Shades of Cinderella

Surrender to the light pouring in through every window, to the sun that warms my chilled skin. Spring is hot and cold, and I feel the same way as my blood is heated by the light that it cannot see. Silence is underneath everything, it holds a cold decomposing smell, like Earth is exhaling its ancient voice. It knows everything that I do, everything I have forgotten. It returns to me in death.

It starts with my toes, it’s beautiful not to feel them, and reminds me of dipping them into the cerulean sea. It’s strange how nothing always reminds me of something else.

I’m always coloring in the void, with every color that I know. So many to choose from.

Until I can’t anymore.

The living room is yellow, cradling my body like I’m in the center of a giant egg yolk. The house is white and shells me away behind its chipping paint. My paint isn’t chipping, it’s wet and doesn’t peel away. It pulls back slowly like a gaping hole. The muscles of my arms are yawning awake, and the oxygen is making everything rot away even faster.

I’m not unfamiliar with this, this happens everyday when you’re alive, but your body is a furnace that keeps things moving quicker than decomposition can sneak up on you. Your body is always outrunning time, and growing more tired every single day.

Mine isn’t tired.

Not anymore.

The silence that holds me is loud. Like Earth under my feet, it has always been there, and is the only thing that never changes. My fingers look like spider webs, the ones they leave behind to pull apart bit by bit in the corners of houses. Houses with large gates that Cinderella climbs over, and rips her sky-blue dress.

The world splits open.

She is slain like a dragon, the pointed gates like the tips of bloodied swords. She shouldn’t have gone to the ball, she wouldn’t be sneaking back in. She runs into the house where no one can watch her spill. Where no one will watch her surrender and not get back up.

The house is holding up better than my body. Its bones are thicker, the paint chips away and isn’t grotesque. My body isn’t the same. It swells until it seems it’s about to pop.

And it does pop.

In all kinds of ways.

Its exhale isn’t the cool, fresh wisdom of Earth. It’s like a toxic hiss. An angry, violent boil. But where there is death, there is life.

Maggots.

Short life cycles seem to hold parallels to our own. Flies buzz around the house, giving it life again. Their parties are quiet, they conjure on window sills, illuminated like bars of gold in the sunlight. Guests become residents.

There’s enough room for all of them. Their world is so large. Each hallowed room is a new sky. There’s always new guests. There’s always plenty to eat.

After the boil, after several generations of celebration, they have met the silence too. Who has been waiting patiently for its final introduction.

No one finds my body.

No one ever found me when I was alive, and they’ll never find me in death.

Although it wasn’t what I intended, I feel that this was the natural conclusion. Hidden in life, behind jackets and coats in the winter and river reeds in the summer. Bathing down by the water where the nearest neighbor couldn’t hear me scream, couldn’t hear me sing to the stream of water. Water that rushed over the rivers of my veins. Life was a lucid dream because there was no one to remind me of reality. There wasn’t anyone to share experience, there was only the walls of my own consciousness, with no one to add color into my void. No one to add new, endless perspectives. My life was quiet; the eternal silence was barely louder than the bird song. The hollowness of the abandoned home mirrored the hollowness inside my skull.

There was a book the woman read to me before she left me with my thoughts. A book I wonder if I’m the only person to have ever seen. One I sometimes like to pretend was written only for me. Maybe out there it’s unknown, but in here, it’s the only other world that I know. It’s a world of magic, of pumpkins turned into carriages where women slice their heels to fit into glass shoes. And it’s so beautiful to me.

As my feet decomposed, I mused they might now fit in the glass shoes.

What are you doing sweetie?

I open my eyes, they are warm from the sunlight that pours in through the large window. My feet have fallen asleep in the clear plastic shoes that are too small for my feet. My hands grip a crayon in each hand. Canary Yellow in one, smeared headless onto the surface of the white pages at my feet. Dandelion Yellow in the other, with no more wishes left.

I’m delighted.

Today is my sixth birthday. Excitedly, I pull myself from the floor and tug at the lace of my mother’s blue dress. She’s the queen of this castle, and she’s throwing a ball full of exotic guests. The kitchen bleeds with the smell of sugar; there’s plenty to eat.

Mom, I saw the future!

Oh yeah?

She picks me up and balances me on her hip.

Was it full of castles and lavish parties?

I thought about this for a moment, and nodded pressing my lips together like I was keeping a secret.

She smiles.

Why don’t we read your favorite book before the guests arrive?

The doorbell rings, and there’s no time for stories. She moves me through the hall in a delicate dance; rooms move by like small worlds tucked away into the large house that will be filled with adoring people.

All here for me.

She opens the door. There’s a lone girl who gives me a curtsy. Her smile is expectant.

She’s wearing something I haven’t seen yet.

A red dress.

My throat rips open with a silent scream.