Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Walk On the First Day of Autumn

My shoes are giving out. I can tell by the way I can make out the vague patterns of the concrete with my feet without looking down. I can feel bumps where the pavement rises in hard clumps, and it hurts to step on the gravel from pebbly drive ways.

I’m going to have to get new shoes.

Stopping for a moment, I life a foot to examine the sole of the shoe, and, just as I had guessed, it has worn thin (this is further evinced by the holes showing the rubber innards of the shoe bottom.), and quite a significant portion of the canvas top has detached from the rubber bottom. I can see my sock poking through the hole provided. How charming.

Mom worries about my feet. She says she worries about my arches, which must not be getting enough support from the cheap shoes I’ve taken to wearing. And I have such high arches. But if she isn’t worried about my feet, she’s worried about my social life (or lack thereof) , or my bedroom (it’s a fire hazard, you know), or school (I shouldn’t get so worked up about it.), or my eating habits (girls are just under so much pressure these days).

I love my mother, but there’s little I can do about my shoes now, so I keep walking.

My shoes could be so worn down because I walk in them so often. They went with me to Italy last March, and there were plenty of walking tours to be had there, and I walked so often this summer to the west end of town. I wonder how many times I walked there... I must admit, I did myself proud, as I don’t deal well with the summer heat, yet I managed to get out so often. I need to get more active. I wonder how many calories I burned walking to the west end of town this summer.

I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never be thin, but I can still try to lose a few pounds.

I step on a rock, and take a moment to suck in my breath through my clenched teeth while I curse the aforementioned rock. I am torn from my train of thought, and quickly forget what I was thinking about (this happens far too often, Maybe there’s something wrong with me?). So instead, I focus on the street I am walking down, and the things that surround me.

There is... air. A cool breeze is passing by (the sun won’t be setting quite yet, but evening is certainly upon us.), so I am grateful for my warm jacket though it’s not quite cold enough that I don’t feel slightly overheated. The trees (and there are many of them down this way) are beginning to turn, as the time of year warrants they should. This street looks particularly striking when the trees have been stripped bare of their leaves. I can remember walking from school in my youth, and seeing the dark, barky, spindly branches reach to the ashen October sky, each complimenting the other and creating a generally Halloweeny mood while the leaves, their colours slowing turning to a sullen, dry brown, mock their bare parents from the ground. But that has not yet happened, and most of the leaves are still green.

Someone’s burning a fire somewhere, and the woody smell makes my nose tingle. I wonder who on earth would start a fire in this part of town (who would have room in their backyard for a fire pit?), but, as no houses seem to be ablaze,
I allow myself to enjoy the smell.

My coat begins to feel restricting, and I regret having eaten that brownie after dinner.

Continuing on, the sun peaks out through the clouds, and through two of the modest little houses. Its rays feel hot against my skin, so now I feel hot and bloated. This was supposed to have been a relaxing evening walk.

I pass the house on the corner, and notice that they have taken down their dog house. Their dog must have died. It had been an old thing that did precious little (from what I saw during six years of careful study) but lie around, and then lie around some more. My sister and I had given the poor thing a name (aside from the one I’m sure it already had), and affectionately made it the butt of numerous jokes in our youth, though we had never been formally introduced to either the dog or its owners. Once, quite a while ago, I had dared to go up to the dog as it lay by its doghouse with a childhood friend, and we pet the dog as it passively sat by and let us. Poor thing.

Winter may be the season of death and barrenness, but autumn is the death itself. It’s a slow and graceful death, but death all the same. I wonder if every year the menopausal planet sighs a little as she settles into sleep for another season. Would she be relieved, or humbly resigned to her fate every year? Does she dread her long, wintery sleep, or welcome it after the productions of spring, summer, and even autumn? I’d ask her myself, but I don’t quite know how to reach her.

My shoes make a dull slapping sound as I run across the pavement of the sidewalk. I don’t know why I chose to run, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. I almost can’t bear the sound of it: loud, incessant, bragging about its own failure. Punishment for mistreatment, perhaps? A lesson to buy a better, sturdier pair next time? It doesn’t really matter, the sound, combined with the muffled jolts of discomfort are enough the make me slow down and resume a more leisurely pace, panting, chest heaving and all.

I need to get more active.

I stop by one of the school yards, and admire the glow the sun casts upon the trees left behind from the workmen’s attack on them this summer. They’d been told to cut down a few of the bigger ones in the yard, for reasons I may never know. The yard looks barren without quite as many trees as I was used to. My favourite tree was gone as well. I can remember sitting in its shade, leaning against the trunk, sketching in a notebook a few summers ago. I mourned its passing a little, then resumed life as I knew it. But the ones left over still looked very pretty with the sunlight coming through their branches.

I wonder if people tell them how lovely they are often enough.

My shoes are falling apart.

They have stars on them.

What are stars doing on a pair of shoes?

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