As a babysitter, and child at heart, I am all too familiar with fairy tales. As I read “Cinderella” the other night, I noticed a hole in the plot.

Everyone knows that Cinderella abandons the prince right before midnight so that he will not see the magic vanish and her ballgown returns to its original tattered form.

However, the glass slippers never revert to their pre-magical state. Why is it that shoes infinitely retain magic, but nothing else does?

The obvious answer is that the prince might have never found Cinderella if it were not for her mysteriously unique shoe size.

According to a very astute Reddit user, chelbski-willis, the shoe never loses the magic touch because Cinderella’s fairy godmother gifted the shoes. This made perfect sense until I thought, how were the shoes any more of a gift than everything else?

At least in my version of the tale, the shoes are no different from any of the other objects. Perhaps this is the true magic of the story. Everything fades away at midnight, reflecting the reality that nothing in this world lasts, but in Cinderella’s world the glass slippers remain.

Whether we realize it or not, everyone has a pair of glass slippers lying around. They remind us of our glorious past and make our hearts yearn for the future with relentless hope.

Sincerely,

Alexa Wallace