disclaimer: this story is disjointed, surreal, semi-stream-of-consicousness and borderline psychotic. read at your own risk.
once upon a time...
there was a girl named sarah and she always thought she was cool. one time she threw a shoe in a pond, but it was a pond of...scum. this wasn't much of a problem though, because sarah (and sarah's shoe) were quite at home with the general scum population. so comfortable were they with the inhabitants, that every saturday night they gathered for a little "scum get-together." they got giddy all the time, and always had a little dip in the pond and in the drink (if you know what i'm sayin') -- basically they was some drunk scum mofo.
then johnny shot someone.
***
let's go back a few days.
sarah dearly loved her shoe -- "get off the shoe," her best friend (johnny) yelled. the "someone" who johnny shot...was sarah's shoe. johnny despised that shoe (it was a converse one-star, not an airwalk) with every fiber of his blackened heart. so to recap we have: sarah, who loved her shoe vaughn and liked to chill with pond-scum from time to time and johnny, sarah's best friend, who had killed sarah's converse because he despised it.
okay, recap over, continuing...
...at this point it behooves us to give the converse a name, and by converse we mean sarah's shoe; the shoe's name was vaughn. vaughn had suffered many hardships since his arrival in sarah's world. tossed around in boxes, laced-up, laced-down, and just generally worn out.
but this didn't bother vaughn, because vaughn had fallen hard. fallen hard for sarah. he kept his feelings from sarah because he knew if she ever found out, he would've lost his best friend (everyone *knows* you *don't* ask your best friend out, it *never* turns out for the good.) even though he tried to keep it secret, he just couldn't keep his tongue tied.
it was johnny who found out. vaughn had squeaked out his feelings one day and knowing sarah and vaughn were so close hurt johnny. the exquisite pain he felt from this left him feeling like he'd lost his sole. you see, johnny wanted to be more than friends with sarah as well, but the shoe was with her all day, and johnny could never be as close to sarah as vaughn was. vaughn practically supported her throughout day to day life, he made her feel comfortable and was always happy to help her get around the city, cushioning sarah from the hard steps in life. how could johnny compete with that?
so...
we have this little love triangle setup...actually, it's more like a love bi-angle, or maybe just...'angle'. anyway, you can pretty much feel the tension building. when johnny first thought about offing vaughn, he felt like such a heel, but as time wore on, he realized he just couldn't take seeing them together. he tried to convince sarah to wear boots.
"after all, it IS winter. why shoes?"
"c'mon man, i love these one-stars!" vaughn, practically purred, he would've in fact, if shoes had the ability to purr (give nike and adidas some time and they likely will.)
that failing, johnny'd try stuff like this:
"ooops! i just spilled messy, ugly, gold metal-ribbon flavoured ice cream on your kicks, they are now totally useless and you should most likely get rid of them as soon as possible lest you be thought to be a bad dresser. or even a....bum."
"naw man, i could just wash them." sarah replied.
"oh...geee...i never thought of that. you just saved yourself 20 bucks." johnny spat.
suffice to say, johnny's deviously subtle attempts failed. johnny, feeling badly, scheduled meeting with his therapist.
"zo...johnny...tell me about your footwear - er i mean, childhood." the therapist began.
"uh...well, as a kid i could never control my emotions. if i ever liked someone and they liked someone else, i would kill them." johnny responded.
"in a colloquial zense?"
"no, i'd assassinate them. in a sort of... murder zense."
"i zee...and you find theez humourous? yes?"
"hell yeah, cuz i ain't like that no more."
"ah, zo. basically, you used to kill people (or shoes) and now you don't?"
"uh...yeah. except that damn VAUGHN!"
"vhat?"
"uh...um...nothing...i didn't say anything. session over mofo. i think YOU should probably see a therapist. hearing things and all. geez. some people (lucky i don't kill YOU!)"
"vhat?"
"uh...nothing...i didn't say anything. like i said, session over man." johnny didn't push his luck, he was fortunate enough as it was. he really had to work on his inner-monologue, it often seemed to creep out at very inopportune times.
here's how the murder went down. it was heinous...
"it's all about the benjamins! yeah!"
sarah was listening to her all-time favourite song on earth, ever, or even in the universe. it was that good. she was playing a song that had a catchy beat that she just loved to death, love almost more than her favourite converse, (but not quite.) she was listening to it's all about the benjamins (rock remix of course, after all she was white -- exceptionally white), by puff daddy (and the family -- little known fact, he's white too.)
now, at this point in our admittedly quite random tale, johnny was in bare-feet, as a sort-of boycott against shoes and he was walking towards sarah's house. he was beginning to hate all shoes, anything that came between he and sarah. he had been strangling his own shoes for practice for vaughn's final day of reckoning.
"hi sar-ah...let's - go - to - my - house." johnny goaded.
"uh...f**k that shit man. i ain't gettin' out of my shoes to go up in yo' place." sarah replied.
"but we haven't - played crazy 8's - in ages man. isn't that - what friends - are supposed to do, even - if it means removing one's foot attire?" johnny's speech was stilted and filled with deception. also, he was a terrible liar.
"well...i dunno. maybe, it has been a while. i can't even remember what my last hand was." it should also be noted that sarah was relatively slow-witted and gullible.
"y'see? do ya see? that's what i'm saying. we gots to get our card game on." this felt more natural to johnny. our narration will gloss over the bizarre reasoning that leads sarah to removing she shoes to play crazy 8s, suffice to say, she found it an essential aspect of the game.
"okay...but only if i can take breaks to put my shoes on."
***
so it went but, vaughn definitely didn't like the idea, and consequently sarah had great difficulty walking to johnny's house. she kept tripping. her laces kept coming undone. rocks kept on getting in her shoe (we're talking huge ones, ones you'd think wouldn't fit in her shoe even when it was empty, but somehow the boulders managed to squeeze in.) tragically, vaughn's efforts at foiling the visit only worked to johnny's advantage because by the time sarah got to the house, she couldn't wait to get his shoes off.
"ha! stupid one-star kicks are for killing!" johnny said in his inner-monlogue.
"what?" sarah replied, not believing what she'd heard.
"uh...nothing...i didn't say anything." that damn monologue was getting johnny in trouble again. "i didn't say anything. session over mofo. i think YOU should probably see a therapist. hearing things and all. geez. some people (lucky i don't kill YOU!)"
"what?"
"uh...nothing..." johnny had to cover fast, "let's play some 8's. yeaah. that's true ghetto slang for our favouritest of all card games. hell, everyone's fave game, period!"
"heh, yeah man, you are so witty." sarah stated, (and it was true, though it might not be clear from this tiny excerpt of his life, johnny really was a card.)
"oh! i need a shoebreak." sarah said, reaching for the pair.
"oh no you don't!" johnny yelled, and proceeded to cap sarah's shoes. he shot vaughn in cold blood, er...canvas. he slaughtered him. "finally laced that mofo." johnny said with relish. (johnny's wit rears its head slightly.)
sarah, overwhelmed with grief, kicked johnny in the nuts (which explains his current sexual orientation) and grabbed her slowly dying shoes and booted it.
she got home only to find that vaughn and vaughn's brother (the rarely spoken of, 'lefty') was dead. bit the bullet. kicked the bucket. went to the great big shoetree in the sky.
and so, with a heavy heart sarah buried vaughn and gave him a true one-star funeral and a 21 lace salute. (the 21 lace salute is a ritual performed only for incredibly honoured shoes. the wearer laces and unlaces the shoe 21 consecutive times - its extremely boring to spectate.)
then standing there sadly, looking solemnly into the sun, sarah tossed her remaining shoe into the the scum-pond where she cherished all of her memories and reminisced upon the good times.
the end.
moral: if you ever have a shoe that loves you, and your friend also loves you and is obsessive about killing your shoe, don't go to their house to play crazy 8's. it'll only end badly.
or...
just do it. (oh wait, that isn't converse is it?)
or...
don't tread on me.
or...
just don't shoot someone's shoe.