Leather. Equestrian. Rain. Motorcycle. Cowboy. Combat. I’ve always loved boots. Inching above your ankles, they demand to be noticed. They can be so sturdy and heavy, like a leather comfort blanket. Perfect for clomping around with false confidence when, in reality, you’re totally out of your element. At least, thats my theory as to why so many college freshman opt for a clunky pair of Docs. I know I did!

So excited to feature this flash fiction piece from Leah Abrams, who writes the “Hot Mic” column for Jezebel and co-hosts the monthly reading series and literary podcast Limousine with Heather Akumiah, about a misstep in a pair of boots:

The Shoe by Leah Abrams

The trouble began with the shoe. It was night and I was running late for dinner with my in-laws. The train was seven minutes away, then five. By the time it finally arrived I was meant to be in my seat, at dinner with my in-laws.

What happened next is hard for me to recount. I have always considered myself a good person with good instincts, who tends towards generosity and virtue by nature. I smile and make eye contact, hold doors open, remember birthdays, etc. My couch was always filled with out of town guests. I sometimes kept granola bars in my bag to feed the needy.

So that night was the exception, really. Not the rule. It slipped out by accident as those things do, and only by a second accident (of fate) became the thing that would define me. 

I had my headphones on; fast music was playing. The train screeched, I leapt to my feet. I followed the crowd into the open doors. I was tapping my toes inside my shoes. I wore heavy combat boots because I wanted to remind people how down to earth and alternative I was.

In front of me was a beautiful woman with red hair. She was thin in a practiced way and much shorter than me. She had a dreamcatcher tattooed on the back of her right arm—I remember that. Truth be told I didn’t notice any of this until after, and by now I’ve had years to notice everything.

I was thinking about how late I was and how out of character that was for me, especially in the eyes of my in-laws, who knew me as punctual, thoughtful, supportive, generous (as mentioned above). I was close to the doors. And then she stopped short, maybe to consider which seat to take. And I flat-tired her. And her beige little knit mule slipped straight into the crack between the platform and the train.

I remember the look in her eyes when she turned around, her red hair a halo of rage. She hopped through the doors on her shoe foot and looked from the ground to me then back again. I followed her gaze. There was a dirty bandaid around her middle toe.

I’m so sorry, I said. I can’t believe I—I’m so sorry.

She just stared at me. The doors were still open and a dance group came in. I knew they were a dance group because they had a speaker playing music, a hat for cash, and a joie de vivre about them. 

Let me out, she said. 

The doors are about to close, the dancers said.

I need to get my shoe, she said. She cast a glare in my direction. 

If you guys have time to help, feel free, she said. Otherwise I guess I’ll walk home barefoot.

The dancers looked at each other for half a second and wordlessly made the call to pry the door open and get back on the platform. My boots were glued to the ground. I just kept looking at her foot, my eyes getting wider. The doors were still open. I could have gone out and followed them. But what would I have done? Crawled down on the tracks? Given her my boots? And I was already so late to the dinner with my in-laws. If I stayed, would they find my absence charming or offensive? Were they waiting for me to order? They were the types to wait. I was standing there and thinking all of these things, and then the man said his thing (Stand Clear of the Closing Doors), and well, I didn’t move.

The train began to roll away.

I’m so sorry, I said again through the glass. She was standing there with the dancers, looking furiously away from me, in the direction of the tracks, to where her shoe might be. 

I don’t know if she ever got it back. One of the dancers died a few minutes later. After leaping onto the tracks he was hit by an oncoming train. My train got stuck just a stop or two away, and I sat there trying not to look at the people around me for minutes, then hours. We all knew something had gone horrifically wrong.

Of course I missed the dinner. That was the beginning of the end of my marriage. My husband couldn’t understand why I refused to go anywhere in two shoes; he hated the sight of my one bare foot and the thick, calloused skin that grew on its sole. Every night in bed he angled his feet away from mine in a diagonal line, so that our heads could be close but never our bodies. I understood. I would have done the same if I could.

When I look back across my life for signs that this rot was inside me all along, I can think of only one: all those times I cracked the eggs straight into the pan and scrambled them over heat, eschewing the bowl and the fork. One less dish to wash, I used to say.

A selection of cool vintage boots I found on eBay:

A nice roundup of combat boots on the runway:

When the MythBusters proved that steel toed boots won’t amputate your toes:

Some cowboy boot styling advice:

An interview with the designer behind the “Havva boot moment”:

And, finally, my favorite song about boots: