Wednesday 2 November 2016

The Grey Boots

For audio click here 
“Oh my god,” Georgie said, “there’s this woman in work right, who’s been wearing the same pair of boots for the last two years. Two years one pair of boots. Winter, spring, summer, autumn, the same boots.”
I shrugged.
“Can you believe it?”
I shrugged again. “Maybe they’re comfortable,” I mumbled.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if they were a nice pair of boots, but they’re gross,” Georgie mimed putting her fingers down her throat. “They were gross when she bought them and now they are uber-gross, mega gross, two-year-old gross.”
“What do they look like, these boots?” I said, not really believing a pair of boots could be uber-gross.
“I just told you, they’re gross,” she said.
“Well, I get that, but describe gross.”
“Well, first of all, they’re grey! Who wears grey boots? Not even a nice grey either. Not like a dark misty fifty shade of grey, but a light Ford Cortina grey.”
“So silver then.”
“God no! Not Silver, Silver is nice. They’re grey. And then they’re tatty, scuff marks on the heels and the toes, and along the sides.”
“Well they are two years old,” I said, “They couldn’t have always been tatty.”
“They have been. Tatty, old, grey since grey one.”
“Knee length?” I asked.
“No, get this they are dodgy ankle height boots. Her legs look like tiny bonsai trees in huge, ugly, grey flower pots.”

“I need a piss,” I said and hobbled over to the toilets. As I washed my hands I stared into the mirror. The water ran over my fingers and I rubbed them together over and over like Lady Macbeth staring, staring at my reflection. I was replaying the conversation with Georgie through my mind. My reflection, grey.  The story about the boots, dodgy ankle. My reflection, tatty and scuffed. The story about the boots, two years. I counted up the months we’d been together. Twenty-three. Georgie hadn’t been describing a colleague’s boots. She’d been describing, me.

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