The Seeping

I'm not doing much. Let's get that out of the way right now. I'm wearing inactivity like a dressing gown, with nothing in the pockets.

It's important for you to know that. It will inform your judgement of my writing. You'll realise that, relatively speaking, my actions are worthwhile. Something is usually better than nothing. A pointless paragraph is preferable to drumming my fingers on the desk. It's quieter, for one. It's also preferable to fingering my drums on the desk, which makes me look nervous.

I'm glad that's out in the open.

I got wet feet yesterday.

It was raining, so there were puddles. That's how rain works. In an ideal world, there would be no holes or surface imperfections, and there would just be a thin, global layer of moisture nourishing crops and soothing soles. But it's not an ideal world. You can tell it's not, because there are puddles. There were yesterday, anyway.

I was crossing the road, and there was a massive (think Lake Superior, only superiorer) puddle between me and the pavement. Cars were coming. I had a choice to make.

Either I got my feet wet, or I tried to jump it.

I got my feet wet.

It's not that I couldn't have made the jump. I probably could have. I've been leaping puddles since day one of doing it. But I was worried that I'd look like an idiot. I'm not a natural athlete. Gracefulness is not something I'm blessed with.

Physical gracefulness, anyway. I'm very graceful linguistically, as you can tell by by elegant comma usage.

If I'd tried to jump it, I probably would have flailed a bit. Or raised my legs to high. Or stuck my tongue out. My landing would have been clumsy. I might have toppled backwards into the puddle and drowned.

The passing cars would have hooted and hollered and laughed and hooted (horns). A jock on the back of a pick-up truck might have thrown an empty beer can at my head. An unshaven bus driver might have wheezed and leered and splashed me, as his passengers all gave me their respective fingers.

So I chose to get wet feet. It was the cowardly option, I admit. But I've never said that I'm not a coward.

The trouble was that, even in my cowardly act, I was still tentative and bumbling. I should have strode steadily and calmly through the water like a undeterred Moses/Jesus (Mosus?) in a world without God.

But instead, I stumbled a bit. I splashed and skipped and flinched. I felt the water seeping into my socks like shame.

When I got home, I peeled off my socks. I didn't even want to look at them. I was like police officer taking off his (or her) bullet proof vest after a raid in which her (or his) partner was killed.

Then I did what had to be done.

I stuffed my shoes with newspaper.

I only have one pair of usable shoes. I knew they'd have to be worn the next day. I had to dry them out. So I stuffed them.

We don't buy newspapers often (because of the internet and morally bankrupt journalism), so it was an old copy of The Guardian. I'm not sure how old it was, but I think there was a picture of Lloyd George on the cover.

In went the dusty paper. Printed tales of murders and corruption and obsolete financial information; cricket scores and crosswords and adverts; wars, peaces, opinion pieces, Pisces. All scrunched up.

All scrunched up to soak up the shame.

***

Did the trick! Nice and dry this morning! God bless the press. LOL!

It's stopped raining now, but I'll take a different route home anyway. Cowardice between the toes is difficult to ignore.