Pretty Girl

Long ago, in a world not so different than our very own, lived a young girl with two thick braids. This girl was pudgier than the average with cheeks that were forever flushed with her inner anxieties of the cruel world around her. Inside she loathed herself and could never understand why. Was she cursed at birth to be unloved? Mommy and daddy never paid mind to her, they were far too busy tending to her siblings. Did she do something wrong?

Everyone in this far away land looked down at her - she was nothing but dirt on their shoes, worthless as can be. Nobody cared about the buckets she would cry. "Why? Oh why? For once I just want to be the pretty girl!" With tears in her eyes she would watch the other maidens walk by. They were always smiling and giggling - such a magical sound. Boys were entranced, but our dear lass could only fret. Was she the subject for their laughter? Why did her thighs rub together with each step? Why couldn't she intoxicate the local lads with one flutter of her lashes? Her fate was to never be pretty.

She was a cow; a subject to be poked and prodded. Her parent's embarrassment and the town's amusement. Nobody cherishes the fat girl. I wish I could say this tale ended happily, as many others do, but one morning the girl was found. Like a pinata she was strung from the ceiling. No one said a word, the room was quiet - eerily so. Now all the town could do was frown, their laughter forever silenced as the loss of innocence swung to and fro.

Nobody cherished the fat girl.