Pink Shoes

Lurching forward, and then back, crouching down, then standing up again, the small dark-haired boy searches in every direction. He peers through the shadowy crack that divides two fruit crates—could it have swallowed them up? “Where are they?” he wonders. “Where are the shoes?”

Some might think that the object of his search is not worth his time. Why go to all that trouble for a dusty pair of patched-up shoes? But, the boy is unrelenting. He moves the large, overflowing crates to see if the shoes have fallen behind or in between them. Certainly, they must be somewhere around there. That’s where he left them, anyway.

The boy wiggles his way between two obese crates, overflowing with fruit…timber! A blur of freshly-ripe fruits and vegetables go tumbling to the ground. The angry store-owner storms out angrily—broom in hand, and the boy runs away.

He runs quickly through the tan dirt streets he knows so well, down one narrow ally-way, then another, until he reaches his own familiar stairway. After a passing exchange with his mother, cleaning carpets on the street, he goes into the house.

His sister sits inside, eagerly anticipating his arrival. “Did you get my shoes?” She wants to know.

Worry and anxiety plague every muscle of his face as he ponders how to confront her. He tells her the bad news. She asks how she will go to school with no shoes—the worn pink shoes are her only pair. Tears well up in her brother’s eyes as he assures her he will find them.