Yes, of course the slipper fit her foot; it was hers. Prince Charming lit up when Sin came down the stairs. He knew this was the woman from the ball. A woman who would make herself up every morning for him, who would anxiously await his return from the battlefield, who would bear his children. He immediately brought his beautiful princess home and they lived happily ev—

Wait, not yet. They didn’t live happily ever after yet. Mother fell ill. She was depressed about my sister and me; we still hadn’t found husbands. And butchering our feet had made our prospects even more dire. The townsmen looked away when we passed. Mother’s illness worsened. She wrote to Sin but received no reply. Maybe Sin knew she wanted to borrow money. Finally, my sister and I went to see her in Prince Charming’s magnificent palace. We arrived as she was enjoying her breakfast in a garden full of roses, jasmine, ylang-ylang and dahlias. The gurgling fountains were music to our ears.

Sin asked us to leave but we refused to do so until she gave us money. We also demanded to be mistresses to her husband, but of course thousands of beauties had already lined up for the position. Suddenly, that damned bird appeared, the same bird we had encountered on the road. It went after our eyes, stabbing at them with its beak, a knife weighted with vengeance. Again and again it stabbed. Sin, my stepsister, looked on. The last image I have of the world is the sight of her not lifting a finger to help, snacking on grapes.

Since then we have become the stuff of legend: Sin, the virtuous girl who wed, and we, the sisters, better off dead. We lived in poverty thereafter, supporting our ailing mother. She died with her eyes wide open. Until the end, she refused to accept the insults of those around her or the fact that we would forever be old maids. I left the village and now live as a wanderer with my sister. Two blind, useless women who survive by making music on street corners. My sister plays the harp and I sing. We must, for we have no Prince Charming, no Fairy Godmother.

Sin didn’t live happily ever after. She died giving birth to her sixth daughter. Before that, she was pregnant almost every year because the kingdom needed a crown prince. Her thighs grew chubby and her stomach turned as flabby as bean curd. Excessive blood loss did her in, a fitting conclusion for this tale of gore.

Sin is dead. But, ah, who will listen to a blind, mutilated woman?

Blood

On goes the light. The new LCD has just stopped projecting. We’re sitting around a table complete with laptops, BlackBerries, cell phones and half-finished coffee.