One of life’s greatest mysteries is the single shoe left in the middle of a street. For all my questionable nights of tipsy shenanigans, I’ve never once lost a shoe. Yet a single shoe or sock or sipper is often seen on the sidewalk or street after any given weekend. How that ends up happening has always puzzled me – and the mind concocts all kinds of possible scenarios, because it has to be something more interesting than a person tripping and tossing off a shoe then not having the frame of mind to retrieve it. I’d like to think there was something more dramatic – an abduction or a fight or a modern-day Cinderella story.
There is a ghostly element to it, especially in the rain and the light of day, and a certain sorrow to the scene. It feels like something is missing – a notion of loss that is evoked when we are so accustomed to seeing shoes in pairs. Out on its own, a lone shoe looks lonely.
