Rachel Swirsky - If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love, and Other Stories

All you wanted to do was run off so you could say, “Her? That’s not me. I’m someone different.”

But Cinderella’s still the center. Everything you do is bound to what she did. You’re her marginalia. You’re the commentary on her body of work.

Everything you do is going to be read in relation to her. You can’t ever really be your own.

I’m still running — well, hobbling, given the one–shoe thing — away from Creepy–Ass McFootFetishist when suddenly I spot Griselda. She’s sitting on the curb, taking coins out of the wallet once possessed by Faux Prince #1, and flipping them one by one into the gutter. They make a lonely ringing sound as they clang into the sewers.

I pause, wondering if I should set myself up with a catcher’s mitt — because wasting cash? What? — when shifting clouds change the light, and my shadow tumbles over Griselda.

She looks up. Tears streak her ugly face.

“Oh,” she says, looking sadly back toward the gutter. “You.”

“Uh. Hi.”

A big coin that looks like it might be a Susie B. clamors its way down.

“Could you stop that?” I say.

Her face snarls up. She pulls out a fistful of change and it looks like she’s going to throw it all in the gutter at once, but then she turns and hurls it in my face.

“Take it then!” she shouts.

“Um,” I say.

I can’t help glancing at the passersby who are now giving the crazy chicks wide berth. For dignity’s sake, I probably shouldn’t bend ass to collect a few dollars in change, but I pull off my second go–go anyway and start scooping quarters into it.

Griselda grunts disgustedly. “He wasn’t even a real prince. I let him feel me up and everything. And he wasn’t even a real prince.”

She bares her teeth.

“Should have known,” she says. “Thought maybe I could get some royal nookie even if you got the veil. But no. With you around, everything’s fake.”

She throws the wallet smack at my chest. It hits me then bounces to the ground. I bend down to get it. When I stand back up, she’s gone.

You’re an astute reader. So let’s cut the bullshit. You’ve read enough metafiction to think you know where I’m going. And you probably do know because basically what I’ve been saying this whole time is that everything that happens from here is going to fall into one category of commentary or another.

You’ve probably become aware that I’m not exactly Cinderella. I’m not bricked up behind the fourth wall, but I’m not driving the bulldozer either… I’m going to go with the charitable angle and call my identity complex. But I won’t argue if you want to call it confused, ill–defined, or pretentious bullshit.

For the purposes of this story, you may consider me to be any one of the following, or any combination thereof. Feel free to switch up at any time.

• Cinderella

• The metafictional compilation of Cinderellas

• A prop for anachronistic jokes

• A stand–in for the author

• The pissed off ghost of the chick who told her story to some asshats named Grimm

• A caterpillar with sixteen feet wearing sixteen glass slippers, dreaming of smashing its cocoon and metamorphosing into the black hole that will devour the universe

Not sure if wandering the streets is such a good idea given my luck so far, but I keep pounding the pavement anyway, walking barefoot, with the wallet in one hand and the coin–filled go–go boot in the other.

Come upon a dried–up patch of grass trying to pass as a park. Asleep on a bench, there’s Bethesda. Mulberry skirt torn into a mini that makes her legs look uglier than usual.

“Hey,” I say, looming.

She wakes up. Her breath smells like the bear’s but without the trace of sweet. “Shit.” She rubs her eyes to get a bleary look at me. “I should slap you.”

“Yeah. But you won’t.”

“Nah,” she agrees.

That’s the central difference between Bethesda and Griselda. Piss off Griz and she’ll punch a motherfucker. Beth runs hot for an hour or two but can’t keep grudging.

She presses her hand against her head and moans. “The fuck did you let me drink so much?”

“I’m not your mother.”

“Fuck my mother. Where’s Griz?”

“Sulking because she made out with some dude who wasn’t a prince.”

“Fuck her too, then. But not like I fucked you.”

“Speaking of,” I say, “That’s over. No offense. Was just a one–time kind of thing.”

“Figured. After mohawk guy.” She shrugs. It turns into a full–out stretch. “So what the hell’re you going to do now?”

“Been thinking about that.”

“And?”

“Not coming up with much.”

“What happened to your shoes?”

“Sold ’em for some boots.” I lift my change purse cum go–go. “Then lost one.”

“So you’re a streetwalker who can’t even keep her heels on.”

“And you’re a recently dumped, hungover ugly chick wearing a ball gown miniskirt.”

“So you done yet?” she asks. “This all weird enough for you finally?”

“Hell no…”

Cuz it’s not, is it? Not twisty. Not really.

Even if I could somehow break us out of this place where we started… chew us free from the bear trap of our story… go someplace no had ever heard of glass slippers and running away at the stroke of midnight… how would we even recognize ourselves then?

I shift foot to foot. Sun’s making the asphalt hot. I’m regretting not having made off with the blue doeskin slingbacks.

“One idea,” I say. “We should go home.”

“So you can grab some shoes?”

“Yeah, but also, I bet if we toss the place, we can figure out where your mom keeps all her valuables before she even wakes up. Live hog–high for a week or three.”

Bethesda smirks. “Kick the figuring out what to do next thing down the road a while.”

“Correct–a–mundo.”

You know what? Never mind all that shit I said before. I’m none of those things.

Unless that was working for you. Then go for it. Far be it for me to tell you what to think.

But here — this is my theory. I’m not just Cinderella. Not just . Not metaphorically .

Take my situation — you could apply it all around.

Listen. We’re all trying to escape archetypes. I’m trying to be me , not just a girl who grew up with a mouthful of ashes. I don’t want to be someone that everyone thinks they already understand. Someone everyone wants a piece of.

Bet you’re trying to escape, too. Trying to be more than just mother, wife, daddy’s little girl, big sister, little sister, baby sis, granny, daft old biddy, crone, trophy wife, castrating bitch, conniving cunt, skank, vixen, hoebag, virgin, Madonna, sweetiepie. Trying to navigate the hairpin turns between bangled bikinis, apple–pie aprons, and power–bitch pantsuits.

I bet you manage it, too. Bet you’re an ice queen exec who bakes cookies on the weekends, or a demure little preacher’s daughter who takes it up the ass, or the marathon runner who’s going to smoke the world record that dudes think belong to them by right of chromosome Y.

Feel free to fill in the blanks with whatever it is you actually are.

But all that aside, at the end of the day, where do we stand? The archetypal feminine, the ur woman with a capital W, she’s this fire we can’t run from. She’s burning constantly, devouring bits of us, turning them into herself.

Here and there, we don’t burn up completely. But even our ashes are her creations.

We always exist in relation to her, no matter what we do.

So anyway, Bethesda and I head home.