Ashes to Ashes

 

 Ring around the rosey

Pocket full of posies

Ashes, Ashes

We all fall down!

 

 

Cinder stared at her feet, her damned feet, how could she not have slipped such delicate things into such a slipper. She let her tears hit the marble floor in their sitting room, joyous cheering surrounding her spinning head. Her sister.. her God aweful sister spun in circles arms out, glowing, she would marry into royalty. Her hands laced together palms up she stared at the creases of her life line, stained with soot. Callused finger tips that shreiked of the years of servitude, all at once she missed her father, hated God and wished to collapse into nothing. She turned slowly on her heels to avoid being noticed, walked waveringly through the open oak doors, her skirts shuffled loudly, musty and torn, her apron tight around her tiny waste.

 

The top of the banister seemed to stretch on forever, how often she had scrubbed these floors. The wood beneath her fingers was soft, polished, a deep deep cherry. Taking her apron from around her waste she looped the garment around the top of the balcony of her foyer, taking the waste strings she ties them around her delicate neck. Tight.. She crawls carefully over the railing as not to slip, funny the kind of caution taken at a moment such as this. She faces towards the entrance above the doors is a stained glass window. Doves surround the head of the Modanna and child, she closes her eyes and her bare feet step from the small ledge her arms float up like a child pretending to be a bird, she falls.

It's not a long fall so her neck does not snap, her eyes remain open as she suffocates, never taking them off the virgin. Her body twitches without her consent, and she shudders, blood drips to the marble below as the strings cut into her flesh. Her head is still spinning, her salt tears stinging against her neck. She is struggling, before she relaxes into it all. Gives way to the moment. A silence extends, as though someone had covered her ears and than her eyes. A calm.

 

If the sounds had not been so loud, they would have found Cinder before the pooled blood had been able to harden and stain the white marble. A step mother shreiks for servents, how dare that insolent little girl make such a mess.. CUT HER DOWN! This instant! Before the banner breaks and repairs have to be arranged. Goodness. Cinder's life less body, ragdolls to the floor with a deafening thud, but all is not silent and it seems that it was just an object all along that has died. The prince scans the face of his new fiance. Something is offset, turned.. tapered at the chin, not as lovely as he remembers.. Who are these women?

 

Cinder's clothes are removed and given to the scullary maid, her jewelry is packed into her sister's things to be sent immediately to the palace. A great day it is. A great great day. It would seem Cinder's body becomes unapparent, unrecognisable, a block of wood. Some odd magic of the land. She is weighed and stacked in the kitchen, kindling dear ones, says the step mother. Everything is arranged and set for a move, mother and daughter's, the Prince is dazed by the readiness, and quickened event. Soon they are off. Windows boarded behind them as though the sun were not allowed to enter any longer.

 

It is learned later on that the house is sold in pieces. Fine china's and silks, boudoirs and beds, candle sticks and hand mirrors. Floor boards to the orphanage, roofings to the church. A charatable bunch of villians, wouldn't you agree? The block that Cinder becomes is tossed into the woods, where a curious thing happens. The block takes root, begins to grow, white, a fir tree that seems eternally frosted.

 

 

 

Husha husha

We all fall down

 

It's hard to say, who forgot about Cinder first, but I imagine it was the stepmother and sisters who forgot long before the Prince did. That beautiful creature he had barely glanced at that had hung lifeless struck him harder than he'd let on. Something about her tiny feet toes pointed towards the floor, had made him incredibly meloncholy. His new bride, had turned into something he didn't know, a foolish, indulgent, incompetent thing of a girl. She spent her days with her mother and sister, shopping and mocking the poor, such useless wastes. He became angry, violent some days. Things he never imagined he would be.

 

He dreamt nightly of his beloved, unknown as she was. Someone who made him tender and kind. Oh dearest love.. what had become of her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

For the contest in Writer's Game.. started at work. No where near done!

Reviews

[C. Rose]

Interesting start. I like where you are going and your use of descriptives adds to your storytelling, nice work. Needs some polishing and curious as to where this almost Cinderella like story is heading, but you got me interested :) Look forward to seeing more.

[LoveAndDreams]

Wow! This is definitely different but very good. I don't know how to explain it, it's well written. Lol. Well done. :)