What Goes Up Must Come Down

‘Mirror mirror in my hand, who’s the fairest of them all?’ Beckie stares into her gold encrusted hand-held mirror. Eyes blinking and lips pouted, she waits for her name to be announced.

‘Well not you anyway’ replies the evil ghoul reflection. His laughing ‘mwahahaha’ fights its way around the stifled air of the room. Startled by his evil groans, her hand falls to her side and with it the mirror drops to the floor, shattering into millions of pieces.Her hands rush to her head as she grabs hold of her red curls.

‘How could this be?’ She wails and throws herself on the concrete floor, barely missing the shards of glass that now lay beside her.  

In the fragmented glass on the ground her reflection is cast around the dank room: orange overalls, to match her scarlet hair, a protruding nose and like most other witches a massive wart to accompany. From her corner hovel she rises, blurry eyed, and makes her way to the bed. A shard of glass glints in the corner of her eye and unveils the fat lump of extra skin on her nose. In a fury she scrambles through the unending shards of  broken glass to find the one that caught her eye. Success .In triumph she holds the piece in her bloodied hands high above her head, as a thank you to the gods. Squinting into it she laughs at her silly relapse and turns her head admiring her beauty from all angles.

‘Why, I am the most beautiful thing the sun ever shined on,’ she reassures herself.

            Meanwhile, outside an angry mob assembles itself, pitchforks at the ready and blazing torches to scorch the witch that hacked their telephone lines.

            ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down sweet Rapunzel,’ one man shouts from the back of the crowd.

            ‘Yeah so we can set it on fire,’ another jeers and the crowd shakes in unison with laughter.

 From the recess of her window, Beckie stares out at the crowd below. Their hungry eyes fasten on her pale fearful face as she clenches the bars of the window in an angry rage.

            ‘No Rupie here to rescue you today my dear,’ they bellow. Unfortunately for Beckie this is no fairytale nor is it one of the twisted versions of The Brothers Grimm. Her fate has been navigated by a supreme court not by prophecy. This rapunzel will not be able to let her long red curls down the tower for her shining prince to come rescue her. From her cell window the only way out for Beckie will be her descent down the wisteria tree, which she fought so hard to climb up Once Upon a Time.