"She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima-donna legs." (Updike, 17)
This jumped out at me for a number of reasons. One is that I have been a victim of bullying so many times it is hard to count. I was bullied by girls that seemed like the girl in the story. She was walking like a queen, with her faithful subjects by her side and no one could tell her what to do. The girls that plagued my childhood always walked like that - like they ruled everything they oversaw and found it and the people in it lacking in some way.
Another reason why this struck me is that I've tried to walk like that. As if I were a queen, intimidated by nothing, and felt like a fraud while doing it - most of the time. Sometimes I do feel like a queen, when I'm going somewhere I feel as if I fit in, or am at least comfortable, such as home, where only my feline overlords bully me.
I can be at least a princess there.
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