The Tale of the Shoe by Emma Donoghue (1969 from Kissing the Witch:

Old Tales in New Skins)

Till she came it was all cold.

Ever since my mother died the feather bed felt hard as a stone floor. Every
word that came out of my mouth limped away like a toad. Whatever I put on my
back now turned to sackcloth and chafed my skin. I heard a knocking in my skull,
and kept running to the door, but there was never anyone there. The days passed
like dust brushed from my fingers.

I scrubbed and swept because there was nothing to do. I raked out the
hearth with my fingernails, and scoured the floor until my knees bled. I counted
grains of rice and divided brown beans from black.

Nobody made me do the things I did, nobody scolded me, nobody

punished me but me. The shrill voices were all inside. Do this, do that, you lazy
heap of dirt. They knew every question and answer, the voices in my head. Some
day
hear her among their clamor.

When everything that could possibly be done was done for the day, the
voices faded. I knelt on the hearth and looked into the scarlet cinders until my
eyes swam. I was trying to picture a future, I suppose. Some nights I told myself
stories to make myself weep, then stroked my own hair till I slept.

Once, out of all the times when I ran to the door and there was nobody
there, there was still nobody there, but the stranger was behind me. I thought for
a moment she must have come out of the fire. Her eyes had flames in their
centers, and her eyebrows were silvered with ash.

The stranger said my back must be tired, and the sweeping could wait. She
took me into the garden and showed me a hazel tree I had never seen before. I
began to ask questions, but she put her tiny finger over my mouth so we could
hear a dove murmuring on the highest branch.

It turned out that she had known my mother, when my mother was alive.

How can I begin to describe the transformations? My old dusty self was
spun new. This woman sheathed my limbs in blue velvet. I was dancing on points
of clear glass.

And then, because I asked,

are meant to ask for?

Her carriage brought me as far as the palace steps. Knew just how I was
meant to behave. I smiled ever so prettily when the great doors swung wide to
announce me. I refused a canap
thousand crystal candelabras I danced with ten elderly gentlemen who had nothing
to say but did not let that stop them. I answered only, Indeed and Oh yes and
Do you think so?

At ten to twelve I came down the steps and she swept me away. Had
enough? she asked, lifting a hair off my long glove.

But she was old enough to be my mother, and I was a girl with my fortune
to make. The voices were beginning to jabber. They each told me to do
something different. Take me back tomorrow night, I said.

So she appeared again just when the soup was boiling over, and took a
silver spoon from her pocket to feed me. Our fingers drew pictures in the ashes
on the hearth, vague shapes of birds and islands. She showed me the sparkle in
my eyes, how wide my skirt could spread, how to waltz without getting dizzy. I
was lithe in green satin now; my own mother would not have recognized me.

That night at the ball I got right into the swing of things. I tittered at the
 okes; I accepted a single chicken wing and nibbled it daintily. I danced
three times with the prince, whose hand wavered in the small of my back. He

t remember it.

At five to midnight when my feet were starting to ache I waited on the

bottom step and she came for me. On the way home I leaned my head on her
narrow shoulder and she put one hand over my ear. Had enough? she asked.

listen to the barking voices to know how the story went:

my future was about to happen. Take me back tomorrow night, I said.

So she came for me again just when the small sounds of the mice were
getting on my nerves, and she told me they were coachmen to drive us in state.
She claimed her little finger was a magic wand, it could do spectacular things. She
could always make me laugh.

That night my new skin was red silk, shivering in the breeze. The prince
hovered at my elbow like an autumn leaf ready to fall. The musicians played the
same tune over and over. I danced like a clockwork ballerina and smiled till my
face twisted. I swallowed a little of everything I was offered, then leaned over the
balcony and threw it all up again.

I had barely time to wipe my mouth before the prince came to propose.

Out of the steps he led me, under the half-full moon, all very fairy-tale. His
long moustaches were beginning to tremble; he seemed like an actor on a creaking
stage. As soon as the words began to leak out of his mouth, they formed a cloud
in which I could see the future.

I could hardly hear him. The voices were shrieking, Yes yes yes say yes
before you lose your chance you bag of nothingness.

I opened my teeth but no sound came out. There was no harm in this
man; what he proposed was white ad soft, comfortable as fog. There was nothing
to be afraid of. But just then the midnight bell began to toll out the long
procession of years, palatial day by moonless night. And I leapt backward down
the steps, leaving one shoe behind.

The bushes tore my dress into the old rags. It was perfectly silent on the

I had got the story all wrong. How could I not have noticed she was
beautiful? I must have dropped all my words in the bushes. I reached out.

I could hear surprise on her breath. What about the shoe? she asked.

It was digging into my heel, I told her.

What about the prince? she asked.

looks long enough.

Her finger was spelling on the back of my neck.

I threw the other shoe into the brambles, where it hung, glinting.

So then she took me home, or I took her home, or we were both somehow
taken to the closest thing.
Cinderella by James F Garner (1994 from Politically Correct Bedtime Stories:
Modern Tales for Our Life & Times)

There once lived a young wommon named Cinderella, whose natural birthmother
had died when Cinderella was but a child. A few years after, her father married a
-of-step treated her very
cruelly, and her sisters-of-step made her work very hard, as if she were their own
personal unpaid laborer.

One day an invitation arrived at their house. The prince was celebrating
his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a
ters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the
palace. They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and
enslave their natural body images to emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine
beauty. (It was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently visaged
enough to stop a clock.) Her mother-of-step also planned to go to the ball, so
Cinderella was working harder than a dog (an appropriate if unfortunately speciest
metaphor).

When the day of the ball arrived, Cinderella helped her mother- and sisters-
of-step into their ball gowns. A formidable task: It was like trying to force ten
pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses into a five-pound skin. Next
came immense cosmetic augmentation, which it would be best not to describe at
all. As evening fell, her mother- and sisters-of-step left Cinderella at home to finish
her housework. Cinderella was sad, but she contented herself with her Holly Near
records.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood a man
dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. At
first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer or a bandleader, but he soon put
her straight.
 ual deity proxy, if
you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind yourself into the male
concept of beauty? Squeeze into some tight-fitting dress that will cut off your
circulation? Jam your feet into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone
structure? Paint your face with chemicals and makeup that have been tested on

great sigh and decided to put off her political education till another day. With his
magic, he enveloped her in a beautiful, bright light and whisked her away to the
palace.

Many, many carriages were lined up outside the palace that night;
apparently, no one had ever thought of carpooling. Soon, in a heavy, gilded
carriage painfully pulled by a team of horse-slaves, Cinderella arrived. She was
dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from unsuspecting silkworms. Her
hair was festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenseless oysters.
And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely
cut crystal.

Every head in the ballroom turned as Cinderella entered. The men stared
at and lusted after this wommon who had captured perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas
of feminine desirability. The womyn, trained at an early age to despise their own
- and
sisters-of-step, consumed with jealousy, failed to recognize her.

Cinderella soon caught the roving eye of the prince, who was busy
discussing jousting and bear-baiting with his cronies. Upon seeing her, the prince
was struck with a fit of not being able to speak as well as the majority of the

impregnate with the progeny of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy
 The prince began to cross the ballroom toward his intended prey. His
cronies also began to walk toward Cinderella. So did every other male in the
ballroom who was younger than 70 and not serving drinks.

Cinderella was proud of the commotion she was causing. She walked with
head high and carried herself like a wommon of eminent social standing. But
soon it became clear that the commotion was turning into something ugly, or at
least socially dysfunctional.

lusted after her and wanted to own her. The men began to shout and push each

stopped him halfway across the dance floor and insisted that he was going to have
Cinderella. The p
temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other sex-crazed males,
and he disappeared into a pile of human animals.

The womyn were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone, but try as
they might, they were unable to separate the combatants. To the other womyn, it
seemed that Cinderella was the cause of all the trouble, so they encircled her and
began to display very unsisterly hostility. She tried to escape, but her impractical
glass slippers made it nearly impossible. Fortunately for her, none of the other
womyn were shod any better.

The noise grew so loud that no one heard the clock in the tower chime
midnight. When the bell rang the twelfth time, Cinderel

mother- and sisters-of-step recognized her now, but kept quiet to avoid
embarrassment.

The womyn grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the
confinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched and
 The womyn around her again grew envious, but this time they took a
different approach: Instead of exacting vengeance on her, they stripped off their
bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining garment. They danced and
jumped and screeched in sheer joy, comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet.

Had the men looked up from their macho dance of destruction, they would
have seen many desirable womyn dressed as if for the boudoir. But they never
ceased pounding, punching, kicking, and clawing each other until, to the last man,
they were dead.

The womyn clucked their tongues but felt no remorse. The palace
and realm were theirs now. Their first official act was to dress the men in their
discarded dresses and tell the media that the fight arose when someone threatened
to expose the cross-dressing tendencies of the prince and his cronies. Their
second was to set up a clothing co-op that produced only comfortable, practical
clothes for womyn. Then they hung a sign on the castle advertising CinderWear
(for that was what the new clothing was called), and through self-determination
and clever marketing, they all--even the mother- and sisters-of-step--lived happily
ever after.
Kingdom V. Prince Charming by David Fisher (1996 from Legally Correct
Fairy Tales: Bedtime Classics Translated into the Legalese)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You have before you what I
believe to be a simple but virally important task. It is your job--nay, your privilege-
-to be in a position to protect the virtue of every woman in this kingdom. For
these past few weeks you have sat here listening to the disgraceful tale of how one
man, a pillar of this kingdom, knowingly and persistently took advantage of the fair
damsels of this community. You have heard witnesses describe how he made
promises to them, how he gave them hope for a better life and then, after he had
had his way with them, betrayed them. You have heard witness after witness
describe how he gained their confidence, then dismissed them forever after. And
you have seen the evidence, the so-called glass slipper. The slipper that could not
possibly have ever been worn.

Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes you will retire to the jury room and
determine the fate and reputation not only of the accused, but of the entire
kingdom. It is an awesome burden. But let that verdict be a clear message to all
who come here. Our damsels are not for trifling. This is a place of chivalry. So
I beseech you, ladies and gentlemen, beseech you, to reach the only possible
verdict in this case: You must find that this prince is not so charming! And that
he is guilty as charged of sexual abuse!

Let us take a few minutes to review what you have heard and seen in this
begin by
examining the testimony of the Defendant, the Prince, himself. He admits that this
all began the night he attended the annual 1,500-crown-a-plate ball at the Royal
Palace. As befitting a prince, he danced with many different women. But then,
he claimed, toward the end of the evening a mysterious stranger arrived, a beautiful
woman no one in the kingdom had ever seen before. He danced with her for
approximately one hour. Close dancing, slow dancing. And yet, according to the
 mony, he never learned her name. Think of that. They were
dancing closer to one another than I am to you, but not once the entire time did
he think to ask her what her name was? Does that sound reasonable to you? A
charming prince, a beautiful woman, and he failed to ask something as basic as

What did they speak about during that time period? The weather in the kingdom?
Archery? Perhaps he told her the latest Goth joke. Maybe she shared her favorite

Next, according to the Prince, as the clock began striking midnight, this
unidentified woman ran out of the ballroom without even giving the Prince her
address. Hard to believe? Well, how about this. The only thing she left behind
was a single glass slipper-- -1.
Finally, according to the Prince, he combed the kingdom far and wide in search of
this mystery woman, promising to marry the damsel whose foot fit into that shoe.

Ladies and gentlemen, please. Does this make any sense at all? It is so
clearly a subterfuge, an alibi, a fraud, to cover one of the greatest con jobs in the
history of this kingdom. What it really is, and what the evidence bespeaks, is that

foot fetish.

I will prove that t

again at this highly unusual item, the so-called glass slipper. Think of it, ladies and
gentlemen. Of all the different materials in the world from which shoes or boots
or slippers might be made, of all the various types of leather and skins and wood
and even chain mail. Certainly the last material anyone would choose is glass. Yet
the defense would have you believe that this mystery woman was wearing glass
annot be bent, it has no flexibility at all. But
you are supposed to accept the fact that this mystery woman danced for more
than an hour in this glass shoe. How? How could she even move in glass slipper?
bloody results yourself.

Finally, you heard the expert testimony of the kingdom cobbler Thomas

QUESTION: Mr. McAn, have you ever in your more than fifty years in the
business heard of shoes being made of glass?

ANSWER: I never heard of any such thing, I mean, I think it would be very

shoe.

And, in fact, the defense has been unable to produce another pair of glass slippers
made anywhere at any time, and they failed to do so because it could not be done.

woman fled the ball at midnight in an ornate carriage driven by a coachman and
pulled by six white horses. I ask you, gentle-folks of the jury, where is this carriage?
What happened to it? The Horse-Drawn Vehicle Bureau has absolutely no record
of any such carriage being registered in the kingdom. And where are those six

courtroom to support this story?

everything else in this fairy tale, the carriage, the coachman, and the six horses are
part of an elaborate ruse by the accused to divert the attention of this Court from
the focus of this case.

Finally, let us look at the so-called search organized by the accused. And
that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are here in this room. The search for the
nonexistent mystery woman. The search that enabled the Prince to fulfill his
hidden sexual desires. The search that allowed him to touch and fondle the feet
of so many once innocent women of this kingdom. Let us take just one moment
 er tears when she told
you.

DIANA FREEWOMAN: For a poor maid like me, this was the only real hope
I ever had to escape my life of misery. If the shoe fit, I would become a

of the Prince as he held my foot in his hands, rubbing it gently, kneading

my toes. I could see a strange look in his eyes, as if the Devil himself--

DEFENSE: Objection, Your Honor. There is no accusation of blasphemy here.

THE COURT: Sustained. The witness will refrain from any mention of the
presence of the Devil, please.

caressed my foot. And then he tried that glass slipper on my foot. It was

oor, poor girl, falling for the oldest line

in the kingdom. A chance to be a princess. And there was much more.
Remember the testimony of Leticia Goodbody:

LETICIA GOODBODY: He seemed so open and honest, not like most of the
men I meet. But when he started rubbing my feet his whole manner
changed. He closed his eyes and began breathing heavily. And then,

Woman after woman, foot abused. Then, finally, at the last minute, what did the
defense do? They produced a surprise witness, the mystery woman herself, who
claimed the only reason she had come forward was to save the handsome Prince.

Cinderella, she called herself. A woman who works by day as a poor

stepsister, who has nothing to her name and so has nothing to lose by claiming to
be the mystery woman. Cinderella. She, supposedly, attended the ball that night
earching
for when he rubbed and fondled feet from far and near. And you are supposed
to believe that. Well, I know you are too smart for that.

And what did this Cinderella have to say for herself? Well, if you believe
her, a fairy godmother appeared and with the flip of a wand dressed her in finery.
The missing coach? Well, of course, it was turned back into a pumpkin. A
pumpkin, not even a watermelon. The coachman and horses? Mice, who
scattered into fields, where they could conveniently not be called to testify. And
finally, the glass slipper itself.

Does the defense believe you people are still living in the Dark Ages? Do
they honestly believe you would accept such a tale? I have seen some strange
ct that not everything can be explained.
A pumpkin transformed into a handsome carriage? Well, I once bought a carriage

bet on a few horses that turned out to be dogs. And sadly, even in this kingdom,
we all know of men who acted like rats. But there is one thing even this mystery

This Cinderella claimed that the glass slipper came from her foot. Oh,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Thom McAn showed you how a shoe is measured.
He proved to you that this slipper was a size fourteen. Size fourteen! Ladies and
gentlemen of the jury, has there ever been a woman in all the world who would
admit that she had a size fourteen foot? Would any woman, under threat of being
burned at the stake, really admit that?

so you have it. The proof. The smoking shoe. All the evidence you need to
us footman. There can be no doubt in your mind. There
can be no hesitation when you walk into that room. You must send a clear and
unequivocal message that can be heard throughout this kingdom, that even a man
of his station, even a prince, cannot take advantage of innocent women in this
place. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you must find the accused guilty as
charged.

The prosecution rests.