They always tell you to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge them. You know, ‘they.’ The same ones that tell you your shirt looks nice and you shouldn’t swim after eating or you’ll cramp up and drown.
Well, a fifty-fifty track record is enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt. And when that angry old woman yelled at me I figured hey, why not? I’ve got the morning free anyways, and it’s not like the car hit or nothing. How long could it take? It’s just one mile.
So I tracked her home, broke in, stole a pair of sandals, and now I’m taking a hike. Seemed a bit ethically dubious, but we’re following advice here. Not our legal responsibility.
Well the first few meters of this walk are dull as ditchwater. Sleepy, hungry, poopy, and screamy. Mostly screamy. Screamy, screamy, scream, if you liked screaming so much kid why didn’t your parents NAME you screamy? I figure maybe that’s what this whole deal is all about: everyone was a yelling dingbat from birth, and the sooner you realize it the more sense everything they do will make.
A few more steps and hey, cognition kicks in! Now we’re cooking with gas – and woah, are those legs I see wobbling around underneath me? Hot damn, walking’s fine as can be. Look at how fast you can go! Whoosh – from one side of the room to the other! Whoosh – up the stairs to bug mom! Whoosh – halfway down the stairs backwards!
Wait, ow, ow, ow.
So there’s a broken arm there tagging along. That lasted for a good pace right there, that did, and it just weighed me down like a lead brassiere. The world seemed sadder and greyer, people were meaner, and candy didn’t taste as sweet. Wait, it was hospital candy. Damnit, even the vending machines in those places can’t escape the taint.
The cast popped off and I sort of had to relearn walking, but it was way faster this time. And then came the toys. All those wonderful toys. I’d had a spoiled older brother and my parents weren’t about to go spending good money on new toys just so I wouldn’t be getting any sorts of unwomanly ideas as a week tyke; I got a whole pile of old tin soldiers. They were just sturdy enough to stand up straight after a good stomping and had just the right bit of give to quiver like shell-shocked soldiers after an artillery foot came swooshing through their frontline. Here we were, with world war II just over and I’m already reminding people of the key strategic importance of airborne bombing. Damn I had no style, bringing all that up while everybody’s doing their best to shrug it off and get back to their feet. Not that I have to care about any of that. It all was across the ocean, and the ocean’s really big, like, hugely. I think my guess was about the size of a highway, but water.
Oh wow, what a coincidence. Up next comes the first trip to the ocean. That was a bit of a shocker. Though not as much as the crab in the dress. You jackass Thomas, I barely dented your shitty ol’ tin soldiers and you’d outgrown them, grow the hell up. Yeah that’s right you take that punch, you take it right in the kisser. Kiss through that lip if you can, twitface. Nice shark tooth, and hey, free crafts project! Necklace time with mom as a make-up for the spanking. Yeah, that was a good time there, and a good run.
School. Oh damn, damn, damn and it was all going so well, too. Here’s your As, here’s your Bs, here’s your Cs. Excuse me miss I already know those well shut up and learn them again and you can sit in the corner you little idiot. Education is bliss. Except for math. Math wasn’t hard, and it was even fun. Despite the teacher’s best efforts. What a mouth on that man, not that you could see it under the beard. Christ, looks like a mangy badger bit his fourth chin and never let go.
Now we’re picking up the pace here! School just makes those days fly by, which is funny because every single one feels like it lasts forever. Like filling your pockets full of lead and then falling over, I guess. Hey, right around now I started getting interested in guys. So that’s what that feels like. Aww, I told Clarence how I felt and he told me I smelled gross. Cuuuuute. Oh wait, I feel terrible and I’m crying after I shoved him over and ran away. Do I get cookies for that, mom? Nooo I get told to be nicer. Thanks. Thanks a lot for showing you care NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME.
Score, next week I got cookies. Pure chocolate too, none of that chocolate chip crap. If I’m getting chocolate, I want all the chocolate. Don’t chip off what you can just chuck in.
I really got into my stride now, time just flapping by. No more toys, no more games, just run, run, run. Run through school, run through a part-time typist job, run as fast as you can until high school’s over and you’re still doing the same part-time job and your boyfriend just drove into a street lamp and got himself killed without a seat belt.
Ow. Now that hurts. Really tore me up inside, y’know? Hadn’t felt that bad in a few forevers. Lots of crying, lots of yelling. A few fights with mom. Time’s crawling now, but the days are still sailing by, year by year. More jobs, more fights. Booze started to show up just now too, and look who’s my new best friend! Wow, I went from Lucy Lily-Liver to Sally Chugsalot overnight – check out that vodka action! Stagger in awe as I down whole bottles of substances served in small glasses! Behold as I end up in the hospital after another few hundred yards of this and a near-fatal encounter with alcohol poisoning!
Hey, that doctor looked really nice. Aw well, you can’t mix business and flirty looks, hippopotomi oaths and all that. Besides, I can’t really ask him out for drinks.
Oh. Well, I guess I did. And hey, I just took water. And a ring. And a really nice dress mom had been saving in mothballs for a few decades. Aw jeez, did we really cry when we were hugging? No, no, that was just her. I just got my eyes all wrinkly from the mothballs and it squeezed out some moisture, that’s all.
Whatever.
Wow, that’s the smoothest stretch I’ve travelled yet. Nice and firm-packed, well worn as the stones in my sneakers, but still dreamy with misty memories. I can ever tell what colour the floorboards were: some incompetent idiot’s efforts at fixing up the varnish had left it a half-and-half piebald. The stained glass made up for it, except for that one window right over the altar where they made Jesus all cross-eyed and it was pretty funny because Mary looked so pleased about it in a quiet way. “Oh good, my son is healthy and the son of god and also god and also his eyeballs nearly meet. This is a good day.”
Yeowch those details flew away fast underfoot! The moment that altar goes into sight, it just tunnel visions away from all those flights of fancy and turns into a deadlocked sight aimed right at that man’s face. Hah, he flubbed the kiss – poor sucker forgot to shave and I nearly chewed the stubble off his lip. But it was so cute.
Now what’s that up ahead in the road, eh? I think it’s.
Well.
I’ll just.
Uh.
Avert my eyes a bit here.
Don’t want to be a rubbernecker or anything. Besides, I’m sure the next big thing’ll stick out (ha ha oh god don’t look) just fine AAAUGH MY GUT IS ENORMOUS. Jesus I can’t sleep on my freaking back OW OW OW my feet are sore ARRRRRRGH VOMITING.
The road here is a goddamned mess. It’s swerving up and down and all around and I think it just did a triple backflip and I can’t tell because I’m delirious with sleep deprivation from something kicking my stomach from the inside out GO TO SLEEP YOU LITTLE SHITHEAD IT’S FIVE IN THE MORNING.
Okay, okay. I can calm down now. Wow that last ways just dragggged. But we’re almost half a mile down now, and HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNGHHH.
Aww. She is just precious. I hope someone wrote down the name, because I am gonna pass out now.
Right, all’s well. I think I can get moving a bit faster from here on out, seeing as I’ve gained some valuable perspective on why someone would yell at me for no goddamned reason because Jesus fucked if that isn’t a good excuse. Now I can just pick up this particular pace and take it past that incessant screaming, screaming, screaming and get all the way into OH COME ON NOT TWICE? TWICE? Really. Really. I just went through all that last year and now I get to do it again? Well, at least it can’t be as bad the second ti
Nope.
And this is where the pacing goes all funny and it turns into one sprint at the speed of snail’s molasses dropped into quicksand. That first third of this mile I had to walk? It sprints by in a few steps and a bound for those two girls of mine. I’ve barely budged before they’re crawling, then walking, then talking back (skip just plain talking, it’s of no mind and no notice to anyone). And just like that, without moving much farther I’m old. How can’t you help but feel old when you look at something that young? They’d turn a mayfly of sixteen hours into a grizzled grandfather by comparison.
I’m so proud of them that I can’t help but yell at them day and night until they move their beautiful, clever, lazy asses out because they’re sure as hell not giving me any rest until they do.
Now I’ve got all the time in the world to rest, and I’m lonely, lonely, lonely. Then they come for a visit and afterwards it isn’t so bad. And well, it’s not like I’ve got no company. I’ve got him, right?
Oh. Something else got him too.
My these feet are just flying now over these souls of mine. I’d better keep running in case I have to look back.
Check it out! Grandkids! Well damnit if I can’t taste that arthritis as it crackles through joints and up into bones. Cute as buttons – can’t have gotten that from my son-in-laws. Aw bless their hearts, I taught ’em a few bad words. Hah, that look on your momma’s face isn’t going to leave my memory that easy. Good as a photograph it is. Yessir this whole day’s been alright, time to go get a snack with the kids AW C’MON SON I ALMOST RAN US OVER FUCKIN’ HOOLIGAN DAMN RIGHT I’M GIVING ME THE FINGER I COULD’VE KILLED A LITTLE KID ASSHAT.
Well.
Well now. I’d better put these back; they’re a little sweaty but I bet she’d like to keep them. Lotta stories in your average set of feet, more than I’d have guessed. Strange mile to walk though. Clock says nothing and reads nothing, mind says about sixty years.
Wait a second, I forgot something. I walk, and then I, then I…
Yeah, then I judge, that’s it. But there’s no way I’m picking that lock twice, say nothing about walking that mile all over.
Aw well, law’s too much of a pain in the ass anyways.