FOOTPRINTS. A Reckless Reminder of where you have been.
She just stood there. Her bare feet, her freshly polished toes; they had wandered freely, unintentionally into a massive splatter of wet paint. The immense obstacle had been smack-dab in the middle of the road, and she hadn’t seen it.
Her eyes dashed to her paint-drenched feet, then diverted to her surroundings. She needed to hide the paint. The paint that had smeared her pretty feet, leaving an ugly mark of her sloppy mistake. She didn’t want anyone to see her mess. Her body shuddered, and panic flushed her cheeks. As far as she could tell, she was alone. Her secret was still safe. If she hurried, no one would ever have to know. She knew she had to leave her mess behind. And quickly. Seconds felt like hours as she stood in her dilemma, exposed in the middle of the street. Her opaque, hardened pride stiffened then composed itself as she lunged heedlessly forward.
Her heavy, burdened leg lifted her pretty, manicured toes up over the splatter and onto the untarnished road. She ran. She didn’t look back. She didn’t ask for help. And she didn’t tell anyone. She just kept running.
She stayed on her simple, secret path, searching for a hiding place to wash her feet and bury the remnants of paint. She scrubbed without scrutiny. She buried her residue without consideration. Yet behind her, in the middle of the street, her footprints remained. The murky imprints of paint, her undeniable mark, was already dry. The enamel had altered the street and damaged the path. The paint was setting hard, baking-in, and becoming an inevitable, unsought layer of the pavement…
