Red Shoes

A Story by Andrew Jameson

Piece of flash fiction written for fun. Possible adaptation to audio/podcast.

The man and the little girl sat on the bank watching the crowd of people gather around the hole in the ice. The sun hung in the hazy, cerulean blue sky but there was no trace of warmth in the air. The huge frozen lake in front of the pair gave off a bright light, reflected from the sun, which turned to a subtle luminescence toward the horizon but that sight was just as cold as the laboured disk above them. There was no warmth to be had in the spectacle. It was a cold light, sterile and harsh just like the season. It was the middle of January and sub-zero temperatures had continued throughout the winter. The great lake had frozen over, as it did every year, and people came from all around to skate and sled on its transiently solid surface. The man and the little girl were not wearing coats or gloves but neither of them felt the cold, nor did their breaths betray their presence to the air. The little girl swung her legs in the space between her feet and the ground. Suddenly she stopped, looked thoughtfully at her bright red shoes and asked, “What are those people doing?” She continued to look down at her shoes, frowning, but the man’s gaze went back to the lake and the crowd of people. Some of them were screaming, some of them were lying on their fronts trying to look into the hole in the ice; others had even tried to get into the water but retreated as soon as they felt its icy touch, the experience quickly followed by looks of despair and shaking of heads. The man shuddered though he could feel nothing, “I think they’re trying to pull us out of the water,” and then with some thought, “I think we’re dead.” The girl continued to look down at her shoes, one of the buckles had come undone and she reached down to correct the problem, “Oh,” she said, “funny people.” The girl successfully refastened the buckle on her shoe and took to swinging her legs back and forth again.

The brightness of the silver buckle caught the man’s eye and he followed its motion through the air, back and forth, back and forth. As the man watched the buckle a light, brighter than that of the surrounding lake, seemed slowly to envelope the little girl.

There were more shouts from the lake and they both looked towards the crowd of people to see that a body was being dragged from the hole. Somebody had broken a substantial sized branch from a nearby tree and was using it to hook onto the clothing of the bodies in the slowly freezing water. Most of the crowd now stood back from the hole for fear of breaking the ice any further but a few men, partly inspired to action by the sight of the body at the surface, partly by the desire of a hero label, had rushed towards the hole and were helping to drag the form out of the icy water. The body was pulled, somewhat ungracefully, from the hole and lie on the ice, inert and limp like a sodden rag doll. There were more hurried attempts to retrieve the other body from the water as someone bent over the body that lie on the ice. The water at the far end of the hole was already freezing over.

“I’ll miss mummy and daddy”, the little girl said, more thoughtfully than with grief or sorrow. “Someone will look after you now,” the man said. The little girl grinned as she replied, “I know.” The man smiled and touched the little girl’s nose, which was becoming brighter by the moment and in response she stuck out her tongue and giggled. Then, quite suddenly, the little girl swung round and her mouth opened into a wide smile. “Bonzo,” she cried as she jumped down from the bank and ran towards a spot on the ice a few feet away. A scruffy looking mongrel dog came into view from nowhere, wagging his tail and panting heavily. He was covered in the same light that the little girl was and seemed to be quite pleased to be made such a fuss of as she bent down and hugged him. “Oh Bonzo,” she cried as she hugged and patted the dog in a haphazardly affectionate way. The little girl glanced back at the man, “This is Bonzo,” she said. Her attention returned to the dog as she continued, “He went away a long time ago.” As if by way of introduction Bonzo barked. Again like the little girl and the man, the canine’s breath could not be seen in the air despite the fact he was panting quite heavily. The dog stood on the same spot being hugged and wagging his tail as if that had been all he had ever known or done. Then the little girl stood up, looked thoughtfully at her shoes again, one of which Bonzo was now sniffing, and said, “I have to go now.” She turned back to the man and said, “Are you coming?” The man looked back to the crowd of people on the lake. The sun had come around since Bonzo’s appearance and the man had to shield his eyes from the glare to see what was happening. Another, smaller body, had been pulled from the lake and a crying woman was sitting, distraught, beside the lifeless shape as someone else was frantically trying to breathe life into it. “No,” he said, “I think I’ll hang around here for a bit longer.” “Okay then,” she said, “Bye.” The little girl set off across the lake away from the hole in the ice and the crowd of people. Bonzo followed, his tail still wagging, as they moved, without really seeming to touch the surface of the lake, toward the horizon. As the little girl chatted excitedly to the dog the light that surrounded them grew momentarily brighter, and then they were gone.

It was quiet and still for a time. The shouts from the lake had seemed to fade away and the man didn’t look towards the hole again to see what was happening. Instead he looked down at his shoes, with as much thought and purpose as the little girl had done, and suddenly realised how perfect they looked. They were cleaner than the man had ever noticed before, polished and shiny and almost flawless. Almost. He noticed a speck of dirt on the side of his left shoe. Though tiny, the presence of a blemish in the midst of such cleanliness filled the man with an irrational disgust and he bent down to rub off the imperfection. He shivered. It was the first time he had actually felt the chill in the air. The man looked at his arms and saw that his flesh was covered in tiny bumps and the hair on them was standing up. He rubbed his arms and breathed into his hands for warmth and for the first time saw his breath on the air. Barely noticeable, a shadow of vapour that hung on for a split second before dispersing, but definitely there. He breathed out again. Again, he saw his breath. A sudden and excruciating pain took him in the stomach and chest and he doubled over almost losing his balance and falling onto the ice. His breathing was now becoming more erratic as his mouth spat more vapour into the air. He coughed and felt fluid rise in his throat. The man vomited onto the pure white ice, spilling dirty water and refuse from the lake onto its own frozen surface. Another stabbing pain took him and more water was ejected from his body. He tried hard to breathe as the water and lumps of debris funnelled through his throat. One more terrible pain took him and he fell over and sat up at the same time. His body shivered spasmodically as he looked around at the faces of the people surrounding him. Somebody shouted and a few of the crowd stood back, away from the man. He felt a stabbing pain in his head, chest and stomach and his body was wracked with pain as he retched out the last contents of the lake from his lungs. The taste of the filth in his mouth and his nose was disgusting and his trembling body loosed it’s own content to eject the foreign matter from his system. He fell back and lie on the ice, shivering uncontrollably, as someone wrapped a blanket around him and tried desperately to rub some warmth into his limbs. He could not keep his head or vision straight but as someone squatted down beside him saying something that he couldn’t hear or understand, he couldn’t help but notice the dirt on their shoes and the man shut his eyes tight, against the sting of tears, wishing for all the earth that he wasn’t in this place. He hoped the little girl and her dog had reached their destination safely.