These Boots Are Not Made For Walking

Varad,

She looks at her tattered boots – their soles kept in place by thumbtacks, the once crimson felt lining resembling the color of rotten flesh, the insoles smelling something putrid, the ruined zippers barely holding the boots around her wasted legs and the aluminium-foil tape wrapped over the toe caps.

She knows that she looks a lot worse than her boots. She remembers the day she purchased them. She was the new gal in the town, with dreams of becoming an actress.

She sighs in resignation and consents to take part in the medical research. Better a guinea pig than being homeless.

Written for the weekly Friday Fictioneers challenge hosted by our gracious host Rochelle Wisoff – Fields. This week’s picture prompt is from Courtney Wright. Please read the other entries here.

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Published by Varad

Self-published author/ Social media neanderthal.

60 Comments

  2. Everyone else has said it all, from: this is one of your best to you captured the despair brilliantly comparing her to her boots. Kudos. I’m glad I stopped by.

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  5. My ex participated in those studies… I always wonder what the repercussions will be.
    Very well done, Varad. Those boots have a life of their own.

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  9. Those boots are almost a life-force alone from your description. I hope this is safe medical research, but imagine from the money she’s banking on getting, it might well be dangerous. Lots to think about in this one.

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  23. Varad, I think this one’s your best yet. There’s carefully crafted characterization and I really felt drawn inside her mind. I watched perhaps a CSI show recently where the dead person had volunteered for medical research. Scary stuff. Going back to Kansas might be a better option.
    Best wishes,
    Rowena

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    1. Thank you very much for the kind words, Rowena. Medical research takes much more hideous avatars in the third world countries, where the poor are being subjected to tests without even their knowledge.

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      1. OMG. That’s dreadful. Things like that make my blood boil. There are so many of us who don’t believe in testing on animals and yet there are companies who still test on humans and doing that to people without their consent is deplorable.
        Best wishes,
        Rowena

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  26. What a strong voice here… really makes a strong statement, too. Felt drawn in and then held with duct tape until the end. Left wondering if homeless would be the better option, though. Great writing!

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      1. Ah, I get it, you are young… These Boots Are Made for Walking was made by Nancy Sinatra back in the 1960s. She was Frank Sinatra’s daughter, and Frank was still selling records more than the Stones or the Beatles back then…

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        1. Haha, I’m quite aware of the original. That’s why I used the word cheap knock-off 😀 I’m a huge Frank Sinatra fan and I’m into the classics big time. I steadfastly refuse to listen to any music created post ’94. (After Kurt Cobain)

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          1. I just reread your first comment. I totally misinterpreted it to be that the person in the story was going to do a cheap knock off of Jessica Simpson’s version. Oh well, not sure why I saw it that way.

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