Mikey couldn't believe his eyes. Wall to wall, filled with shoes. Bright colors and cardboard boxes stacked high filled his vision.
It was wonderful. It was the greatest day he'd had in a while. In so long...
Without thinking, Mikey sat down. The store had those box benches at the ends of the shelves. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was rest. His feet ached from the walk here. Mikey looked down and saw the state his current digs were in: Worn. Beat. Dead.
He wiggled his right big toe and watched it stretch the thin cloth, almost a hole atop the old, worn shoe. As he relaxed his toe, letting it fall, it did so through the hole worn on the other end. Through the sole. He felt the floor of the shoe store through his damn threadbare sock.
Even the carpet in here felt good on his feet. Flat, unpadded and still worn down, though footfalls had not touched the floor in what must be years now. Mikey stopped tracking time much. What was there other than the day and the night? Were it not for the occasional cloudy sky, the sun did all the work tracking the time that Mikey needed. Why work harder when the job is already done?
Why work at all if not to survive?
This chair felt nice, shitty bench though it was, and Mikey sighed out a good sigh. He earned this. So many steps to get here. As he inhaled, Mikey worked to forget all those steps. He leaned down and untied his shoes before kicking them off of his feet.
Freedom.
Good God above, freedom for his aching toes felt so good. His feet expanded into their new free space as he gingerly set them down on the carpet again. New spots on the carpet. Where his shoes had sat before now had a small damp spot, wet and red, that had seeped into the thin fibers. He didn't want to step in that again.
Before relaxing again in another sigh, Mikey looked about and saw, yes, he was okay. There were socks here too. He smiled, worry dripping away from his face. He'd be alright. Just got to rest a little bit on this bench here.
Mikey hardly noticed the quiet anymore. He'd liked the quiet before all this. Before the end of the world. But the quiet had been oppressive in those early days. It had turned into an enemy of sorts. Something working to drive him mad. But he wasn't mad. Mikey wasn't crazy. He was here.
He was Mikey.
That was the name that his mother and favorite grandmother could call him. He was Mike to everyone else. Michael to Augusta, his wife. But he wasn't Mike or Michael to anyone anymore. He was Mikey to himself. He was Mikey now.
He remembered getting into a schoolyard fight over that name. Bloody, bruised knuckles had hurt for days after the incident, but Jeremy on the playground never called him Mikey Again. God, who thought your hand hurt so much after hitting someone? And Jeremy? That sonofabitch could have died years ago, back when things were normal, or just at the end of things, but now, that was years ago too, right? Mikey didn't know. He hadn't seen Jeremy in almost twenty years. Hadn't thought of him in just as long.
He leaned down and took off his socks, marveling at the state his feet were in: purple and blackish at the worn parts, grey at the healthy places. The healthy places weren't doing so hot themselves, apparently. He stretched his toes out, finding the dry carpet just a hairsbreadth away from where his feet had soaked into the floor. He shouldn't have pushed himself here, not so hard. But when he saw the "City Limits" sign, he couldn't stop. city meant shops and shops meant shoes.
His pack still had food and water, shelter and what clothes he carried. It didn't have the gun anymore, nor the ammunition. That turned out to be simply dead weight. He'd left those a while ago. He didn't need for much, and wanted for even less. But shops meant shoes. Shoes he needed.
Jeremy had been the first in line to get hit by Mikey's hard fists. His dad always said that he had mitts for hands. "You don't need a glove to play baseball, son,” he'd said once. "Catch the fly ball like a man. You've got mitts built in, son. You'll do just fine. No need to spend the money." Well, Mikey hadn't taken to baseball, but he'd found a use for his mitts, eventually. That use started with Jeremy. After that first fight, they got easier. Each hit hurt his knuckles, sure, but they bruised less. Bled less. It felt better, causing the pain and keeping the power. Felt good enough to endure the punches that came back at him. Baseball was for chumps. Boxing was for champions.
After another sigh, Mikey got tired of lazing about and stood up. There were so many shelves and shoes about him that it felt impossible to start. He was better than a kid in a candy shop. He had the pick of the world to him, and how does one decide then?
Schoolyard fights had been fun for a while. Beating on bigger thugs like Jeremy felt good, but Mikey enjoyed it too much. He tried out his mitts on some of the smaller kids and found that fun, too. He could get free lunch out of it and could get help on tests and homework. The fear in the eyes of those little nerdy kids felt good to see at first, but it weighed on Mikey. The weight pressed slowly. It hit him at night when he was on the edge of sleep. He wasn't a bad guy. Why was he wailing on those little kids then? That's what bad guys do. Mikey grew a conscience then and took a break from the bullying. That break lasted a good, long, while. What happened later wasn’t bullying, it was survival.
Mikey found his fists were clenched in memory inside the shoe store. "Put those mitts to use, Mikey." He walked right past the Nike section of shoes. Something about the Greek Influenza made wearing the swoosh of a goddess feel wrong. There were the canvas high tops nearby. Mikey smiled. Those had been his favorite growing up. Thin and laced tight, they fit his surprisingly dainty feet well. They'd been like a second skin, a second sole underfoot. Comfortable too.
Mikey'd gotten sick of being the bully by high school. He'd found boxing by then. It wasn't much, but it was an outlet. It was time away from home and time away from the kids who still looked at him with fear in their eyes. He wouldn't hurt them now, he'd decided. He knew. But they couldn't know that. They couldn't hear his thoughts and see the change within him. He accepted that, though it hurt more than the punches had.
College had been better. No one knew him then. He was still big, mitts larger than ever, ready to hit and hurt, but he wasn't intimidating like he had been. There was no history with the people there, no painful memory. He was a boxer in earnest then. Half-ride scholarship, tied with Maxwell from his highschool, who got the other half. He was the only one who knew Mikey's history, but he didn't give a damn. He trained with Mikey and they fought for their team together, but that was the end of the relationship. Maxwell took a beating with his dome and it showed. Mikey opted to dance on his feet, little as they were, and dodge the punches coming his way as he entered the ring. He thought it worked out better that way. Kept a softer skull, but had more room for brains up there then.
He walked past the Converse and past the memories. The canvas shoes would break down far too quickly underfoot as he walked. comfort only lasted if your shoes did. There were dress shoes and boat shoes and loafers, all skipped. He stopped for a good long look at the hunting boots, though.
Dad died before all the shit went down. That was lucky for him, old bastard. He was up with God now. Mom and Augusta had to wait for the flu to join him up there. Mikey wondered when he'd be joining them. No time soon, it seemed. He just couldn't stop kicking. Mikey looked down at his feet, tired still as they were open and free on the shoe store carpet. He'd made it past the flu and past everything else life seemed to throw at him. His mitts weren't made for catching.
The boots were sturdy, but God above, they'd be killer to break in. Mikey wasn't done walking yet. He wasn't sure where he was going, but it wasn't here.
He wondered if God would give him a sign. He'd never been much of a church going believer, and he guessed he'd never be one now. But he was a believer, that's what mattered. Seemed as though the Lord was done taking attendance, for a while at least. Mikey was here. Roll call of one. Done.
He looked back at the pack of his, sitting on the floor over by the door. He'd left a bit of a mess walking in here. Shoes kicked off, socks sitting on the floor. He shook his head, hearing his mom say "Mikey...." in his mind. He smiled. Mikey missed his mom, but he'd see her eventually. No sense rushing anything.
Mikey spent a good long while debating the merits of each shoe. He even tried on a handful of them and walked about the store, just like his momma made him do when he was a boy. No need to check for extra room in the toes anymore, though. His feet had long stopped growing.
When he settled on a pair, he grabbed three boxes of the same, trying on each and every one, of course. Couldn't trust the number on the boxes. In some way, Mikey thought that trusting numbers in boxes somehow got humanity into this mess. Well, it was a mess on the floors. Their mom would be upset. But God couldn't be upset at his children if he put them there, could he?
Mikey surely didn't know.
He put on his new shoes, picked up his pack, and walked out into the dead world beyond him, alone, with a smile on his face.
His feet felt fine.
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Love ya!
-Max
Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev courtesy of pexels.