Hot tears paved their way down Cindy's face. But they didn't mean anything to her. Not anymore. Like to most things, she had become desensitized to the emotions conjuring them from the recesses of her eyes.
Loss, pain, sorrow; each of these were etched onto her face. To any onlookers they would seem to be penetrating her soul.
But they weren't.
She almost wished they did; how amazing would it be to feel something again. Something... Anything. Preferably something warm.
A good warm, though, she thought to herself, not warm Ike her tears.
Realizing that she was still standing motionless in the middle of the room, she started slightly. As her gaze swept the bare room, she wondered why she even bothered looking. Did she think that something would magically appear? Something soft and comfortable where she would feel safe? She hadn't felt safe since...
Since before...
Before...
She still couldn't make herself think the words. She remembered walking up the grand steps to the grand house. She was only seventeen at the time and full of wonderful delusions about the nature of the world. She took her parents' death in stride and had her grieving time. Once she could feel happy again and was sent to live with her relatives she could not help but feel that everything from this point forward would be inexplicably... Grand.
But it wasn't.
Of course it wasn't, she mentally scolded herself. She was just another lost person. No longer was a child who could be trumpeted as a young hopeful deserving of salvation; she was just another sad-faced, unfortunate adult who should be able to help themselves.
But how could she help herself? Had she not tried escaping, but to no avail? After the first ten times, she had given up hope. Nobody would believe her then, a young angsty teenager desperate to be on her own, so why would they believe her now, five years later?
She remembered learning about this in her sophomore psychology class. It was called learned helplessness. Some scientists had done an experiment on it with some dogs: they had them put in individual cages with floors that would shock them. Half of the dogs were restrained and unable to move, while the other half were free to escape. The ones that were free were quickly conditioned to jump over a wall to escape the shocks, while the restrained ones were unable to get away from the torture and anguish. Eventually, the dogs that had been restrained were set free in their cages, no longer restrained.
But when the shocks came they simply laid down in dejection, accepting their pitiful lot in life. Was that what she had become? One of the dogs in a psychological experiment?
She wondered if there was a door open for her right this moment to escape. She dutifully looked around the room, but saw nothing. She was still, however, unable to shake the feeling that she was blinded by her cruel conditioning. She wondered if it even mattered any more.
But it didn't, and she knew it.
It was times like these that she hated her name. Cindy, she scorned internally, that's all you are. It oddest matter how similar your names are, you will never be like Cinderella.
She remembered in high school how her peers and teachers had scorned early Disney princesses, mainly Cinderella, as pathetic women who depended upon princes to save them; as adults who should have been able to help themselves.
At the time, she had agreed with them; a proud feminist. At the time, she proudly proclaimed that women didn't ever need prince charmings or knights in shining armor to save them.
But at that time, she was also naive.
By no means did she think that women were helpless creatures by nature or that they were good for nothing but housework. But by now she would give nearly anything to have her own prince charming.
Her teachers and peers didn't understand. Cindy hadn't understood either, at the time. But she did understand now that she was in a similar position.
Cinderella wasn't pathetic and weak-willed like so many thought, she was just surviving and doing the best she could in an unforgiving world that seemed to turn against her in every which way she turned.

"Well, there's one thing. They can't order me to stop dreaming."

The words ring true through Cindy's soul just as they did for Cinderella. She never stopped dreaming, Not ever she repeated mentally.
The horrid scorning voices of her relatives became screeches of birds gaily chasing each other through the treetops; the pushes and shoves became accidental brushes with strangers on the street (oh, the wonderful open-aired street) who turned around to apologize on moments notice; and the clothes... those despicable rags became the most unimaginably gorgeous dress. The cold confinement that she called her room became free air, a marketplace with people; friendly people, and everything really was grand...
But it wasn't.
The usual rush of euphoria she got after an interlude unto her imagination drained away, replaced by her earlier downcast mood.
They can't take away my dreams, but they can always bring me back to reality. But then remembering another one of Cinderella's lines, Cindy felt a slight rush of hope.

"No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true."

No, Cindy thought, nothing was grand right now.
But it could be.

So pretty much I thought of this idea thing while watching Cinderella with some kids I was babysitting. Pretty much it bothered me how people (myself included) looked so down on Cinderella for being helpless and naive when really she was resilient and self-reliant, just in a really crappy situation.

Good old Walt himself summed it up pretty much perfectly here:
"She believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn't come along, she went over to the palace and got him."
- Walt Disney, speaking of Cinderella in 1949.

Oh yeah, if anyone is reading my other story (Cause and Effect) I'll have the next chapter up… sometime? I don't know. I'm starting school next week so I'll be pretty busy, but I'll do my best to get some writing in.