Flour-sack Cindy

Threading the crush of the other dancers, Cindy’s skin sparkled under the ballroom’s lights, the fragrance of spring in her wake drawing the bewildered gaze of all those who had blocked her pathway.

But when the clock struck the eleventh chime of the hour, she broke into a run, the gossamer blue of her dress billowing cloudlike before vanishing in a swirl of smoke, the last ring of the midnight hour echoing in the surrounding stillness.

Her bare feet slapped the stone steps when she quickly descended, a light rain falling, the lustrous chiffon of her gown replaced by a simple, flour-sack smock. Sprinting up the trail, she disappeared like a wraith in the night, the only evidence of her passing the delicate footprints she left behind in the wet clay.

A handsome and strapping prince tried to follow, but he could not maneuver through the dancers quickly enough to follow her lithe and sinuous movements. By the time he reached the steps outside the castle she had vanished.

"Knowest thou where the maid in the pale blue gown ventured?” he inquired of everyone he encountered once returning to the ballroom. But they all answered the same, they no more knew where she had gone than they knew her name. Not even her sisters had recognized her in that dazzling attire.

She had attended the dance alone, too shamed to tell anyone her name, each boy secretly hoping he might escort her home while every maid felt diminished by her presence and secretly rejoiced at her sudden leave taking.

If they had only known she was hidden in plain sight, they might have unraveled the mystery. But she was invisible, faceless, seen and yet remaining unseen. A long sufferer of the bullying of the town’s ruling caste, even the prince who tried to follow her would have looked upon her with disdain if he had witnessed her wearing her homely smock.

That night she lay awake for a long time, the memory of the unexpected attention both surprising and disturbing her thoughts.

She was not sure she could countenance such extraordinary scrutiny again. I'm just happy that it's ended she thought with a yawn, her brow growing heavy. With a light exhale of breath, she slipped beneath the waves of consciousness and descended into the bright and sparkling world of dream.

For the few hours remaining till the little wren heralded the dawning outside her window, she wandered from one pleasant dream to another, the closest thing to happily ever after that she had experienced in her toilsome life.

But in the last dream before she awoke, one lone boy recognized what every one of her peers had missed. The purity and stoutness of her heart shone in her features in spite of her ragged clothes. He smiled at her when everyone else mocked.

The unwelcome dawning would come soon enough, and she would be flour-sack Cindy once more. But in the last precious moments of the dream, he reached for her hand and smiled, and she took his in return, its warmth reddening her lovely cheeks, the experience of first love washing over her like waves across soft sand.

Would she even remember the wonder of the evening before or believe it was anything more than one more dream?

But in the midst of that sparkling moment, the little wren gave throat to his early morning ode, its melody cheerfully shaking the feathers on his tiny throat. Cindy opened her eyes in the gloom before the dawning and smiled at the bird's exuberant song.

"One day," she whispered, "I shall be happy and carefree like thee, my little friend."

But even the remembered hardness of her lot and the cruel alignment of circumstance requiring her endless, daily chores failed to prevent the smile from widening on her careworn features.

The wren abruptly silenced, Cindy slipped from her bed and pulled on her thread bare clothes. An owl hooting outside her little window interrupted the quiet with an eerie and electric magic. Pausing, she listened in breathless stillness for its haunting voice to return, her eyes glazed with tears, her lips pursed with surprise and longing.

But there was no time, the owl failing to speak again till she had almost completed the dressing of her little bed when it called out a second time. The night has almost drawn to its ending, my friend, she thought, soon you will sleep, and my work will have barely begun.

In that moment she wished like she had a thousand times before for a friend that was not an owl, little bird or one of the bright-eyed and scurrying mice sharing her room.

But she was not allowed to have friends.

She was not allowed the pleasure of leisure. She was not allowed to have anything to call her own, not even a dream to hide in her bosom. So, she tucked the dream and the boy away in the never will it happen to me pocket in her smock.

There was no time to waste.

The breaking of the fast must be prepared, the kitchen washed and scrubbed, her stepsisters and stepmother fed and upholstered for the day. Only then could she eat a crust of bread and embark on a day filled with toil much like she always had before.

Wiping away the tears glistening on her apple blossomed cheeks, she climbed slowly and carefully down from the attic to keep from awakening her stepmother and so avoiding her shrill voice shrieking, "Noisy, ungrateful girl!"

Her indolent stepsisters were no better. Helpless, useless beasts. Oh, how she longed to violently silence their endless bleatings.

“Flour-sack Cindy! Comb our hair," they'd growl and giggle, "Pleat our dresses and polish our slippers you dirty, lazy thing.” If only she could stop her ears to silence their shrieking. Cindy this and Cindy that! Cindy! Cindy! CINDY!

She often imagined boxing their cauliflower ears and marching out of their hateful home to freedom. But such imagined pleasures would have to wait.

"Someday," she whispered to herself, but paused with a gasp of surprise when she entered the kitchen.

A small and elfin man stood upon a stool at the stove preparing the breaking of the fast.

"It wasn't a dream?" she whispered hoarsely.

Turning he grinned, "I'd wager thou art famished, Lassie."

Her mouth opened in surprise. Her father was the only one who ever called her that. "I eat last," she answered with a hushed voice.

"Not today," he replied, "not ever again." Hopping off the stool, he placed the plate on the table. "Take a seat."

Sitting, she picked up the bread still steaming from the oven. But before she could take a bite, he tutted, "Wait," and pulled a pot seemingly from the ether. "It's better with a dollop of freshly churned butter."

Such luxury she could scarcely imagine while spreading it upon the still hot bread.

"Honey or jam?"

"Oh, bless me, honey, pretty please!"

He pulled a second pot from the air, the comb poking coyly out of the golden ambrosia and dripping with wildflower sweetness.

From the first bite to the last, she groaned with a pleasure she had never known, not even in her dreams.

It was at this moment that her stepmother entered the room and took a deep breath to deliver a shriek of outrage, but the elfin man disappeared with a snap of his fingers, and she stood statue still, her mouth open so cavernously that a lazy bluebottle fly buzzed in and landed atop her tongue where it began to groom itself.

Now bug-eyed, Cindy stared at the fly in her stepmother's mouth for a moment or two before returning her attention to her worthy breakfast.

Never had she eaten such a sumptuous feast. Eggs smothered in butter cheese, crispy potatoes with caramelized onions and juicy sausage still popping and spitting from the hot griddle.

Through it all, her stepmother stared openmouthed, drool pooling on the floor at her feet. Her stepsisters barreled excitedly into the room before they too stopped in horror at the strange tableau in the kitchen.

But that broke the spell, her stepmother closing her mouth with a snap, both sisters beginning to speak in unison. "There's no time to waste, Cindy, Cindy, prepare our finest gowns, we must away to town!

But she felt full to almost bursting. If she could have arisen, she would have done so only to give each of them a swift kick in their swelling fundaments.

Instead, she answered them with a loud and satisfying belch. "Late again, are we?" she replied laconically. "Tis a pity. I was a little piggy and 'ave eaten it all. 'Fraid you'll need to dress and feed thy selves this fine day or depart hungry."

Her stepmother and sisters all shrieked together in horror, the stepmother grabbing the switch and moving toward Cindy with her arm raised to deliver swift punishment.

But the bluebottle chose this moment to fly into the back of her throat causing her to drop the switch and cough and choke while the sisters shrieked at Cindy, "Do something, do something, DO SOMETHING!"

The ripeness of the opportunity overcoming her lethargy, she scooped up the switch and beat her stepmother on the back till she coughed up the bluebottle onto the breakfast table. Then Cindy kicked each of them in the aforementioned fundament, chasing all of them shrieking from the room.

Sitting back at the table with a satisfying plop, she giggled, "Peace and quiet at last."

The bluebottle buzzed loudly, scattering little droplets of spit in a circle around it. With a sudden snap it disappeared, and the small elfin man reappeared with a grin.

"Time to away, Lassie. The prince hath ordered every maid to the castle to discover a match for the prints that thy foolishly marked in the clay on the evening last. Unless thou desireth to marry him."

Drawing herself up, her eyes watering with sudden passion, she answered him, "I wilt not. I am no prince's ornament nor future king's drab.

"That's my Lassie," he answered. With a touch of his wand, the small man replaced her smock with a leather jerkin and breeches before placing a travel pack upon her back.

At a loud knock at the door the elfin man announced, "Thy coach has arrived, Lassie."

"Another pumpkin?"

"This one shalt not disappear."

Opening the door, she stared in surprise at the boy from her dream. Bowing, he said, "I know not thy name but hath come to woo thee for my bride."

"Bugger that," she replied, "let us depart whilst the day yet remains young." Pointing at his wagon and an old mule, she asked, "Is this thy chariot?" He nodded numbly, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment. "Name?"

Pointing at the mule he answered, "Susanna."

"Thy name, dolt," she scolded.

"Lotho."

"I'm Lassie. Shall we away?"

And with that she took his hand and sent him over the moon, metaphorically speaking.

Before sharing the finale to this tale, it is sometimes thought customary to add a moral or a pithy ending like and they lived happily ever after. But you and I both know better than to believe fairy tale shite like that.

This much I can tell you, however. Since Lotho and Lassie had never known anything but hard work they did not fear it. Of course, their life together was hard, especially in the beginning. Twas not easy for a pair of peasants to establish themselves in medieval Europe.

But he plied his trade as a blacksmith, and she made garments that prettily covered a multitude of fundament and made woolen under garments from her small herd of sheep to keep said fundament cozy and warm in the cold winters,

None would ever accuse either of them with an excess of happiness. But they were skilled with their hands and practical with the small coin of their earnings. They carved a life out of the bit of land where their garden grew, and her sheep grazed.

The prince never found a fair foot to fit the markings left by Cindy on the trail outside the castle and like a cream-faced loon married one of the stepsisters who's bleating promptly drove him to drink.

His mother-in-law, her unmarried daughter and his wife managed to quickly bankrupt the kingdom with their prolificacy. When the prince was crowned king, he foolishly increased taxes to refill his spent coffers and stirred up revolution.

The royal's were hung on gibbets along with the wicked stepmother and her indolent daughters. I guess you might say this tale has a sort of happy ending.

And the moral, thou asketh?

Besides the karmic demise of the wicked stepmother and her indolent daughters?

That’s easy! Be careful to find happiness where thy can, and satisfaction in the werk of thine hands when thou cannot.

And bugger the rest.