The Shoe

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Encounter

There was this guy, Mason. He had several friends, although he didn’t have any cool nicknames. His friends just called him Mason.

Smart fella, though. Seemed to have his stuff together. Wasn’t really bothered by things happening around him. Sometimes you can admire that in a person. Well, maybe by sports. He got excited by those basketball and football matches.

But, you know, I assume that many stories came your way. And maybe you even lived a few. So you know how it goes… A person is best described by his lived experience. Maybe you’ll get a better understanding of Mason this way.

One evening he was walking home from a grocery store.

He got some groceries.

It was like a scene from those American 90s movies. The one scene in-between, where nothing happens and the director is just filling in the gap between the action and the conversations and the lovemaking. But it looked good. The aesthetic of the scene. Nothing else was needed. Empty parking lot, soul-wise. Cars were present. Shiny asphalt from the rain that had poured 1 hour before. Mason was pounding away with his black biker boots (that’s one style element that he retained for the past 3 years. He really liked those boots). Although the boring paper bag didn’t really match the boots. Maybe it did have some connection to his face, though… There was this weird interrelatedness between the paper bag and his emotionally dry face.

Anyway, post-rain parking lot evening scene. Mason’s walk and train of thought were bluntly interrupted by a lying plastic shoe. What the fuck? — Mason exclaims in his head. At first, he slows his pace down while rotating his head, eyes fixated on the shoe. Six steps later, he stops for exactly five seconds to look at the shoe and think about it. Despite the fact that he tried to make sense of the shoe, his mind was as blank as paper. No words, just a blank piece of paper. Spotless dead wood. He turned and put his right foot forward, getting home 10 minutes later.

It was Friday that day. I forgot to mention that part. He spent his evening at home, alone. What he did in his apartment is a part of his private life, so I will keep that in the confines of his walls of personal safety. How do I know what he did behind those thick Soviet building walls? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. One thing I can share though is that he couldn’t get that mindless shoe out of his head. After frying eggs and sitting down at the table to eat, the shoe popped into his head. After turning off the lights after a manly relief in the toilet, the shoe slid into his flock of thoughts, again. During the teeth brushing ritual, the shoe kept him company. And of course, the classic, when he was lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. The plastic shoe stared back at him.

What a ridiculous thing, isn’t it? And Mason’s mind couldn’t make sense of it, either. Even though it didn’t even try. He didn’t try. To make sense of it. The shoe just appeared, and he mindlessly observed it.

Right before dreamtime, however, along with the wet shoe inside his head, he mutely exclaimed: frail solitude.

Whatever that means, make of it what you wish. Mason went to sleep, no big deal.

Hello fellow beautiful mole, throbbed down the pipeline! My name is Elliott, and I’m just reporting the latest news from up above the underground. Here in the catacombs, we issue a good dose of intellectual masturbation.

The Electric Pipeline is providing a perspective on the psychological human state and its dynamics, where the world’s heading, and what can the (wo)man in the mirror do about it. Thanks for reading and see you around!