Shoes


 * Shoes **

**By Sara Romine **

“If walls could talk...” Ah, but what if shoes could talk? Shoes lie beneath you, carrying your weight and protecting you from the dangers in your path. The shoes know where you've been and with each step you've taken, your shoes have been right there with you soaking in each shock of each leap and each fall. The shoes hold every bit of your past in all its tears and broken seams. They are the evidence of the life you have lived, the journeys you have taken and the pain you have endured.

Long walnut brown hair falls in ringlets along the borders of a tan sun kissed face. Dark brown eyes full of excitement and ambition far too great to be possibly contained in such a small and petite figure, dance with jubilant enthusiasm. Yet her clothes dissolve these delicate features. An enveloping jacket swallows the girl like a curtain misplaced. Denim cut-offs cling to her waist by a jungle of a belt made from scavenged pieces of lost material. The blouse she wears is breezy and hangs loosely with freedom. Multiple lost-and-found objects are hung by knots on to any capable surface. Various pieces of jewelry brush against her skin with rustic beauty as they dance with each movement she makes. There is no doubt that from the moment this peculiar girl reaches the horizon of a stranger's vision; she immediately sets off an alarm of curiosity and wonder.

The mysterious female is unaware of the scene before her. The rare expression upon her face is dawned between oblivious insanity and fierce determination as she paces back and forth eagerly nibbling the nail of her right index finger. Suddenly she is erupted from her deep thoughts and confined to a comfortable chair where she drowns herself into relaxing solitude. Her feet are placed on the surface of an olive-green peanut shell trunk. With the hollow heel of her merciful pair of oxfords she drums herself a tune continuously as an unconscious habit.

The leather skin is cracked and dry, torn at the seams and on the brink of utter termination. Holes are greeted in the once fine brown leather with a needle filled of anguish and a thread of reluctance. The poor oxfords have lived through much more than the rest of the girl's wardrobe. Yet the shoes strive on to exceed the expectations of their owner. With bizarre gratitude the untamed female shares her wondrous secrets of her past with these loyal oxfords. Every hole and every tear bring a marvelous memory to the shoe, the memories of a long and broad voyage. And if the girl ever ceases to remember the journeys she has lived in those young and adventurous years then at least the oxfords will have a story to tell of their own.

Adventure has truly lived up to its definition in the heart of this young nomad and when she finds herself in a place of content, she will commit and in some safe place the shoes shall reside until some other youthful adventurous lost soul catches it's glimpse and takes off with high spirits to the world unknown. =To Kill a Mockingbird =