A Short Story Collection #Wattys2018

Leather Shoes

For some reason, we were given a pair of shoes. It didn't matter what, but you had to write a perspective from the shoes ("take a walk in their shoes"). We could pick the POV for this and write our own story. This is what I had with my leather shoes.

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The person was only in town for a brief period of time. They came in with the storm that tore apart our town. It uprooted trees pulled up telephone poles, and ripped the roofs off of houses and businesses. People were scared to leave their homes and go outside afraid to see a dead body or something, but we had to if we wanted to clean up and fix everything that was ruined. That's when we first saw the person.

They were standing in the middle of the road holding a trash bag and had gloves and was picking up shingles that were scattered about all over the road and yards. The person wore an oversized trench coat over an oversized hoodie that covered its face and made it impossible to figure out the person's identity and gender.

It took us three months and a day to get everything cleaned, fixed, and stable to use. Our mysterious friend stayed with us the whole time working all day alongside us without taking a break even though we offered them. What stuck out the most to me were the boots worn. They were made of worn brown leather and were quite large.

One day while we were re-painting the road, someone accidentally splattered their boots with yellow paint. Another day when they were replacing the rocks lining the side of the roads, they got little white rocks stuck in the grooves of the bottom right shoe.

The last day we saw them was the day we re-opened a main road in our town. They were crossing the street when a car came flying down hitting them and then exploding in flames. Once we got the flames out to look for them, they were gone. In their place were the boots worn with a note saying "My name is Taylor."

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