Melody Joy wrote:
Heather looked down at her exam scores, mostly C’s with a few B’s sprinkled in and that one A in choir that she knew she had earned just by showing up most days. It was such a joke that it was almost funny. She sighed and thought, “Well, I guess being average is better than being nothing.” Even as she thought it and allowed herself to be comforted by that fact, she wondered if it was true.
Her older brother, on the other hand, was extraordinary. He always had been. He was just two and a half years her senior and yet was four full grade levels ahead, set to graduate from high school this year at the impressive age of 14. He was also lettering in track, despite having to compete with students several years older than him.
She was nearly home from school when the old woman stepped out of the bus right in front of her. Heather tried to avoid a collision, but it was too late. She bumped into the elderly woman and threw herself to the side, ending up in a heap on the sidewalk, her backpack catching most of it, but her elbow taking a pretty good hit nonetheless. The old woman peered down at her suspiciously through round wire-rimmed glasses and didn’t appear to have been affected by the bump at all.
Heather mumbled her apologies as she picked herself and her report card off the sidewalk. Her elbow smarted, and she was fairly certain it would start bleeding soon if it hadn’t already. The old woman stopped her before she could turn away, and she looked dumbly at the old woman, feeling more and more embarrassed as the woman eyed her carefully.
Heather’s eyes dropped to the ground where her eyes fell upon the most outrageous pair of shoes she had ever seen. Controlling the urge to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of this otherwise typical old woman, she looked back up as the woman spoke to her again.
“I want you to have them,” she said.
Heather looked at her in confusion.
“The shoes,” the old woman insisted, “I feel it’s time I passed them on so someone else can enjoy them.”
“No.... That’s okay, really,” Heather mumbled, “They’re not really my style.”
“I think you’ll find they are. They’re even more extraordinary than they appear, just like you.”
By then, the old woman had removed them from her feet and was standing on the sidewalk in her stockings, now nearly 5 inches shorter than she had been before. She bent down and gathered them carefully, then ceremoniously passed them over to Heather.
Embarrassment burning hotter on the back of Heather’s neck as several passers-by snickered, she accepted the gift and walked off in a hurry. The old woman’s voice followed after her, calling out, “Put them on when you get home. Ask your brother what he thinks of them.”
It wasn’t until Heather was actually home that she realized how strange it was that the strange old woman had known about her brother. Maybe the woman was crazy. After all, she had just given the most outrageous pair of shoes ever to a stranger to walk home in stocking feet.
After dinner, curiosity got the best of her and Heather tried the shoes on. Despite being certain that the little old lady had to have had significantly smaller feet than her own, the shoes fit perfectly. And despite having never really worn real heals before, they were surprisingly comfortable and easy to walk in. She still felt ridiculous in them, though.
Wanting to tell someone about her adventure, she went into her brother’s room. He was bent over his desk, his room immaculate as ever. Several textbooks were open on the desk in front of him and the computer screens were filled with more information. He had his headphones on, and was bobbing his head erratically, most likely to Mozart.
Heather approached him slowly, and touched his shoulder to get his attention. In that moment, something extraordinary happened. Time seemed to stand still and she was suddenly hearing his thoughts and feeling what he felt. The thoughts and memories and feelings overwhelmed her.
“Why can’t I be more like Heather? Heather doesn’t get stuck doing homework for three hours a day, and they don’t expect perfection out of her. Sometimes I just wish I was a normal kid and allowed to do normal things. I know intelligence is a gift, but I don’t want it anymore. I’m going to do it. I know where Mom’s sleeping pills are and I know how many I need to take to die. Forget this homework. I’m going to do it now. If I wait any longer, I’m going to lose my nerve.”
Heather gasped and pulled her hand away from Brogan’s shoulder as if she had been burned. He jerked away from her in the same manner, leaping up and turning around to face her, hands raised slightly as if to fend off an attack. There were tears streaming down his cheeks that he moved quickly to remove.
“I had no idea you felt that way,” Heather said at last.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“There’s nothing wrong with being extraordinary, and being ordinary isn’t any better or worse. If you feel that much pressure, then tell Mom and Dad that you don’t want to do it anymore. Killing yourself is not the answer.”
Heather’s life changed forever in that moment as she held her big brother as he wept in her arms. She held him until their parents came and the whole story spilled out. From then on, she wore those shoes every day and touched as many people as she could. To this day, nobody knows how many lives she has saved or simply changed for the better because of the strangest shoes in the world.
Pope Jon wrote:
Chuck Jack Savage had always been the manliest of men. He was a lumberjack by trade, and a woodsmen by choice. He wrestled bears into submission for recreation and rode a buffalo to work each day. It has been said that his beard could grate cheese and his blood was actually pure whiskey.
But heroes rarely look the same from start to finish. In fact, Charles Jackson Savageton , as his mother would call him, would've never known that the shoes his niece gave him would change his life forever.
Before he put them on, he checked to make sure no one was around, despite the fact that he lived alone. He was an honest man, and wanted to be able to tell his niece that he'd tried them on. With a mighty sigh and a shake of his head, he slipped the shoe on, and let out a gasp.
He had become Charley J. Savvy, the Lumbersexual Loverboy.
He gained powers of fashion, fortitude, and fabulousness. With a sassy crack of his neck, Charley caught sight of his reflection, and willed his beard to trim itself. He quickly mended all of his clothes to be overflowing with style and attitude, and set off to save the world.
Neither words nor bullets could ever harm the Lumbersexual, and his mastery with a chainsaw and an axe had not faded. The chainsaw and axe just had a better look to them now. Mahogany trims with mother of pearl inlaid on the handles, plus adorable home-stitched covers!
Having united with his feminine side, Charles was finally able to woe his sweetheart, and the two lived out their days in the cabin he build with his own two hands. He had decorated it with his unique sense of style, or course.
Chuck C. wrote:
It was a sunny day. Jane was waltzing her way down her street when her eyes caught a small ragged box. It was nothing special. In fact, she didn't really know why she noticed it at all. An even greater mystery was what possessed her to pick it up. She cracked the box open and her eyes were overwhelmed with a prismatic burst of color.
They were, quite simply, the most colorful, vibrant shoes she had ever seen. She could not resist grabbing them and putting them on. As soon as she did her vision was awash with every color in the rainbow. Her hands glowed with a colored fire. The fire leaped from her hands and struck a passerby, causing their body to bind and fall to the ground.
She ran over to them, and to her relief, they were still alive. In fact they seemed to be locked into a state of bliss. Jane then realized how she could use her new found gift. She now spends her days finding sad people and blasting them with a rainbow, spreading bliss and joy of color.
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