singular shoe! Hahahahaha! Good one!” Not funny.
I moved my toes around in the huge air pockets in my hand-me-down tennis shoes. I hate tennis shoes. They’re ugly and uncomfortable.
****
Dear Diary,
What would it be like to shoot someone, I wonder?
I stopped to stare at the words. If I got caught with that written down, I’d get sent to the guidance counselor…Or maybe even suspended…Good riddance. I decided to leave it there. It made me feel almost rebellious. Plus, time out of class was fine. The more the merrier!
It wasn’t until after school that my attitude changed. With my widowed shoe tied pathetically to the strap of my book bag, I slammed my locker shut and stumbled back from the figure that was standing less than a foot away. I kept my eyes down to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled and turned to get out of their way.
“Hey.” An arm extended and held at the end, in all of its dirty glory, was my shoe. He grinned and cocked his head to one side. “Did you lose something, Cinderella?”
 BURN-HAZARD · Tue Feb 03, 2009 @ 05:00am · 1 Comments |
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