Cinderella in a dream, a dream in cinderella

Weaving a large arc through the air with my index finger, I disrupt the curtain.
That people behind the curtain can see this disruption, is obvious. I hear them talking about the curtain and the way it is moving, the way there must be someone behind there.

They are so slow in finding me.

I try to stand straight, try to not move the curtain, so that my existence will just be, what it is, behind the curtain, and not exposed furthermore.

I chased a butterfly behind here. I think it was in my mind.

I saw it flying, spreading its wings, not with a usually-repugnant weakness - so characteristic of fellow 'flutter-bys' - those childish, flitting phantoms - but with the strength, the muscle, of a bird. I guess it gave me hope, here behind this curtain.

And now they're giggling. A posse of people, genders indeterminate at this stage, like my own, ethereal because of their being on the other side of the curtain. Unknown.
Genders indeterminate, giggling, threatening, wanting to pull me from behind the curtain, pull me, a person, a person who only wants to chase butterflies and not grow up and not have to go hunting for a prince. (Or princess... but in their society, they haven't come across that situation before.)

Just when I am beginning to feel accustomed to the dark of the space enshrouded by this curtain, the curtain parts, lets in light, and I see that it is actually a harsh red of woven red thread, splitting the comforting black. A reptilian, feathered hand slithers in - red in a reflection of the curtain - and an image as sharp as murder comes to mind as it snatches. Snatches for a person, a person behind the curtain, snatching for me. Nails affix to my shirt, and nails clutch at the folds of my belly, scratching for something human, scratching for what I know I can't give, clasping around me, my flesh, my hair.

Suddenly I am in the light. It is like being evacuated prematurely from the womb. I look up at my tormentors, my friends, my people wanting to find me a mate. So that I do not have to be alone. So that I do not have to remain uncontrolled. They are looking for a prince for me, to 'help' me out from behind my curtain.
They are each masked, with feathers, glue, and a white-speckling paint. Masquerade. Concealing their identities, conveniently. They cannot be real, or real in themselves, because they strive to find complementarity in people, others, like fleshy mirrors. They are not naked, as I am, having been drawn from Curtain, prematurely.They do not react to this obscure nakedness, they just measure it with their judgment, their rulers, their perceptive and observant eyes. They actually hold measuring tape around me and do the equations, calculating the likelihood of my beauty.

Conclusion: this will not do. I am not good enough.
I have to go back behind the curtain, I should, but they need me to fill this space, they need the marriages to ensue, so that everyone can live 'happily ever after'. Only I know.

That deep down they're jealous of my nakedness.

I am dabbed, viciously, with a surplus of glue. Handfuls of feathers find their way to my eyebrows, my neck, chest, legs, and reptilian, feathered hands, go into a frenzy, like chickens pecking for the last morsel of grain.

'You'll look passable', they say, they chant. (They have ways of chanting in unison; the meaning of this chorus I am not privy to.) They laugh, they giggle, speaking at me, teeth flashing red and white like poisonous insects, hovering all around me.

The masquerade ball, does not exist for me as it does for every other person there. In a dream-like illogicality I close my eyes, and nothing exists, any longer. Nothing exists but butterflies behind my eyelids, flashing like the after-images of lights. I squeeze my eyes so tight, I can feel and hear and see the purple blood pushing through the vessels of my eyelids. I hold my eyes so tight I think I will stop seeing.

But it is another curtain.

Clock. Strikes 'twelve'. Home is barren. A once-peopled landscape rots in destitution, and rots with a peacefulness I know will not last. They will return, and there will be more masquerade balls. I haven't found my prince. And, as they say, I haven't found my validity in this world, validity in the reflection of another's eyes. According to them: I have not discovered that I am human.