Joint Second Prize Winner in Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association Flash Fiction Competition 2006. Read by Jules Horne.

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Shoes

Chrissie’s right shoe developed a hole. Fortunately the weather was dry.

She hated the public ordeal of buying shoes. Who ever had the confidence to ask for a private fitting room?

Her sister, who worked in a shoe shop one summer, told her the girls never stooped down to help customers try on the shoes. The smell, she said.

Chrissie blushed for her swollen ankles, her bunion and support stockings.

She disliked self service shops where you browse through single shoes on racks, make a choice, and stand on one foot to try it on, blocking the aisle. She went there once, and the very idea put her in a panic.

One Sunday she went to church and knelt in prayer. Not for Chrissie the modern half crouch. She was kneeling properly. Thus the soles of her shoes were exposed to the stranger who sat behind her.

As they left the church he pressed some banknotes into her hand with the words “Buy yourself some new shoes”.

When he was out of sight, she dropped the money in the Steeple Fund collecting box.

In the matter of buying shoes you’re embarrassed if you do, and embarrassed if you don’t.


© Janette Walkinshaw 2006