Epitome of a Tin Roof
Ella had been sweeping the floor when it began to rain.
It had started softly, making a soft pitter-pattering noise on the tin roof. She looked out the window, and there it was, softly hitting the ground in miniature explosions of water and earth, mixing with the dirt to make mud, which in turn dripped down the drainage ditches like thick gravy. Already, everything outside was coated in a thin layer of water that could almost pass for morning dew, if you were blind enough. And if you ignored the rain, and all that it brought with it. The noisy silence. The clean smell. The cool temperature. It all added up to make what rain, in its very essence, was.
She sighed, wistfully. If only the rain had the foresight to maybe have chosen a different night. Ella recalled her stepmother's kinder than usual words, permitting her to attend the night's ball – if she finished cleaning in time. Of course, her stepmother had known that Ella wouldn't be able to finish cleaning in time; it had all been carefully engineered. But to Ella, punishment was worth a night where no one knew your name, and where everyone thought you were someone you weren't, and never could be. She knew what was in her future – maybe an arranged marriage to someone boring, or old, or wrong for her in some other way. Maybe she'd continue to provide servitude for her stepfamily in return for room and board. Whatever the outcome, it wasn't going to suit her thirst for excitement. It wasn't going to feed into her love of fine clothing, or her adoration of theater. Tonight's ball was all she'd really had to look forward to in an endless sea of unpaid manual labor. And now, she couldn't go.
She couldn't bring herself to ruin the only faded memory of her mother she had left, a beautiful silver ball gown. She couldn't bring herself to put mud stains on the glass slippers, which all who called her a friend had saved money for to buy as their collective Christmas gift, just for Ella. The pretentious locket and matching tiara her so distant father had given her, before he'd died, were still treasures, no matter how little Ella had known him, or he her. The only possible thing she could wear to the ball were her stepsister's opera gloves, and Veronica would kill her if she found out Ella had gotten them soaked in the tumultuous rain.
A carriage would solve everything, Ella found herself thinking, hoping. Then she reprimanded herself; no use crying over spilt milk. Hoping for a carriage would change nothing – not in the long run, anyway. In the short run, it might make her less content, more likely to stare out the window in dazed dissatisfaction, but later… it wouldn't matter. To Ella, most things weren't going to matter in the future. It was something she'd gotten used to – an understanding she'd made with herself in the years of seemingly endless tedium.
It began to rain harder. Ella could hear the round drops actively hitting the roof, trying to wear it away with a fierce iron-willed strength. She knew that the roof might win the battle, but the water would win the war. She'd seen roofs leak and corrode, all because of water damage. She'd actually been called upon to help fix the neighbor's roof, once. It had rained particularly hard that spring, and the leaks had filled buckets as fast as Ella could bail them out the window.
Ella, for all her memoirs of family and friends that she'd never gotten the chance to truly know, had no records of her real life – all she had were lies, glorious, beautiful lies, that she just wanted to live for one night – this night. This ball. Except, it was raining, and she wasn't going to ruin a lifetime of pleasant dreams for a single dream come true. The dream come true would be the end of everything. Ella didn't want that.
She'd thought long and hard about her situation, and come to the realization that in her specific case, living for dreams was perfectly justified. She had nothing else to live for; that was certainly manifest. Reality was for those who could afford it, and Ella certainly couldn't. The rain, pouring in sheets over the town, further hammered this reality into Ella's understanding of herself and the world.
Dreams. Love. Hope.
Reality. Filth. Disrespect.
The rain, battering the roof in an endless tirade, slowly washed all of these ideals away, into the gutter with the gravy-like mud. Without touching her, it cleansed Ella of pretense, and pieced together her shattered resolve. Only then did she really understand what it meant to… well, to understand.
Ella had always thought she'd have something. And now, she didn't. It was as clear as anything she'd ever thought before. Indeed, she wondered at her lack of realization.
She had to do something, or she would continue to be nothing.
The trouble was, what could she do?
Run away?
No; that would be too much like running from her own troubles. And Ella, for all the airs that she put on, for all that she pretended to be, certainly didn't lack the courage to face her own fear – that she would be nothing. Forever.
The rain stimulated her to think. It's rhythmic beating on the tin roof was inspiring to her; it gave her mind a pattern to think in.
And then, she had it. It was simple, really.
And the rain had served no purpose but to completely and irreversibly change her mind.
Ah, the rain.
Author's Note: I think I'm getting bored too often this summer; I'm writing too many short contemplative oneshots. Well, this isn't a oneshot. Or at least, I don't think so. I'm writing a continuation and a plot. It'll be like a writing warmup, or something. I don't know. But I thought this turned out okay, seeing as it was spawned from boredom.
Well, and the fact that it wasn't even really a fairytale fic originally. I just got the idea of rain hitting a roof, and wanted to put it on fanfic, so I adapted the idea to Cinderella. And I don't think it completely sucks. I mean, the ending isn't so great, but it's not that bad.
Hmm. Well. I would certainly appreciate reviews. Thanks to any and all reviewers!