A Thinning Light

A pair of new shoes in the thrift store, the old shoes would shuffle away from them if they could. A ragged man struggles carrying a large plasma screen in outstretched arms. He is walking it home but he has no home still, he is walking it. There is little light to be had, no one goes to the park not even to stare at the sky, not even to walk a dog, not even to smoke a cigarette huddled behind a damp tree trunk. A muffled clomp of boots, a drizzle of slow traffic, sludge iced over with iron all this keeps away unnecessary movement. A bad day for minstrels, knights and stray unicorns. No one is curious about the thinning daylight, how it falls listless upon new shoes. An old woman, hands wrapped in fingerless wool, takes the new shoes home. She walks them home in a burlap bag recycled by blind beetles. Many humped mounds of shoes, now rest in an unlit solitude. An oversized plasma screen struggles with a ragged man as they walk past her dark window. The new shoes do not fit well with the old heaps - not yet. There is no more walking or loose ends to fray by the end of the day.