Short stories

Not a Fairytale

The streets make you tough.

That's what all the girls used to say. Back when they were still alive.

The last one was Cindy, a ten year-old girl who got hit for following someone for food. She's probably at a public hospital or dead. There has been no news about her for two weeks now. Marlene didn't think the homeless even got a proper burial. They just vanished. Forgotten by everyone but those who suffered the same fate as theirs. So she made the girl a tombstone. Light grey rocks were pretty easy to find there. She chose a small one and wrote 'CINDY' on it with charcoal and placed it among the pile at the corner. It was sort of a tradition they had started so they wouldn't be simply be erased from this world when they die. It was a proof of their life.

Marlene hoped the girl was dead. A small child like her didn't deserve to suffer in such a cruel world. Neither of them did. Tears start pouring as she remembered her little face. Cindy was quite literally the life of the group. Every one of them was on the brink of giving up but they started living for her. Even when one by one they were dying of disease or hunger, the remaining continued. To make sure she doesn't lose her smile. The kind of smile that reached her eyes and showed the gap between her teeth. She remembered how she would insist on her hair being kept in two neat braids even though not one of them had a band to tie the ends.

And she was gone. Leaving Marlene to be the last surviving member of the shabby group of unfortunate girls. There were seventeen of them two years back and now there was one. Alone.

Sometimes during the cold nights, the girls would talk about their golden prince – what he would look like and what he would do for them. The one supposed to save them. How their pain would all be worth it for their happily ever after. It was something Cindy had told the group. She said there were books with such stories where girls like them are saved by a brave and handsome prince. Marlene didn't believe in those tales. Not every golden-haired prince had a golden heart. And though she didn't think of herself to be undeserving of love, she had learned that people were often blind to the suffering of others. 

Now when Marlene began to truly ponder over the topic, she didn't want a golden prince or a happily ever after. She didn't want a magical castle or a dozen handmaids. She just wanted to be back with the girls even though they would be homeless and starving. They could tease her about her too-big nose and she wouldn't mind it this time. As long as they had each other, everything would be fine.

She walked down the abandoned alley again which had been their home for years, the wind and dust bidding her goodbye.

It is oddly beautiful to write your own name on a tombstone, she realized. To finally let go. She put it in the pile, hoping that one day a kind soul would read their names and care enough to remember them.

And if there indeed was a prince for her in this desolate world, sorry but it was too late.