Short Story

Taylor Hunt          P.2                                             

CINDY

            It was a late night; there was a light breeze through allies in the city of Boston. Rain drops trickled on the window panes and tapped on them like fingers dancing across the keys of a keyboard. Under a black umbrella was a woman named Karol; eyes wide open she gripped the bottle of whiskey in one hand and shook her cigarette pack open in the other. This night was one of many others in which she didn’t have the money to pay for dinner for a night, or even a bed to sleep in. If she was lucky she would be offered a bed by a stranger, and a man at that. Out here on the streets, she was known as Cindy. On days like this she would picture herself in the finest gown with jewels embedded on the sides and a silky material would kiss the ground and sway gently across it as she walked. Her heels, shiny and just the perfect fit, would click as she walked just like her mother’s did when she was a little girl. She pictured herself sitting at her vanity surrounded by lights, and pulled up her long pearl gloves and fit her fingers in snugly. Her hair, in which she would imagined, would wave like a golden waterfall down to her waist and was brushed out with only the finest silver bristled brush. And alas, she would make and grand entrance and walk down the red steps with patience. In this picture she imagined, she wouldn’t have to rush life or depend on anybody else. And when she opened her eyes back open, she was awakened by the sun that rose in that unfamiliar bedroom with that unfamiliar face and some familiar money on the bedside. She got up, took the money, and left. She counted a ten, a fifty, and a one-hundred dollar bill. With just enough money she would go to buy some food and a night at a motel room to get clean and fed before she would have to go back to her reality. And every now and then she discovers a bruise from the night before. The Cindy everybody knew was a woman with an addiction, a medical issue, a whore, a prostitute, a nobody. The Cindy that she knew herself as was a lonely woman that was lost with no hope, and nobody. She went to pick up a few things from the pharmacist. A couple of pain killers and some alcohol should do the job. The pills and her lay across the motel floor with no sound or movement. The clock stroke twelve once; twice; three times. Her tale had ended and even her godmother could not save her. “Those pearly white shoes would’ve never fit” she thought to herself one last time. The princes weren’t the fairest either, and all her dreams had disappeared along with them. And Cindy, or shall I say “Cinderella” found her happy ending within her end. And the night went on as the rain tapped on the window.