Wandering Soles

“Soles,” read the sign that hung above the small store; “Walk In Their Shoes” written below it. The motto caught my eye on my way home from work, and the color-faded sneakers on my feet were ogling it too. A little bell rang as I opened the door, the inside smelling like leather. There were rows of shelves with dozens of pairs of shoes, all different kinds. An old man sitting behind the register perked his head up as he saw me.

“Hello. How can I help you?”

“Uh, just browsing.”

“Alright, let me know if you need anything.”

I skimmed down the aisles as I scanned the shoes with my gaze. There were sneakers, boots, high heels; anything you could think of. Almost all of them seemed old or worn. The first pair I pulled off the shelves were loafers, something nice that I wear to work or fancy events. Its black leather was creased but intact, and the metal buckle still shined. As I continued down the aisles, the next pair of shoes I found were white air force ones with only a moderate amount of stains. With enough scrubbing, I could make them look brand new. So I took them as well. And finally, I came across a scuffed pair of dark brown boots. They looked good for winter time so I tucked them between my arms along with the other two pairs.On a tight budget, I figured that was enough. I dumped the pairs onto the counter as the old man looked up.

“Is this all?”

I nodded. He typed on a cash register, his eyes darting to each pair as the keys clicked. I handed him crumbled bills as he put the shoes in brown boxes.

“Have a nice day, and enjoy their shoes.”

“… Thank you.”

I furrowed my brows as I turned away, his wording confusing me. THEIR shoes; It was an odd thing to say, and it stuck to the back of my mind on the way home. As I stepped inside, I set the boxes down and unpacked them. It wasn’t a traditional shoe store, so I had to hope they’d all fit right. I decide to unpack the loafers first, knowing I’d be wearing those the most. Sitting on my bed, I slipped the first one onto my foot. I wiggled my toes around as I felt the fit of the shoe. It fit perfectly, but with one of my feet being slightly bigger than the other, I decided to try the other one on just to make sure. As I slipped it on, I felt this drowsiness cloud over me. My eyelids sank as my vision blurred, nausea brewing in my stomach. Suddenly, the softness of my bed beneath me grew hard, the temperature around me dropping to a chill. As my vision cleared, I looked around and realized I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore. I was in a hospital room, the beeping of a heart rate monitor filling the silent room. I looked down at myself as I was wearing clothes I didn’t recognize, but I still had on the black loafers. Then, I realized there was a shaking hand wrapped around mine. A dying woman laid in the bed; she was old, losing hair, and visibly tired. I didn’t recognize her, yet I felt like I knew exactly who she was. I felt like she raised me, and now she was dying right before my eyes. I wiped away a tear as the preparation for grief became overwhelming. She smiled at me weakly with fading eyes.

“I can’t do this without you… I can’t be here with you,” I sobbed.

I spoke with no control, but I didn’t feel like I was lacking control either.

“Yes you can… I’ve prepared you for it all of your life.”

I leaned in as she kissed my forehead softly, gently wiping away a tear.

“Take good care of Gigi for me, would you?”

I nodded with a smile as tears continued to stream. Somehow that name was familiar too, more than familiar. That was my sister, her face popping into my head. Another person I didn’t recognize yet did at the same time. In the moment, it felt impossible to question what was going on, as if it was normal. As I sat back down, I watched life disappear from her as her heart rate flattened. I collapsed into tears, the drops soaking into my pants. The pain was something I had never felt before, it was consuming. Everything felt like it was over, like it was crashing down. Suddenly, I turned to a cracked window that let in a cold, gentle breeze. My face continued to crumble as I rushed towards it. Prying it open, the wind began brushing my hair back as I lifted my foot onto the windowsill. As I balanced on it, I held onto the edges of the window as I looked down. Vertigo hit me like a train as nausea brewed in my stomach. The distance from the window to the ground was terrifying, but enough. I turned to my mother one last time, her corpse lying peacefully on the bed.

“I’m sorry…”

I propelled myself from the windowsill and out into the open air. I squeezed my eyes tight as I freefell, the powerful wind deafening as I pressed against me. As I continued to fall, awaiting the end, I opened my eyes. And as I did, watching the pavement below me quickly grow closer, all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to die. But it was too late, as I was now closer to the ground than I was to the safety of the windowsill beneath my feet. I clenched my eyes again as I reached the ground, experiencing a near split second of a gnarly crunching sound in my ears as everything blinked to blackness. Suddenly, I found myself in my bedroom again, my feet safely on the wooden floorboards. My body trembled as my eyes darted around. I tried to tell myself I had just fallen asleep, but it was all too real. I felt all of it. After quickly kicking the shoes off, I stuffed them back in the box and crammed them in my closet. But as terrifying as it was, something about it intrigued me deeply. To be able to literally walk in the shoes of somebody else, it’s something you can never truly comprehend. Especially someone else’s final moments. So I decided that, after taking a break from the first experience, I would try the next pair of shoes tomorrow and see if they would have the same effect. I struggled to fall asleep that night; thinking about the body that I inhabited. To think that he would’ve done anything to have gone back but couldn’t… It unsettled me, to say the least. The next morning, I decided that I wouldn’t be taking my worn down running shoes on my morning run. Instead, I pulled out the box that contained the sneakers. Dropping them by my feet, I took a deep breath before slipping my first foot inside. Then, I prepared for the heaviness to drape onto me as I put on the second shoe. But, to my surprise, nothing happened. I sat and waited for a moment, the untied shoes on my feet. And it still didn’t happen. I thought maybe I had just struck lucky with one pair that happened to be owned by a dead person. I trotted down my apartment steps and stepped outside. The sun beamed down on me as I queued up a song on my phone and slipped in my earbuds. Then, as I planted my feet onto the ground and began to run, the haze clouded me. Just like last time, my vision blurred. But I could still feel my legs moving, one foot in front of the other. As my music drowned out into white noise, and eventually silence, I felt my evermoving feet plant onto the floor again. My lungs and heart blazed with exhaustion as I found myself flying down what appeared to be a school hallway. I didn’t know why I was running, but I knew that pure and utter fear coursed through my veins and fueled my legs. Then, as I ran, a smeared trail of blood paralleled to me. As I ran down it, my body trembled as it led to the body of a young girl lying in a pool of blood. Bullet holes riddled her body and her backpack. Then, that’s when the deafening sound of rapid gunfire went off, and I remembered why I was running. I managed to run even faster as blood curdling screams echoed throughout the empty halls; backpacks and binders dumped across the floors. I needed somewhere to hide, so I began pounding on the first door next to me. I tugged on its locked handle as I pleaded for help.

“I’M A STUDENT! I SWEAR! PLEASE LET ME IN! I DON’T WANNA DIE!”

The door quickly cracked open as someone yanked me inside a dark room. A teacher closed the door behind us and locked it again, prompting me to sit in the corner with everyone else as she shushed us. I dropped to the floor and squeezed in with everyone, the silent room filled with the sounds of restrained sobs and shaking breaths. Fellow students next to me had their phones out, their trembling fingers quickly typing out their goodbyes. Knowing there was a chance this was it, I pulled out my phone and quickly began texting my parents.

“Shooting at school. I love you.”

Unable to handle their responses, I slid my phone back into my pocket as I prayed. Then, all of our bodies winced as the sound of muffled gunfire boomed from outside. Students clamped their mouths shut as they bottled up screams in their throats. Suddenly, the room erupted in terror as bullets began to tear through the wooden door. Everyone in the room scattered as those who couldn’t move fast enough slumped against the blood splattered wall. Cramped in another corner, everyone quietly sobbed as light from the hallway poured through the bullet holes. Then, the crowd screamed as the shooter began kicking in the door. With each pound, our bodies jolted. Suddenly, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I told myself I couldn’t handle what my parents would say, but if I was going to die, I needed to know. So I quickly pulled my phone out and shakily opened the message.

“Are you okay?? I love you so much baby.”

Then, as I looked up, the shooter had the door down and was in the room. With a burst of fire, he had the teacher down in seconds. The students cried in horror as he then turned to us with his gun raised. My ears rang as he sprayed us with bullets, blood splashing around. The shock was so numbing, but I knew I was shot. Within seconds, everything went to black, and I found my feet back on the pavement of my street. I gagged as puke flooded up my throat, then puked onto the sidewalk. My heart was still pounding; it was all too real. Too shaken up to continue, I ran back home and ripped the shoes off my feet. After that, I had no desire to try on the final pair that I bought. Curiosity had killed the cat, I couldn’t do it again. So I shoved the shoes into the back of my closet and never touched them again. As months passed, I nearly forgot I had even owned them. Out of sight, out of mind. During this time, I had moved out of my apartment and into a house with my girlfriend at the time. Packing was chaotic, and it wasn’t all done by me, so somehow the shoe boxes got caught up in all of the mess. With a lot of time spent at work, my girlfriend would do a lot of the unpacking while I was gone. Keep in mind, I had never mentioned the shoes to her. I felt like she’d look at me like I was insane, and I wouldn’t blame her for thinking so. The experience itself was insane. So to her, she was just putting her boyfriend's shoes in his closet. One day, on a winter morning, I had overslept for work. Rushing to get ready, I snatched a pair of boots that I didn’t have time to give a double-take. I crammed my feet into them as I flew out the door, my grip tight on my car keys. As I muttered curses to myself under my breath, I got in the car. And as I closed the car door, it began to happen again. The sounds of the busy street distanced to silence as my vision blurred. As it cleared up, I found myself in the driver's seat of a car. When I looked around, I found myself in dark woods, parked on a trail. Then, I heard the muffled sound of screaming as someone wriggled around in the trunk. Unlike my feelings the other two times, this one was different. Upon hearing the screams, they went in one ear and out the other. I didn’t feel… anything. I stepped out of the car, the humid air heavy against my skin. Closing the door with a gloved hand, I slowly walked towards the trunk of the car as dirt crunched under my boots. Opening the trunk revealed a petrified woman whose arms and legs were bound by rope. She desperately wiggled around as she screamed into a strip of cloth that wrapped around her mouth. “NO, NO!” She attempted to cry as I gripped her by the hair and ripped her from out the trunk. She crashed to the ground, tears streaming down her face. Bunching her hair up in my grip, she continued to attempt her escape as I dragged her down a dirt path. She groaned as I dropped her head to the ground, standing in front of a human sized hole that I had dug. Suddenly, she had maneuvered the cloth off of her mouth and began screeching.

“HELP! HELP!”

“No point in that, darlin’.”

“NO! STOP! PLEASE!”

She desperately begged as I kicked her onto her back and crouched above her, her cries echoing throughout the vast forest. I remained unphased as she tried to knee my back.

“Shut… your FUCKING MOUTH!”

Her teary eyes widened as I wrapped my hands around her throat, the leather of my gloves stretching. Her wriggling grew vigorous as I tightened my grip, breaths desperately trying to make their way into her lungs. I clenched my teeth as I made my grip even tighter, her face turning red as she failed to fight back. She refused to look at me, her eyes darting around the midnight sky. I pursed my lips, watching as life slowly faded from her eyes. I shook her neck in my grip as her attempted breaths wheezed to a stop, her widened eyes emptying. Suddenly, I whipped my head around as the sound of a snapping twig caught my ear. In the dark stood a silhouette, one that I didn’t have time to make out as a loud bang rang out. My eyes shot open as I felt my mouth filling up with blood. My grip around her throat quickly loosened as I collapsed next to her. Blood spurted from the hole in my throat as I coughed up what pooled in my mouth. I stared up at the star filled sky as a police officer ran over, his gun still raised. He dropped next to her and checked her pulse, then spoke over his radio. Quickly bleeding out, everything soon faded to black. I then found myself back in my car, my grip tight on the steering wheel. I quickly pulled my trembling hands away as a tear streamed down my cheek. I hesitantly looked down at the boots on my feet, realizing what I was wearing. Instead of going to work, I ran back inside and grabbed the other two pairs. Flying down the streets, I halted to a stop in front of the shoe store and carried the boxes inside.

“Making a return?” The old man said as he heard the bell on the door.

“Uh- Yeah.”

“The usual…”

I placed the boxes onto the counter, my body still trembling. He tallied up the prices as he looked at each pair.

“So? How was it?”

“What?”

“What was it like? Walking in their shoes?”

“… Unpleasant.”

“Well… Imagine how they felt. Actually, you already did! Have a nice day.”

He smiled ominously as he handed me crumpled up bills. With a hesitant hand, I quickly snatched the cash and flew out the door. Getting back in my car, I let out a deep, exhausted sigh. The next day, on my way to work, I passed the store again. Except, it was vacant. A streaky outline of the logo was left on its bricks, the space appearing entirely empty through its dusty windows. I furrowed my brows as I slowly drove by, trying to see if a note was left about a relocation or a retirement. But there was nothing, it was just gone. I never found out who that man was or where he went. I never found out how he got all those shoes, I don’t think I had ever even seen somebody else in the store. I had pondered on the idea that maybe it appeared just for me. It sounded crazy, but so did seeing visions of dead people. I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to be taught a lesson, but I knew it was one I could’ve lived without learning.