My friend Laurie wrote about a pair of flip-flops on a bridge in her hometown, here in this article. In it she made a comment about it would be a great beginning for a novel. So I wrote one. Well, not exactly. I wrote a very short piece about my version of abandoned flip-flops. Who knows, maybe someday I will write that novel, Laurie. Enjoy.
***
The golden fingers of dawn spread across the Texas Hill Country as Sarah began her morning walk across the nearby bridge in her small hometown. She stopped to watch the water rush underneath slamming into the big boulders and rolling down the piles of smaller rocks. A cool quiet morning. This time of year was delightful, autumn was in the air.
Sarah was wearing her favorite black flip-flops. Not many days left of this year would she wear them since winter would soon be setting in. She stood in the center of the bridge inhaling the cool crisp air and gazing over the landscape as the colors of the trees had started to turn.
Not giving it any thought she stepped out of her shoes to feel the coolness of the ground against her bare feet. Then without hesitation she climbed up onto a comfortable perch of the tree that hung over the bridge to sit and watch. The leaves had not started falling so no one could see her as they passed by.
From her hidden vantage point, she could see her black flip-flops below, abandoned mid-stride on the concrete walkway. The left one slightly ahead of the right, as if their owner had simply dissolved into the morning air. She settled in to watch what would unfold.
This wasn’t a planned activity. She didn’t wake up this morning thinking she would spend the day in a tree watching people puzzle over her abandoned shoes. But that is where the day went.
The first visitor arrived, the morning jogger. A woman in her forties, wearing a running outfit and expensive running shoes, she stopped short at the sight of the abandoned flip-flops.
Sarah could hear her muttering as she dabbed the sweat from her face with a small towel she had wrapped around her neck.
“My goodness,” she said, “just like my daughter, leaving her shoes by the pool before she…” The woman crossed herself at the heart and hurried away, her pace a little faster than she arrived.
Shortly after, two young mothers pushing strollers paused next to the shoes.
“They look like they’re waiting for the owner to step right back into them,” one of the woman said, as she adjusted the babies blanket inside the stroller.
“Like Cinderella, but with flip-flops,” her friend said laughing. “Maybe Prince Charming swept her out of her shoes and carried her away to his castle,” they both laughed.
A teenage girl with blue hair and multiple piercings appeared on the bridge. She had a camera in hand, and slowly photographed the shoes from various angles.
“This is totally aesthetic,” she declared to no one. “The abandoned footwear speaks to the transient nature of human existence. Its, like, deep. Content with her shots she walked away.
Sarah was so intrigued by the events taking place all over the pair of flip-flops she decided to stay put a while longer.
It was lunchtime and a detective emerged from his parked car at the end of the bridge, walked towards the middle, probably to enjoy the view but was distracted by the shoes. He circled them twice, hands in his pockets, examining the scene with a professional interest. “No signs of struggle,” he murmured. “No signs of flight, as in jumping off the bridge. Just…stepped out of them.” He stood staring at the shoes, shook his head and walked back to his car turning to look back three times.
Twenty minutes later a young couple spent several minutes crafting an elaborate story about an alien abduction. Sarah fought to hold back her laughter so no one would notice her in the tree above them.
The young man laughed and said, “the tractor beam wouldn’t take synthetic material so the shoes got left behind!”
The afternoon had started to fade when an elderly man with a cane walked over the bridge and stood a long time gazing at the flip-flops.
“Martha,” he said softly, remember how you’d kick off your shoes every chance you got? Said you could feel the earth better with bare feet…” He wiped his eyes and moved on slowly.
The last visitor was a little girl and her father.
“But daddy, why would someone leave their shoes?”
“Sometimes, sweetheart, people need to feel free for a while.”
The girl nodded in agreement. “Like when I take my shoes off at the the beach?”
“Exactly,” he said.
Right before sunset Sarah climbed down from her seat, muscles were stiff from sitting all day. She walked to her flops, still in the same position as she’d left them early that morning. She slipped her feet back into them, smiled, remembering all the stories and comments she had heard throughout the day.
It all started with a simple impulse to feel the morning air and the cool ground against her bare feet, and what it gave her was an unexpected glimpse into the hearts and minds of a few strangers, each one weaving their own tale around her abandoned shoes. Layers of imagination and memories now wrapped around a single, ordinary pair of black flip-flops.
As she walked home, her feet making the familiar slapping sound against the pavement thinking about this simple autumn day in the Hill Country.