Yesterday, I wrote this inspired by a wedge that I saw on subway tracks the day before yesterday. Tamsin Flowers shared with me that she always wondered how shoes ended up on the highway…my character had one more shoe, so I decided to explore that…
Her bare feet were on the dashboard. It was pitch black outside, except for the stars that were piercing white almost like the sun. She was being a bit of a monster. A spoiled child really, daring him again. He did, threw her other wedge out of the car and onto the highway. Every time she saw stray shoes on subway tracks, trees or highways, she wondered how they got there. Once a bully snatched her new mary jane from her foot and hid it. Her mother was so mad at her, did not care that she had been bullied. Now she was bullying and hoping to be bullied now in a grownup way.
photo by f dot leonora
I’ve always looked at stray shoes and wondered how they ended up alone on the side of the road. Then a few years back my Mom had an argument with my stepfather. He had spent much of the weekend at the cottage drunk and making a mess of things my mother was trying to clean up. On their way home she was pissed and he was being a drunken ass. When he asked her why she was pissed at him she said some of the things he did, one of them getting up on a dining room chair with his muddy shoes on, he took one off and threw it out the car window. Now when I see those stray shoes all I can picture is him doing that.
Stella
thank you, especially for the anecdote…it is amazing the things we carry around. memories…