Leaving Shoes

Editor’s note:

Apparently Foodge’s message was a bit too garbled….. here’s the cat properly out of the bag ….

Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

This is the story of a kingdom far, far away. Where the old men divided up the goodies of the land and held on to them, refusing to let them make things better for everybody. Today I am thinking that it’s a country that people grow old too fast in, and so cannot think of how to make a better place.

Really, this is a story of my leaving. To anyone who ever asked me why I stayed, I always told them that it was because every day of my life here there had been something new. But I got tired of struggling. Some dust must have entered my eye, and I could no longer see new things, but old and tired things.

This is not the story that I put a bright and excited face on returning to Australia. This is a story where I tell it how I feel it. It was cold, and things felt never-endingly grim. All around me seemed to be people who were only just managing, dragging too many set ways along with them. Even the people with a bit of spirit seemed only lightly alive, and I felt squashed down under all of them.

There was something enchanting in my eyes for a long time, and then some dust got in. And I got tired, so I am leaving, and I am a little afraid of my future. I made some kind of dream for myself, this house and those animals, but in the end it was only me, and too heavy for me, and I have to let it go. Not knowing if I will ever have a chance to make it again.

Everyone needs some kinds of tokens for taking a big step don’t they? Mine are a pair of cheap shoes, ivory coloured, made of light rubber. They won’t last me for very long, and they will pick up a lot of dirt, but they are a pleasure to walk in. If ever I wanted a business to succeed, it would be selling these shoes. Who could not love them? I’m not going to start a business though, I think I must be a bad businessperson, I couldn’t make my school succeed. So these shoes and I are going to walk out the door of Japan on April 30, leaving behind the dream house that I made, the animals that were my family, and some kind of enchantment that after 20 years, one day wore too thin to keep me following.