Shoes
The following musing was typed into my mobile phone on the bus this morning, I was also eating a banana at the same time (come to think of it now, I left the banana skin on the bus… oops) I wrote it in the form of a text message as I had no pen in my bag, it was originally about 10 texts long, but I lost about 4 pages in the saving of it…
"I like lookin at people and contemplating their existence. I often find myself intrigued by their shoes. Their purpose usually goes unacknowledged. I wonder where their shoes have taken them then I look at my own shoes and I feel like I am looking at someone elses. I feel warmth towards them as I remember the many places they’ve been with me and I thought that I went there alone, little did I know I had a silent companion (two silent companions)
The ones I am wearing now have been with me through my college years in Edinburgh, through the ups and downs. I bet they like me a lot more these days, I’d be a lot softer on them these days y’see-
Isn’t it strange to think that some shoes outlive their wearers…? I remember my own father’s shoes still lying there unaware, days after his death. It was only recently I threw away a pair of socks that he used to wear. He got his money’s worth out of them socks, they were missing the toes and heels by the time I found them. I wish I didn’t throw them away now…"
The picture above shows the remains of an ethnic Albanian man killed by Serb security forces on April 27 1999 in the village of Meja. Albanians were forcibly expelled from nearly a dozen neighboring villages that morning; when they reached Meja a large group of police and military systematically stripped the convoys of men. The men were later executed near the side of the road.
One witness described how she was forced out of her village at 8:00 a.m., arriving in Meja with her family on a tractor two hours later. "There were about forty people on our tractor, and they took twelve men," she said. "They took all of the men."
Shoes taken from Prisoners at Majdanek concentration camp
