That awful tale
of a young girl who was treated badly by an evil
step-mother and two ugly step-sisters, so badly in fact
that she ended up at a psychiatric hospital outside
Lausanne – where she’d go on and on about mice turning
into foot-men, glass slippers, and a pumpkin turning
into a coach which whizzed her off to some ball where
she danced with a prince – her babbling of course
frowned upon by the doctors and staff – and no treatment
or medication would help – but her wild stories beloved
by all the other inmates – out of which came a popular
fairy tale, and much later a famous Disney film, has
another loose thread in it – the story of Cinderella’s
twin sister, Minderella, who, after her sister’s
break-down, one day, pretending to go fetch water from
the well, ran away to lands unknown…
She ended up
picking strawberries in France, where she fell in with a
band of gypsies. In the evenings, while sitting around
the open fire – they taught her how to juggle, how to
swallow fire – and even how to glue a beard on so it
appeared quite natural.
After the fruit
picking season that year, she took off for Rumania and
joined a circus.
Following two
minor incidents with the flame-swallowing catching her
beard afire, she had to choose, and kept the beard.
Ever developing her talents, she learned to ride
standing on the back of a horse trotting around the
circus ring – while juggling, and with the beard – she
soon became the star attraction of the circus.
One day, though,
while practicing riding the teeming horse standing on
just one leg, she fell, and got kicked in the head.
When she came to, she was lying in bed being examined by
twin doctors. Against the doctors’ warnings, she rose
up out of bed, swept aside the curtain-doors of her tent,
and stepped-out into a doubled world. Her first week in
this state she later described in her memoirs as the
happiest time of her life – there were twice as many
trees in the forest, twice as much grass in the fields –
she had twice as many friends.
The novelty
wore-off around the time two seedy Russian men presented
themselves to the circus directors, bearing behind them
two huge covered cages on wagons. ‘Olaf, and the
Dancing Bear!’ they shouted, pulling the curtains down
from around the cages, let loose two enormous black
bears, then conducted them, like orchestra leaders – and
the bears danced.
Min couldn’t help
but fall in love with these geniuses, even though they
cost her her billing as the main attraction.
(Weeks later, as
her sight regained normalcy, and she realized there was
just a single dancing bear – her love for the trainer
didn’t wane.
Then, a real
bearded lady showed up from out of nowhere – the circus
director was impressed. Upon seeing Min, she yelled,
“She’s a fake!” And Min couldn’t deny it, in fact,
everyone at the circus knew. They knew, because two
weeks after Olaf arrived, Min tried with all of her
guile, dressing provocatively – even in pants, and
bending over for him – showing her ankles, her legs –
once even tearing off her beard right in front of him
and shouting, “Look at me!” – then storming out of the
stalls – amidst the astonished whispering of the animal
keepers.
The next day she
moved into his wagon.
One day, outside
Prague, while they were taking a rest before marching
into the city, an old blind woman came near the troupe,
walking along a dirt road. Upon seeing her, Min
immediately rose, ran over, pushed the woman down, and
gave her a swift kick to the head. Everyone was
dumbstruck – but the circus director took affair, and
somehow got rid of the body.
A lion tamer
presented himself to the circus director. Though the
lion looked a little funny, and was very skinny (the
director attributed it to the ‘starving artist’ syndrome)
– he hired the man and his lion on the spot – pushing
Olaf’s dancing bear into second billing, with much
smaller lettering on the posters. So Olaf began
teaching his bear some new dance steps, day and night,
trying to get the bear accustomed to the top hat and
teaching it how to twirl a cane – all ideas he’d come up
with – twisted into him by Min over an entire month of
relentless arguing.
She immediately
fell for the lion tamer, Gunther. He had no problem
looking at her at all – in fact, his looks made her
tremble. He never missed a chance at ‘accidentally’
brushing up against her – and seemed so eager to be
alone with her, she never let it happen.
But it did happen
– and he was an incredible lover – not demanding that
she put on her beard at all.
Olaf, in his
domesticated desperation, began stealing moments where
he could to be alone inside their wagon and try on her
dresses. She caught him once, was very forgiving –
though the elastic had been stretched, and the seams
were splitting. She finally had enough when she caught
him trying to dress the bear – completely tearing her
dress apart. She moved into the lion tamer’s wagon that
very same day.
All went well
until one listless day when Gunther let it slip that his
lion was not a lion at all, but a large dog he clipped
to look like a lion. Min was shaken, ‘sticking one’s
head into the gaping mouth of a large dog is not so
impressive’ – she didn’t know what to do – so she ran to
the circus director and told him immediately – then ran
away from the circus in shame.
She ended-up in
Vienna. But the first day of her arrival, on the
crowded boulevard, she saw a blind man walking with a
cane, being led by a child – she immediately rushed
over, pushed the man down, and gave him a swift kick to
the head. She was arrested.
She explained to
the judge how she had once been kicked in the head by a
horse, and it had doubled her vision – her action was
simply meant to bring the sight back to the blind man.
He ordered a psychological evaluation.
After listening
to her story, Dr. S. Freud, pronounced that Min had
become infatuated with a bear in a dress – since her
fantasy could only be imagined by those with sight, she
transferred her desires on to those with none – and
attacked them to prove her vagina was superior to the
penis of the bear.
The circus
director, having gotten news of Min’s incarceration –
led his troupe to Vienna and secured her release with
bribes.
By this time,
though, the circus had grown. There were five
Mongolians who not only juggled, but juggled back and
forth, while performing acrobatics. New clowns had
joined – who were not only funny, but begged apathy.
There was a fire-eater who not only ate fire, but doused
himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze – all the
while smiling. And the new head-line act was a
Lithuanian midget who shot himself out of a cannon.
She thought to
return to Olaf – but he was busy training a new bear –
“Besides,” he told her, “I really only loved you for
your beard.”
She worked in the
stalls and at setting up the tents and at the concession
stands to pay back her debt to the circus director. She
thought to throw herself at him, but he was only
interested in the bearded lady – though the bearded lady
always punished his advances – saying she was no one to
be had as a mouse, for example, or, stroking her beard,
retorting – “You are no philosopher – with your stringy
mustache!”
Min spent more
and more time amongst the ‘freaks’ – the incredibly fat
man – who it took a whole series of levers and pulleys
to place from in his wagon to and from his tent – he
weighed 400 kilos – the horse-face girl – the rhinoceros
man – the two-headed dragon lady, and the bearded lady.
Who became very friendly with her – even flirted, which
made Min blush.
After having sex
with the bearded lady, she discovered ‘she’ was a man,
and ran immediately and told the circus director – who
was so distraught – he accused her of lying – but then
saw it on her face, offered her old job back as the
bearded lady, and after that he pretty much went in to
hiding.
Min received a
letter from a foreign mental institution wherein they
grieved to tell her her twin sister had passed away in
some unforeseen accident – where the head doctor of the
institution, having read of a new cure for blindness,
had thought one of their mules, if kicking her sister in
the butt – might cure her obsession with dreaming –
though at the mule’s kick, she landed unfortunately upon
a pitchfork – but died painlessly.
She immediately
took-up with the midget who shot himself out of a cannon.
He’d never had a girlfriend before – and his amorous
adventures are well know from his memoir – ‘I Used to
Shoot Myself Out of a Cannon’ –
So the circus
ended-up in Bulgaria – and morale was low. Min one day
marched into the director’s wagon, over-manned him –
pretty-much raped him, though seemingly impossible – she
did have to force a finger up his ass.
She moved in to
his wagon that very same day.
Now that she was
‘Queen’ of the circus, everyone bowed to her. Though
the director occasionally came out to direct his circus,
it was Minderella who really ran the circus – and
everyone knew it.
“Everyone here
who is a fake, go home!” The gathering had been
advertised as a party… still at the podium: “Everyone
here with talents mortal beings cannot possess, go home!”
– they all thought to leave. “Everyone who is different,
without other merit than that, go home!”
Soon it was only
the director and his chosen who remained.
They lived a
quiet life – he became a small town bank director, what
with his acuity with finance – she took-up sewing – and
created some of the most wonderful dresses ever imagined
in Europe.