Chicana Ways - Aletta

AnyBody's Concerns 6(2003)
empting agony at every turn. As the new king Rufus, despised son grown to
manhood, greedily pulled the fat berries off those brambles on the day of
his father's funeral, he had decided aloud, "I'm not going to let any of my
descendants make the same mistake." And so he instituted the Ritual of the
End of Mourning and the Law of Remarriage. The terms in full were laid out
in minute detail on the very scroll that the Chancellor was now reciting:
"It is preferable for the no-longer-grieving monarch to select his own
method for choosing the bride. If the monarch relinquishes this
responsibility, the following may make the choice on his behalf....."
There followed a list of suitable bride-selectors in order of station and
experience and the note that "even the monarch's own child/children (in
order of seniority) is/are permitted to choose the bride for the monarch in
the circumstance of the monarch or the monarch's representative being unable
to determine a method to make the appropriate selection."
The king raised his right hand. As if from nowhere a young page appeared. He
carried a cushion, also mauve, velvet this time. On it lay the crystal
slipper that princess Amanda had, a year ago, seen her father remove from
her mother's dead foot.
"Why do you call on mother's slipper, father?" his daughter wondered aloud.
"My dear girl, see now how daddy observes the law but bends it to his
deepest wish never to marry any other than his beloved Cinderella. The key
is to set an impossible task." he whispered.
Then King Rufus III publicly declared his intent to respect the law of his
great, great grandfather, King Rufus I, while secretly plotting to subvert
the decree and follow the path of his great, great, great grandfather, the
grief-wedded King Randolph VI.
"This slipper is all that remains of our dear Queen. The other is buried in
eternal union with its mistress. I now pronounce that whomsoever's foot the
remaining slipper fits, low or high, poor or proud, will be my wife and
queen."
The crow's feather fluttered in her skirt pocket and inspired princess
Amanda to whisper again.
"But what if it fits someone?"
The King knew the perfection of the slipper. It had given his soul mate to
him. It could never let him down. He relied upon its sure dismissal of every
flawed foot. He had once longed for it to be filled, now he clung to its
emptiness.
"The only she whom it fits lies below our feet."
Gloria could not take her eyes off the slipper. Ringing in her ears were the
words she'd been taught from birth:
"My mam had a sister, like I've got you, and did she cop the prince? Like
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