When Carlos was three, his parents took him down to the river, and he saw the footprints.
They were very big – much larger than he was – and even at that age he knew that wasn’t quite normal, and was probably very special. He was so overwhelmed with their size that he couldn’t quite bring himself to remember much else about them; impressions of shape and depth and so on slid off his mind like water from an eggshell. The one detail that stayed with him was their colour: the sand in them was a deep soft dark brown, shaded by the edges of the prints.
He took a step forward, then another, and he was just teetering on the edge of the hole, one leg raised, when his father’s arms wrapped around him and he heard the ever-hated words ‘time to leave’ and oh how he whimpered over that.
But he couldn’t cry, because he knew he’d be back.
Next time they came back, the prints were missing. If it was some wandering dog or a bored teenager or a rainfall or a big splash he never knew, but they weren’t there. And that was when the troubles started.
“He won’t listen,” the teachers said, which wasn’t fair or true, and “he can’t do the simplest thing right,” which was. It was as if someone had wrapped Carlos up in a blanket and every little thing he had to do was conducted through blind fumbling past layers of thick, muffling cloth. He could walk, he could talk, he could listen, but when it came to execution someone had replaced all of his fingers with thumbs and his arms with jelly.
He graduated with the lowest marks in the school or indeed ever – a note of some distinction – and he listened to what his teachers told him and his father had casually mentioned once or twice and he joined the army.
His marks kept him out of a lot of things, but they gave him a gun. Then he cleaned it very carefully and put it back together backwards. Then he did that again, and again, and when he did it properly they said he’d taken too long. So that was a problem.
Drills should’ve been easy. Just walk. But it was always a little too slow, or a little too fast, and whenever it wasn’t one or the other his legs would wander off on him.
“The hell’s the matter with you?” the drill sergeant asked him. “You got two left feet? Can’t be, ‘cause the doctors would’ve kicked you out. Now pull your head out of your ass and MARCH.”
He tried, he really did, he tried so very hard. But it just didn’t work, and shortly thereafter, neither did he.
After that the ideas were thinner on the ground, but sometimes he found places that needed something mopped, or some papers stapled, or boxes moved, or data entered. But wherever he went it was as if a song was playing, and everyone but him could hear it.
“Won’t listen,” said his boss, and there was a familiar tune, with memorable lyrics. “Just simple things, but he takes forever over it. The guy’s a burnout.”
Carlos was listening – he always listened – but he found himself agreeing. Something had burned out, right there, in his life. And nobody seemed to be able to find a spare match for him.
Then he missed rent.
Twice.
Three times.
It was five strikes in the end, some louder and sharper than others, and really it could’ve been as many as seven or as few as four depending on how you counted them – less a hard line than a fat blur. He spent more time out of his apartment until he didn’t have one anymore.
The streets were no less confusing than the buildings had been. There were things he could’ve done, should have done, would have done; but Carlos remembered how all the rest of the things he could have and should have and would have done went and so he didn’t. Instead he walked until he got tired, then he sat, then he walked again.
Eventually he sat down and fell asleep.
When he woke up he was tired, so tired, and very thirsty.
The river was a terrible idea. Don’t put that in your mouth, he’d been told. It’s dirty. Needs boiling. But it was nearby and he was exhausted and what was one more bad idea?
Almost enough, it turned out. He did more sitting than walking, and by the time the evening took him to its brink his eyes saw more spots than sunlight. The bugs were free and fierce upon him.
Carlos found the water by toe, then fell in, but it was summer and at low ebb so he couldn’t even drown properly, just sputter and splash and eventually scrabble himself into something of a slouched squat. It felt like his skin was boiling off his bones, but calmly.
He drank, and it tasted just as nasty as his parents had always warned him. Grit got in his mouth, and maybe a bug too listless to even fight back. But it cleared the spots from his face, and that was when Carlos could see that he was sitting on the cusp of a footprint.
It looked bigger than he remembered. Surely before it hadn’t filled the streambed, or else someone else would have seen it, or failed to destroy it.
Slowly, carefully, precisely, Carlos put his foot down.
It fit perfectly. Not well, but perfectly.
Then he picked up his other foot and put it down, and that too fit perfectly.
And then he did it again, and again, and moved forward, upstream, walking smoothly, carefully, and in a rhythm that matched the water flowing around his ankles.
They were far too big for him. But maybe he’d grow into them until they fit.