red shoes by George Marshall
A young man knelt down an Fulton Bridge. The river below was
swollen from recent rains. It was so high on the banks that saplings
were bent hard and whipped and frothed in the muddy water.
He was studying a very youthful pair of red shoes laid out neatly on
the sidewalk halfway across the rounded toe. They clasped with thin
straps and delicate buckles. His stomach clamped and churned.
“Surely such a young girl could not commit so desperate an act” he
thought as he gazed through the posts to the torrent below.
He studied the shoes inside and out. In the interior lining he found
embroidered in pink thread the name ‘Sophie’. He gave a sigh of
relief.
“Ah, Sophie, what is she up to now?”
Sophie stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, a small puddle at her
bare feet, her clothes damp and her dark hair frizzled.
Sophie’s mother stood before her tapping her foot. The look in her
eyes vacillated between frustration and bewilderment, “it is not
summer yet Sophie, not even close. What are you doing barefoot?”
“There is no relief for the little ones”
Sophie replied.
“The little who, Sophie?”
“The little people Mother, the ones who live under the bridge.”
“Ok Sophie, now tell me… Oh Sophie, dear, honey,
sweetheart…WHAT LITTLE PEOPLE!”
“Mother, the rain swept under the bridge something awful, didn’t
you know? It’s just terrible and all those little shoes will be soaked
like prunes.”
Mother was looking through the window at the neighbor girls off to
ballet lessons. Normal girls, content to do normal things. Those girls
are wearing shoes just as they should be in March. Normal.
“Now dear,” mother implored “I’m sure the little people have
contingency plans, living as they do all winter long under the bridge,
who knows, perhaps for generations. Surely they have ways and
means of keeping their shoes dry and do not require little girls to
donate shoes that have been purchased by loving parents with hard
earned money.”
“Mother, little people live under the bridge for our sake, in case we
fall in, in order to rescue us mother, we can’t just say ‘stay warm
and dry’ after all they do for us.”
“But sweetheart, nor can we afford to sacrifice our livelihood. Where
did you leave your shoes?”
“On the Fulton Bridge.”
“Oh great, well what makes you think the little people will find them
there?”
“When they come up at night they will find them.”
“Get your tennis shoes on and change out of that damp sweater.
We are going to get those shoes!”
Just then the doorbell rang. At the door stood John Case with a pair
of red shoes in his hand. Sophie glared at him with piercing black
eyes.
“Pneumonia is a terrible thing in little people,”
She said bitterly and sulked darkly to her room.