An immaculate single blue satin stiletto, lying in the mud in the centre of a woodland path.
Blue: she had discounted red and purple – too tarty – and black – too boring. Besides, blue went with her outfit.
Satin: for Christmas parties – you can get away with tacky at this time of year.
Stiletto: that would be her grandmother’s word: she would just call them heels.
No, of course you don’t choose satin heels for a walk in the woods.But when you’re wearing them, and a walk in the wood happens, what are you going to do?
Single: Why leave it lying there, abandoned, reproaching the onlooker?
She hadn’t known the path was going to be muddy – but then again, she hadn’t anticipated the path at all. Of course her shoe was immaculate: it fell off when he was carrying her, and he wasn’t going to wade back through the mud to retrieve it.
And she wasn’t going to be walking home, was she?
The Shoe, written by Susy Churchill
First published by Literary Orphans inspired by a photograph taken by her daughter, Celia Magpie.