Once upon a time, in a faraway land,

There lived a boy named Elliot.

Elliot was a kind and gentle boy,

And he lived in a beautiful house

With a loving mother, a rich father, and plenty of servants.

Elliot liked to talk to the servants, as he had no other siblings,

And they happily engaged with him,

For the mother and the father were sometimes too busy

To give Elliot the attention he deserved.

But when they did have time to be with Elliot,

Nothing else in the world mattered more.

There wasn’t a happier family than Elliot’s family,

But then, the mother grew very ill.

Lying on her deathbed, she brought her son over

And she gave him an important message.

“Son,” she said, “my time here is short.

“Before I go, I want to tell you this.

“You have a pure spirit and a heart of gold.

“Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

“I won’t mama,” Elliot said. “I promise.”

With a smile on her face, she drew her last breath,

And her spirit flew away with the angels.

Elliot’s father was overwhelmed with grief,

But he felt that his son needed a motherly figure in his life.

So he quickly wedded a new wife,

A wife with a son and a daughter.

He thought that a new mother would bring Elliot joy,

But she only brought him sorrow.

Elliot’s stepmother wasn’t particularly bad,

She was simply indifferent to his presence.

But seeing this dynamic made Elliot’s dad

Feel so sad that he died of grief.

Now Elliot was on his own,

With his stepmother and stepsiblings.

With the breadwinner of the house gone,

The family could no longer afford to keep the staff.

So one by one, they were all laid off,

And sent along their way.

Elliot saw the maid leave last,

And he begged her to stay.

She said she loved him very dear,

But she had a family to care for.

Without the income from his dad,

She simply couldn’t stay anymore.

Without the staff to take care of chores,

The stepmother noticed Elliot more and more,

But she didn’t see him as her own,

Merely as inheritance from her widow.

She decided to make him do all the cleaning,

For it was him who knew how to leave the place beaming.

She thought he should do the cooking too,

For making her own children do it made her blue.

One day, before he was to make the family dinner,

Elliot was cleaning the fireplace.

His body was covered head to toe in ashes and cinder.

His sister passed by and saw him there,

Without any thought and without any care,

She exclaimed, “Cinderelliot! You’re covered in soot!

It’s covered you from your hair to your foot!”

When the others caught word of this cruel nickname,

It became stuck with Elliot, and as of that day,

He was Cinderelliot, the household servant.

Now years passed by of this awful treatment,

But Cinderelliot managed to get by,

While also maintaining his kind heart,

As he promised his mother before her demise.

He’d talk to the birds on his windowsill and the mice in the walls,

They kept him company through many springs and falls.

Sometimes when he finished caring for the horse early,

He took a walk through the woods.

He’d reflect on his life and how drastically it changed

Since his mother and father’s deaths.

On one of these said walks, he came across a beautiful prince on horseback.

The prince was also there reflecting on his life.

When the two talked to each other, they talked for hours.

They had a deep and meaningful conversation about life and purpose.

But then the prince had to go along his way.

As he left, he realized he never caught Cinderelliot's name.

But he figured he’d never see Cinderelliot again.

He thought it was a shame though,

He really liked him, he thought.

But he had to turn his attention to the ball that night.

Many eligible bachelorettes would be there to attempt to wed him.

He was supposed to be excited.

But all he could think about was that wonderful boy in the woods.

Meanwhile, Cinderelliot got home just in time to start getting ready for the ball.

He had a suit that he’d been working on for months.

He just needed fabric for his tie.

Luckily for him, the mice in the walls were able to steal some fabric from the stepsister’s room.

And with that added to the suit, Cinderelliot’s suit was complete.

He was so excited for the ball,

He thought it might be a chance to impress the prince.

But when he got downstairs, his stepmother cried out with laughter.

She declared that it was absurd that Cinderelliot thought that he had a chance with the prince.

He was wasting his time, she declared.

The prince was straight, the stepsister pointed out.

The stepbrother simply remained silent.

But when Cinderelliot insisted on going to the ball,

The sister’s laughter became anger.

In a blind rage, she tore the tie off of Cinderelliot’s neck.

When she realized that the fabric was hers,

She continued tearing apart Cinderelliot’s suit.

The stepbrother stepped in and detained Cinderelliot as she continued to tear his suit apart.

Some of the fabrics were scraps from his parents clothes.

He spent months making sure it was just right.

But to his stepsister, that didn’t matter.

There was no way that her gay stepbrother was going to take the prince away from her.

When she was done, she just stood there and laughed at him.

She saw that Cinderelliot was a mess,

And she enjoyed every minute of it.

With the carriage ready to pull off,

The stepmother and stepsiblings got into the carriage and disappeared.

Cinderelliot ran into his room and cried.

He cried because one fit of rage destroyed months of hard work.

One fit of rage destroyed his chance to reconnect with the prince.

One fit of rage destroyed his chances of getting away from the cruelty.

One fit of rage condemned him to an eternity of servitude.

Or so he thought.

As he was crying, a stylish man appeared before him.

When Cinderelliot looked up, he screamed in terror.

The man told him not to be alarmed,

He was Cinderelliot’s fairy godfather.

Cinderelliot looked confused,

Why didn’t the fairy godfather come sooner, he wondered.

The fairy godfather explained that he could only come at a time of true need.

That only brought up more questions in Cinderelliot’s head.

But the only one he asked was if the fairy godfather could rescue him from this abusive household.

The fairy godfather said that he couldn’t on his own,

But the prince was the key to Cinderelliot getting away from it all.

The fairy godfather could provide Cinderelliot with everything he needed to catch the prince’s attention.

The rest was up to him.

Cinderelliot pointed out how this seemed a little lame,

That it might be more important to get out of his home situation before he tried to get the prince.

But the fairy godfather said that getting the prince was the way out of his situation.

And with that, Cinderelliot gave up on trying to make sense of the situation.

With a few magic words, the fairy godfather was able to give Cinderelliot a brand new suit.

The style was similar to that of his suit, but with a different color scheme.

Next, a pumpkin was transformed into a carriage before Cinderelliot’s eyes.

The fairy godfather then turned the mice into horses and a carriage driver.

He lastly made a special tie to replace the ripped up one.