A head bop and a grin. Coffee mug in hand, the boy paraded back to his desk. His business shoes were worn, the scrapes created cheetah like blemish spots on the dark brown leather revealing the material’s lighter more vulnerable shade. One could imagine him with the same smile the first day he put those shoes on. “Do you want a bag?” the shoe store lady asked. “No, I believe I will wear them out thank you very much!” The boy said as he handed her a pair of tattered tennis sneakers. With the bag of old shoes in hand, out the wide glass door he tore off onto the linoleum floored freeway of the mall. He didn’t even bother to check his rear view mirror or signal left before merging out of the store front, no need to, he was moving too deliberately for people not to watch out. He cut through the crowds of shoppers and that unique salty smell that fills the entire building, beginning in the depths of the parking garage below. It is a smell that no single nor coupling of food can create, it is the culmination of all that the mall is. Starting with squeaking cars and dirty door handles, continuing with the fountains filled with pennies and toy shops that leak a symphony of 8 bit sounds, it is the smell of hasty shopping, naïve first flirtations and hopeful glances. The boy cuts through all of this and briskly leaves it all behind him in an invisible wake. Arms swinging, hand clasped into a fist around the bag, keeping an eye out for anything reflective that will frame himself, and his recently acquired $56.95 worth of leather bound glory.
Now, compared to the other shoes in his office the scrapes shout out imperfections. Yet perfections do not tell stories, perfections polished to a T reveal the mundane truth that, they merely have no imperfections because they have not been tested in any form or function. They haven’t walked through the woods late at night to meet friends at a fire, kicking around embers. They haven’t lifted a skateboard into the air, receiving a single hash mark where the smallest toe resides, notching the event. They haven’t been scraped to reveal the true color of the leather and their owner.
