Finding My Feet

 by Allison Symes

cream soda

It was a tough job, you know, and worse I couldn’t argue with the boss. I was told I had to go around all the houses in my master’s Kingdom to find the one girl whose foot would fit this glass slipper the Prince found.

I was not impressed. For a start, the Kingdom is big!
 

Secondly, that glass slipper looked to be a standard size 4 to me. I come from a long line of cobblers and have an eye for these things. Before you ask, I am not talking cobblers.  I know my sizes. I just didn’t fancy a working life based around feet which is why I entered the Royal Household. It is a bit ironic I’ve turned out to be one of the footmen. I do wonder if the Prince who chose me has a sense of humour.

Anyway, I was miffed when HRH said I had go to around all the houses. It’s not as if I’m ever short of things to do in my role. And all I could think when the boss told me what I had to do was that there must be hundreds of girls that shoe could fit.

But I was as surprised as anyone when it turned out to only fit Cinderella. Nice kid. I was pleased she married the Prince. I was even more pleased to see her awful stepmother and stepsisters quietly fuming at the royal wedding. Served them right.

They were so rude to the Royal Household. They came into the Palace almost as if they owned the place. It was stupid of them. Who do you think told the boss? Who do you think were evicted from their property only last week because the landlord, a friend of the Prince, suddenly realised he needed his building back?

But I do know one thing.

 
I never want to see another woman’s bare foot ever again.

You’d have thought that the potential candidates would at least have cleaned their feet before I turned up with the posh cushion and the glass slipper. Only one did.
Cinderella.

As I say, she’s a nice kid.

About the author

Allison Symes, who loves reading and writing quirky fiction, is published by Chapeltown Books, Cafelit, and Bridge House Publishing.  She is a member of the Society of Authors and Association of Christian Writers.  Her website is at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com/

She blogs for Chandler’s Ford Today often on topics of interest to writers - http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/author/allison-symes/

Her Amazon Author Central page is at http://author.to/AllisonSymesAuthorCent and her latest flash fiction collection, Tripping The Flash Fantastic, is now out in Kindle and paperback.

Finding My Feet

by S. Nadja Zajdman  

mulled ale

          One early autumn, I joined a hiking club.  My intention was to find a way into nature.  I don’t own a car.  The most I hoped for was to sit quietly on the school bus as it transported our group of active senior citizens into the countryside.  I still pay full price for everything, so I don’t know how I’ve come to be considered a senior citizen, but in certain milieu, I am.  Perhaps I am a junior senior.

          On that first Friday morning I arrived at the meeting point, and a member of the club noticed me hanging back in a corner, clutching my new knapsack.  I was more nervous that morning than on my first day of kindergarten  “Come on in!”  She called.  “The water’s fine!”  The lady wasn’t lying.  On the bus, I discovered that I could comfortably socialize. 

          On the trails, I was startled to discover how frightened I had become of downward slopes.  As I stiffened and inched along, a hand reached from behind, gently nudging the back side of my forearm and guiding my direction.  “Why are you afraid?”  The warm male voice of one of the fitness trainers who lead these outings asked.  Why, indeed?  I came to think of these trainers as good shepherds who will not allow a lamb to slip over the side of a hill.  Beguiled by the beauty of the views, at first I moved forward tentatively, later with budding assurance.  And though I sometimes tripped over the exposed root of an ancient maple, I was always grateful to be out in nature breathing cedar-scented air.  Lunchtime would find me stretched out on a rock or a dock or a picnic bench by a rushing gorge or a sun-dappled lake. 

         

          When autumn turned to winter, we strapped snowshoes onto our boots, and the lunches we carried in our knapsacks were consumed in huts, by the amber-coloured flames of logs burning in wood stoves.  The first time I put on snowshoes, I felt like I would topple over.  “Stomp, Sharon, stomp your feet!”  The head shepherd instructed.  “The reason you feel like you’re falling is because you aren’t stepping forcefully.  The snowshoes have clamps.  They’ll bite the ground and hold you up.  Stomp, Sharon!  Stomp!”  So I stomped and I clomped, feeling like the Abominable Snowman.  Climbing uphill was hard, but not frightening.  The effort felt familiar.  In a sense, I’ve been climbing uphill all my life.

          Sometimes we tramped in open meadows surrounded by taupe-coloured trees, and sometimes we edged our way through narrow paths in a snow-laden glade I dubbed The Land of Sugar-Frosted Pines.  Once, we entered a region in the Laurentians called Farhills.  These hills were not only far, but steep.  On one hill, all my fellow hikers had to be helped down the icy and treacherous trail, so what chance did I have?  When my turn came, I gauged the conditions and made my choice.  “Screw this.”  A fine line separates courage from stupidity, and I was on the verge of crossing it.  I plunked down onto the ground, raised my snow-shoe clad feet in the air, tossed my hiking sticks away from me, shoved at the snow with my gloves, and whizzed down the slope, the ice under my bottom turning me into a human toboggan.  Two alarmed female shepherds dashed down the hill—they were the only ones capable of doing so.  “Sharon!  Are you alright?!”

          I thrust out my arms and exulted, through crystallized breath, “It’s the only way to travel!”

          Having flown down the hill literally by the seat of my pants, I faced another challenge.  How to stand up?  My feet flailed in the air.  They were trapped in the snowshoes.  “I need to get these things off.”  I assumed.  “No you don’t,” the shepherds corrected.  “We’ll get you on your feet.”

          “You can’t!”  I bleated.  “I’m too heavy.”

          “Oh yes we can!”  Shepherd Annette positioned herself on one side of me.  Shepherd Annie positioned herself on the other.  “As we lift, you push.  Push from your knees, Sharon!  Push!”  So saying, they heaved, I ho-ed, and up I sprang!  I grinned at the good shepherds in admiration and awe.  Not only was I on my feet; I was also smiling. 

          By late afternoon we were back in the city.  I returned to my apartment, soaked in a warm, sea-salted bath, and in sweet exhaustion fell into bed.  My body burned, my muscles ached, and I slept like one of the logs that occasionally blocked our paths on the hiking trails.