Something Different

Today I'm going to try something new and I'm thinking about doing this frequently. I think I'm going to write a short story on the spot. Maybe, if this one works out, I'll do a new short story every Monday. We'll see, maybe it will keep my skills sharp.


An attic room. A man sits at his desk, staring at a blank sheet of paper. A red patent-leather stiletto flies through the open window and lands on the floor with a thud. She could never just enter a room or a building, the man thinks to himself. She always had been so dramatic. Ever since she came into this world, kicking and screaming, he'd known his daughter to overplay everything going on in her life. So why should this be any different.
Even on her third birthday she had him walk inside before her wherever they went, even the bakery to pick up her cake, with a roll of paper in his hand and she insisted he cry "hear ye, hear ye, the princess approaches!" Of course he did it, she was his only child, and a daughter nonetheless.
But this was different, this wasn't her third birthday anymore and he didn't obey her every beck and call anymore. He had done away with that long ago. He can pinpoint it to the event.
She was sitting on the back porch crying and he went to see what the problem was. She explained through her tears that the person she had been dating, with his permission, dumped her for someone his own age. For what she hadn't told him before was this man was her English teacher. He decided in that instant as he told her to go to her room and stop fussing over such a foolish mistake that he wouldn't give her the freedom to do as she pleased anymore.
But she wasn't sixteen anymore and this hardly applied to the situation at hand. He walked over to the aforementioned shoe and picked it up as his daughter entered the room. He smiled as he handed it back to her and appraised the woman who stood before him. She looked beautiful and teary, the same way she looked on her wedding night.
He remembered that night vividly as well. As he took her into his arms and she sobbed into his shoulder, promising him that he was still the most important man in her life. He patted her back and held in his tears as she told him this was one of the happiest nights of her life and he told her how beautiful she looked.
But this was not her wedding night anymore and she wasn't crying tears of joy anymore. For the man who had taken her from her father's house was also the man who broke her heart. This was the day his daughter came back to him. He took this woman who had been his princess, his rebel, and the apple of his eye since she was born, into his arms and told her how happy he was to have her back. She didn't cry this time and he knew this meant she was growing stronger. Through all the curves she had thrown at him throughout the years she was still growing and learning. And thriving. Never again would a shoe come through the attic window, that much he knew for sure.