Monday, October 06, 2014

Abandoned shoes by a park bench

No feet in sight
London, ON
October 2014
Thematic. Messy. Here.
I came across this forlorn pair of shoes during a recent lunchtime walk through London's Victoria Park. For anyone who doesn't live here, this lovely park is a wonderfully kept icon of another era when grand public spaces seemed to matter to society more than they do today.

Scenes like this seem so out of place in a park that seems almost immune to the kind of day-to-day grind that marks Dundas Street, the sometimes-gritty-at-the-edges mostly-retail street just a few blocks south of here. London's homeless don't seem to sleep here. The white collar types who hang out at the picnic tables here seem worlds apart from the folks who struggle, virtually out of sight, barely a three-minute walk away.

Which makes this sight a fascinating one. I'm not sure who left these shoes here, or what the underlying story might have been. But I felt compelled to capture it all the same. These shoes were new and shiny once, but time has worn their soles down, scuffed up the once-pristine leather and covered it with a thin patina of dust. It's almost as if Willy Loman decided to leave his final mark before slipping once again into the shadows of history.

Whoever it is, I hope he finds peace.

Your turn: These shoes have a story. Care to take a guess what that story could be?

3 comments:

Gilly said...

Hmm, bit of a poser here! I think the previous wearer found a couple of £20 notes (or the Canadian equivalent) and decided that as these shoes were a bit too big, and rubbing the back of his heels raw, to say nothing of pushing his toes forward and cramping them, that he'd go off to the nearest charity/second hand shop and get himself some newer ones.

Either that or he'd been asleep, laid out on the bench with his shoes off, and being a bit dolally, marched off without his shoes on, still being half asleep.

Or, he'd rushed off behind a tree ........... no, not in polite company!

21 Wits said...

I'd like hearing the story!

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Aliens took him away on their spaceship.
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