is like that awful moment when cinderella realizes that the clock has struck midnight and runs down the ballroom steps madly, losing a glass slipper, finding her ballroom gown has turned to tatters and her carriage to a pumpkin!

on a sidenote:

that part about the slipper was never rationalized. why would everything turn back to tatters but one slipper? perhaps it's the idea of the in-between state, left as they were on the steps. they didn't have to turn back... or was it that the clock hadn't yet struck 12 when it fell off?

i think it's also the idea that the slipper stood for the truth, the 'wealth' of cinderella's true nature, etc.