more crush stories Monday, 16-Mar-98 18:52:11

Message: 153.37.136.48 writes:

I thought I'd post still more stories. Might as well use this space for what it was meant for.

1. You know those moments when you're standing next to a woman when a bug crawls into view? Those moments when your heart skips a little, your stomach tightens, and you almost don't dare to hope? It's a feeling that nobody who hasn't been there canunderstand. That period of time before when the scurrying life is still in progress, when the giant shoe sits stoicly atop its hard, heavy sole and you, the only true viewer of this event, hold the power (for a moment at least). So you tell her, "look there's a bug down there." And she looks, perhaps quickly, fearing that the icky thing might be crawling on her. But, no, there it is on the ground, so far, so distant, yet moving, crawling with so many long, hairy, black legs, large beady eyes, pinchers, stingers, whatever. All you see is that moment in her eyes, that flicker when you wonder, will you get your wish? Often it's just a shrug and she turns away, the life hurries on for some other fate. But occassionally, once in a while, for some quite often, the startled look flickers to one of hatred, a brief moment of disdain and dislike for this creepy little thing. And so she pivots on those black pumps, dirt scratching under her rock hard soles, and she lifts her foot. "Ooh they're gross," she'll say and you know your moment is here. Perhaps you've even caught a glimpse of the sole of her shoe, the stained brownness mixed with scuffed black streaks. Sometimes there are burn marks from the crumpled cigarettes she's discarded, sometimes just a virgin cleanness waiting for the first taste of blood. And as her foot tumbles downward toward the insect, like a hawk towards its prey, you shrink along with it, shooting down to an inch tall, feeling the fear with the insect, watching that black shoe whirl towards you. And like that bug, perhaps you ask yourself, why, why me? I was just crawling here, the shoe was over there. I've never done any wrong that this woman shoe want me smeared underneath her shoe. But there is no answer save the crunch, the crackle, squish, squash, or whatever signature noise this particular bug has. The shoe comes to rest on the ground, a solitary life caught between those two unmovable forces. A leg struggles, an eye flickers, life struggles to continue, but far, far above, where the terible weight stems from, the woman just smiles and twists her foot. You, like the insect, are nothing to her, a blemish in her perfect world. The grinding smush of crackling insect shell reminds her that she is queen, she decides what is beautiful and what is ugly. And ugly things must be stepped on. And so her shoe sole is soiled, it bears the scars of those it has ruled, and she smiles.

(That was a bit odd, I know, but I thought I'd take a true story and embellish it a little)

2. A shorter story, but hopefully no less enjoyable. When my wife was younger she once went to the beaches of St. Thomas with her family. While she was there (she told me this sotry much later unfortunately) her, her mother, and her sister went out into the ocean for a swim. But there were so many crabs on the seafloor that they had to come back on shore to put shoes on. My wife had sneakers, her sister had sandals, and her mother old dress shoes (she swears it was all her mother had with her). They went back into the ocean, and she said they could feel the crabs underneath their shoes now, crunching into the sandy floor. So they started a game to see how many they couls step on. My wife said they could feel the crabs wriggling under their shoe soles, and could actually feel the shells cave in like stepping on a raw egg. After they were done, both my wife and her sister had to scrape the crab parts out of their tread with a stick. But her mother, who claims she stepped on the most, was wearing smooth bottomed shoes and so, had nothing stuck in them. My wife said she kept teasing them about this by stepping on the crab parts they dug out of their shoes, pressing them into the parking lot asphalt trying to get them to stick to her sole. "See," she kept saying, "they won't stick."