Cinderella: The Angel Of Death

It all started when I was 12. I was at home with my father, cleaning floors. I had never known my mother, and as far I was concerned, I never needed to. The floors were filthy as this was the room that my father and I always avoided when cleaning; this was my mother's old room. It is completely bare now, but my father and I agreed that once every year we would give it a good clean as neither of us can bear any mess in the house, even if it's in a room that we never enter. We also agreed that we would alternate who cleaned it each year, and this year it was my turn. It usually takes half the day and we don't take breaks as this gives us the opportunity to not start again.

I had decided that this time I would get some extra strong bleach this time in the hope that it would shorten the time that it would take to clean the dreaded room, however all it seemed to be doing was making my head spin.

I scrubbed and scrubbed and seemed to be getting nowhere. I longed to go and get some nose plugs, but that would be stopping and I had vowed not to do that, so I pushed on through the dizziness and through the fire that was alight in my nasal passage. I wished that we would clean this room a little more often, so that it was less of a job. I also wished that it had a window so I could breathe a little easier, or at least that I could open the door. But my father and I had agreed to never do that either, at the risk of the other catching a glimpse inside, outside of their allotted half-a-day every two years.

A rat scuttled across the floor in front of me. That wasn't possible, we were on the third floor, and there is no way into the house at all, even for a rat. It stopped looked at me then disappeared completely. I shook my head; these chemicals must be giving me hallucinations. I felt my chest tightening as the snake of panic squeezed the breath out of my lungs, bit by bit. The floor got closer and closer as I was consumed by a welcome blackness.

I opened my eyes and quickly closed them again at the piercing light coming from the top of the room. I tried again, slowly prising open each eyelid until I could see the woman standing in front of me, dressed completely in white. She must be an angel I thought. I still felt the need to ask her though.

"Who are you," I asked tentatively.

"I am your fairy God mother," she told me "You summoned me to get you to a better place in life."

"I don't remember doing that." I thought back, but came up blank.

"Nevertheless, I am here and so you must do exactly as I say." She seemed to get larger as she said this and I so readily agreed. "Alright then," she said "Go downstairs and talk to your father. Don't worry he can't see me."

"What shall I say?" I asked her.

"I'll tell you when you're there," was her only answer.

I went downstairs to see my father. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee reading the mornings newspaper.

"Are you done already?" he asked me, "I hope you've done it properly because you know how much I hate messy rooms."

"Tell him it's almost perfect," The Fairy Godmother whispered to me. I repeated what she said and he flashed me a smile before turning back to his newspaper. "He's holding you back," she whispered in my ear as I watched him.

"What should I do?" I whispered back.

"Eliminate him," she said simply "and do it well."

I thought for a moment, and decided that she was probably right, she was omniscient after all. I looked around for what I could use and spotted the breakfast things, not yet washed up.

"Would you like me to wash those up?" I asked him gingerly.

"Yes darling, that would be lovely," he said without even looking up at me.