The girl with the golden shoes.

A fairy tale about a girl new to town.

Shadow art by LVWJ.

She was the girl with the golden shoes. She liked to swing dance to jazz music, and when she danced her shoes left behind streaks of gold paint on the dance floor.

She danced at a place called the Mercury Café, which is a dream shared by swing dancers every Thursday night. Inside, little red and white lights on strings hang from the ceiling, and, in some places, there are mirrors on the walls. Some of the mirrors face each other, and those mirrors reflect the red and white lights again and again forever.

Jazz bands would play under the lights, and the girl with the golden shoes would feel the music like it was a cool wind on the back of her neck, or sunlight on her face, and when she felt the wind and the sunlight she would close her eyes and move to the sound. The streaks of gold that her shoes left behind reflected the red and white lights from below, and those who could see the streaks would see lights above and also below the girl, and they would see her and her reflection dancing in the middle of a firework made from jazz. 

The girl was new to the city. She knew no one, and at the café one night she said ‘hello’ to many dancers — but many of them ignored her. She felt a coldness coming from the dancers she spoke with, and when she went back to the dance floor she danced a bit more slowly and left behind fewer streaks of gold.

‘Don’t you see?’ A voice behind her whispered into her ear. The girl spun around, still moving with the music. But she saw no one. ‘Ah, too slow!’ the voice whispered. The girl spun again, and thought she saw a young person’s face in the corner of her eye. But as soon as she glimpsed the face it was gone again. She looked and spun, looked and spun, looked and spun — but the face always slipped out of view before she could see it fully, like a note that pops and then is gone.  

‘It’s not me I want you to see,’ the voice whispered. ‘Now that you’ve spun yourself all across the dance floor, I want you to look down.’ 

The girl looked down, and saw that, in her spinning, she had covered most of the dance floor in streaks of gold. Now, instead of a single firework, the Mercury Café was above and below a galaxy of lights filled with gleeful dancers and their reflections moving and swinging through space. ‘We’re astronauts!’ One dancer called out as they swung past the girl.

‘See what you can do?’ The voice whispered. ‘When people see what you make, it moves them just like the music does. It ignites them like a breeze that breathes life into a fire.’

‘Who are you?’ The girl asked.

‘Oh, just someone who appreciates a good firework show.’

The girl looked at the people dancing inside her galaxy made from jazz. Then, she saw that there were many who were not dancing, many who seemed not to see the galaxy at all.

‘There’s one more thing I want you to see,’ the voice said. ‘See that girl sitting over there in the corner?’ The girl looked, and she saw the girl, and she recognized her as one of the dancers who had ignored her. She had short hair, and her eyes were on another dancer.

The voice whispered in her ear and explained that when the girl with the short hair sees that other dancer, they see a rosy sunlight bathing the room. It’s a rare kind of sunlight, one that you can only find during sunrises and sunsets at the tops of mountains. ‘The thing is,’ the voice said, ‘is that she can only see that rosy sunlight, not your fireworks. So, forgive her for her coldness. She’s only cold because she doesn’t know how to see you for who you are.’ 

The voice behind her fell silent, and the girl knew without turning around that whoever had been whispering into her ear was gone now, like a song that you know is over. She looked into the crowd, at the galaxy she made, and at the space around the other dancer where she felt like the rosy sunlight ought to be.

‘Hello,’ a voice behind her said.

She spun around, and saw a girl she did not recognize.

‘How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m good,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good. I really like your shoes.’

‘Thank you very much,’ the girl said, smiling.  

‘Do you wanna dance with me?’

‘Yeah! I’d love to.’

Hand-in-hand, and with the mirrors and the gold streaks reflecting the red and white lights forever and ever, the two took a step and swung each other out into space.

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