Drops of ripe currant
stained my white boots, yesterday in the garden.
It's a July afternoon. The speaker in the classroom is telling us how to write a good story, but I look in front of me – at feet and body parts.
I've been studying them for months, in weekly meetings with suspended words, chats on books and songs, jokes about the news, anger, memories, and other wonders.
I always write down everything on my notebook. Sometimes I also draw: a profile or the traits of a mouth. A fixed expression and a surprised one.
It's a July afternoon. The speaker in the classroom is telling us how to write a good story, but I look in front of me – at feet and body parts.
I've been studying them for months, in weekly meetings with suspended words, chats on books and songs, jokes about the news, anger, memories, and other wonders.
I always write down everything on my notebook. Sometimes I also draw: a profile or the traits of a mouth. A fixed expression and a surprised one.
But today I look at the
shoes.
Apart from the drops of
ripe currant, my boots are white. Summer Indian boots with a round of
studs. Once polished, they're beautiful again. The other shoes in the
circle of chairs before me on large, long feet are sandals and
sneakers.
I stare at the thighs in
front of me: long muscles wrapped in a pigeon-coloured denim; at the
end of big, hairy, honey-blond, almost thick ankles, there are
matching shoes. Suede loafers, expensive and light on the feet.
Clean. Almost new: the crêpe
rubber is little worn, the upper looks uncut
and moss-coloured stitching perfectly mark the edge.
Fashionable dainty loafers of beige light leather, untreated, for great comfort and healthy feet.
Fashionable dainty loafers of beige light leather, untreated, for great comfort and healthy feet.
They're not as dirty as
my boots. They have no stains of grass, or fruit, or mud.
Indeed, they're always
very clean; but I seem to notice only on a summer day of rain. They
will never get dirty, you see.
They can not get filthy,
torn or worn. No gravel or sun, no sand or grass. No dirt or debris
from the newly paved roads of summer construction sites at every
crossroad. They don't walk or stop at the lights.
No puddles to avoid for
these smooth shoes of untreated leather.
Sure, walk they do: many steps are taken in the delicate shades of moss with the untouched upper and the clean seams: dry and dusty hallways is what they cross.
Every day, they pass gates, run through corridors, and return, the suede loafers, so dainty, so soft and so neat; they cross a room and reach a window, they slow down at a sink, stop in front of a bed.
Sure, walk they do: many steps are taken in the delicate shades of moss with the untouched upper and the clean seams: dry and dusty hallways is what they cross.
Every day, they pass gates, run through corridors, and return, the suede loafers, so dainty, so soft and so neat; they cross a room and reach a window, they slow down at a sink, stop in front of a bed.
Get in the shower in the
morning, to the library now and again.
Stand in the chapel and
attend Mass on Sunday; once a week, they go see Mum.
And when I leave, on
Fridays, the neat, soft and so dainty lightweight loafers walk back
into a cell.
For these lightweight
loafers that are so soft and dainty and neat, they dress the
feet of a killer, you see.
From: 2 or 3 Things I know about Killers
§ The Shoes
