Something was wrong.


In a bedroom of the barest of necessities stood a willowy woman named Cindy who had just previously been humming a melodious tune under her breath as she swept the floor. Along with the mentioned tune, she’d also been dancing on the balls of her feet and waltzing herself around with the broom as if it were a human being. Had her eyes not closed so often and the corners of her lips not turned up in such a dreamy manner, it could have been presumed this was simply her way of cleaning. However since this was not the case, it was clear she had been daydreaming of one who could not be named for even she was unaware of whose arms she was in.
Though this had a bit to do with what was wrong, it was not what attracted the woman's attention to the problem at hand. The room she was in she ventured into only a few times since moving in with Mr. Charming, as she called her lover, and never before had she noticed how representative it was of her bedroom from when she lived with her stepmother and half sisters. Almost suspiciously so. The crickety old floor in an otherwise updated loft, the bare walls, the sparse and highly used furniture; if only there mice holes in the walls and it would've identical to the room she hid from her ghastly family in.
It was impossible that Mr. Charming planned this room - she had no doubt of his affection for her and he would never do such a thing - and it must be chance. Perhaps the original design was of that architecture. Bare and little, meant for someone of less means than Mr. Charming. It was likely he had forgotten it's meager existence.
Even this was not what startled Cindy so quickly into a shocked silence. It was a floor mirror; tall, decoratively framed, too clean to be a part of that room. Now, Cindy was by no means vain, nor did she think of herself as ugly, but seeing her reflection made everything about her freeze for a moment.
It was a familiar picture. Blonde hair upswept, pale blue dress to match her eyes, broomstick in hand. How long had it been since she since she last wore this dress? It must've been forever for she only had a vague memory of when she moved in, shaking with joy and hanging onto Mr. Charming's arm. She had worn this dress though, of that she was sure because it was all she owned. That and an old locket, which, of course, was in a pocket on the dress.


She looked away from herself. Her eyes dragged along the elaborate letters that twisted and curled and wove across the top of the frame; then back and to the bottom where more of the words were artfully placed - the words she never paid any mind to. The beginning and the end of the fairy-tale she thought she lived in. Once Upon A Time and Happily Ever After. Thinking about it, it was sad how the tale went. It wasn’t even worth three sentences: once upon a time, there was a young woman who was waiting for Prince Charming to take her away from her family. One day he came and they lived happily ever after.


But they didn’t. She thought they did, but that was a facade; she managed to convince herself that her and Mr. Charming were meant to be. That he was her salvation and now she was free. If this was her freedom, then she had been born to be a slave to false security and the wants of others. She had lived her childhood in hell, and was only moved to a colder spot where she could become numb to what she learned as she grew up too fast. She had promised herself she would be better off one day, that she would be happy; that the overbearing work she had done growing up would stop being a ‘have to’ chore but instead be a ‘want to’. Looking at herself now she realized that it certainly stopped being a ‘have to’. It became the only thing to do.
Cindy not only dropped the broom, she pushed it away from her so vehemently as to suggest it, an inanimate object, was a threat to her well being. She turned away from it quickly, crying out, her fingers pressed to her eyes. The sight of the broom - wooden and crooked in its very nature - was bound to make her sick.


“Have I been so naïve?” she whispered. She choked and pressed her eyes harder. Whatever magic ingratiated itself like a blanket over her consciousness of thought had blinded her to the veracity of the world outside her perfect bubble. She of all people ought to have known what reality truly was and that fantasy was a sweet poison bound to destroy her capabilities. She knew this; she knew all of it, yet she drunk the poison anyway. And, now, here she stood, in a room more memorable than it ought to be, wearing the dress of a ‘50s maid. For shame, she was a fool.
Cindy collapsed on the bed, sobbing. A cry caught in her throat when the bed squeaked and rocked with her weight. Just like home... At least at home, she had Gus and Jack to speak with. Now she was left to despairing thoughts alone. She couldn’t help but think of how many clues there were to show her her life wasn’t as simply grand as she thought. She didn’t even have the comfort of love. Mr. Charming didn’t come home anymore and she forgot why she came here.
When she finally lifted her head, night had fallen. The room was lit only by the neon lights of the city that lay outside the window. Beyond the sounds of a living city, she couldn’t hear anyone moving in the loft. The relief that washed over her wasn’t nearly as surprising as it would have been if she hadn’t had an epiphany earlier in the day. He hadn’t come home yet and he most likely wouldn’t be until well in the morning.


Cindy moved slowly. Nothing was in focus for her. It took moments - or maybe it was years - for her to stand in front of the window, her fingers drawing back the sheer drapes about as quickly as she expected a snail to move. The lights assaulted her eyes harshly, forcing her to throw up her arm to block out some of it. There wasn’t much to see that she hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t a pleasing view from this side of the building. All there was to see was the building across the street and the other buildings alongside that one. She knew from the balcony in the living room she would see far more amazing things, but from here, she was looking for something.


She looked down. The window was big and their loft was only a few stories from the ground (Mr. Charming would never admit he was afraid of living on a high level in New York after 9/11) so she could see the names of the stores at the bottom level of the building if she squinted. Two were uninteresting, independent stores; one a pizza shop, the other a thrift store. The one in the middle was the one she searched for, perhaps unknowingly. Obsidian Spirits was block-lettered across the storefront. It was a liquor store.
Cindy wasn’t a drunk. Really, she had no taste for alcohol. She couldn’t name ten types of it and she had no intention of learning them. What she looked for wasn’t found in a bottle. It was the person who worked behind the register at the store; the person she thinks about and doesn’t realize it. The person who was taller than her, with dark skin and eyes. The person who, unlike her, was doing something with his life. Ahmed, the hard-working, future veterinarian; the man she met and fell in love with by chance.
They weren’t kidding when they said falling in love was a chance. There was no choice
in the matter. The entire time she believed herself in love with Mr. Charming. She was once, until she became bored with the loft. When there was no programs left to watch, no surfaces left to clean, no books left to read, she slipped away from the confinements of this home and somehow managed to fall right into what her freedom might really be. Her freedom wasn’t within the man, it was within herself as she decided that would choose her life from now on. She would go to college like she always dreamed of, she would earn her degree and become a teacher to hundreds of students that would love her and love learning from her. She would live in a house, an actual house, away from the city where she could hear crickets at night and see the stars. She would marry and have as many children as she pleased and she would sincerely enjoy the difficulties of looking after other people for once, as it wouldn’t be a ‘have to’ anymore. She would do all this, as she said she wanted to in conversations with Ahmed, and she would start tonight when she walked out the front door, leaving only a Post-It note behind as goodbye, taking with her only what she came in with. And as the clock struck twelve, that was exactly what she did, for the spell was broken, and nothing was like it was before.