Allison's Shoes
They were an off red color, the color of autumn leaves right before they turn brown.They were maimed, with burns on the edges, scratches near the heels, and worn, smooth soles. Allison’s combat boots were used to the wear and tear of the day, but now they lay at the feet of her bed, slowly collecting dust.Everything else in her room had been carefully rearranged into a tidy space, except for her shoes. Against her white carpet, they looked like an ugly scar, the type that doesn't go away even after years of expensive creams and treatments. They stood in an angry red, daring any passerby to move them from their spot on the floor.
They had character. The exterior leather was weathered down by the Earth, but inside they were lined with soft fleece, so warm that nobody who wore them ever wanted to take them off. On rainy days, they would squeak against the cracked surface of asphalt that filled the streets and crunch against the dried up leaves that filled Allison’s driveway. The black soles were constantly falling off the main shoe no matter how much super glue and duct tape were applied to them to make it stay. They always seemed to fall apart, no matter
how many times they were put back together. They were so used that when it snowed, they would dampen Allison’s socks because the soles were that thin.
The laces were too short for the shoe, and they hung off of them in a splash of multicolored strings. Purple, black and yellow strings made up the laces, all braided up tightly together to make it look like as if one.
They were old and tattered and anybody who was in they're right mind wouldn't hesitate to throw them away, to put them to rest for once and for all. But these were special shoes. They walked hundreds of miles, dueled against snow, rain, sand, even fire! They were the shoes that
saved the world.
But those days were all over now. Now, they lay quietly at the foot of the bed, waiting for something that was uncertain. Now, instead of running along city sidewalks , they were stagnant and still, hardly anything at all. Instead of being weathered down by the outside world, they were slowly rotting from the water that was still inside them and that was slowly seeping deeper as
each day passed.The rich off red hue that they once were faded to the color of rust and the laces turned black. They shriveled up from disuse but refused to be forgotten. They tripped her parents when they weren’t looking and made her sister stumble head first into the floor. They stood in her
white carpet in defiance, reminding everyone around them of their existence.
Still, that didn't change the fact of the matter. It didn't matter how many times,the boots were seen or remembered, because the world was still turning, the days were still changing, but but they were stuck, forever frozen in the same spot.