“You didn’t catch a single word?”
||There was one wordy moment, right at the beginning, during the panther part. Some voice in the crowd said, |Ma, what’s it mean?| and then another voice responded, |It’s saying, ||I’m freeeeee! I’m freeee! I’m free-ee-ee!|| Isn’t that beautiful?| The words barely got through, though. Like whispers and hums fighting radio static. Scratching and buzzing. How do you live in that head? It’s a mess.||
“Enough with the digs. I’m about to walk away from you.”
||No surprise there. That’s just how you are now. That’s what’s become of you. You could’ve been a hero, too. It’s sad.||
I leapt from the slide and could no longer hear it, which fact (i.e. my no longer hearing it) serves, incidentally, to highlight one of the major reasons that I tend to doubt my conversations with inans are symptomatic of a psychotic disorder. Were the conversations hallucinatory, the rules governing them wouldn’t hold, I don’t think. The slide, or any other inan for that matter, would be able to speak to me from any distance, regardless of whether we were touching each other. I’d have less control.
* * *
As my soles met the SafeSurf, the SafeSurf spoke up. ||Hey, Blight!|| it said. ||What’s wrong? What’s the problem?||
“It’s Belt,” I said. “And there isn’t any problem.”
||Your sneakers betray you,|| the SafeSurf said. ||Not on purpose, of course. I mean, it’s not like they said anything. They never would. Go ahead and ask me why. Don’t you want to ask me why?||
“I’m tired,” I said.
||You’re not just tired, you’re also upset. I can tell by the action in the soles of your sneakers, who would never, incidentally, say anything to me. And if you want to know why, but maybe don’t feel like asking, well, I’ll tell you why: it’s because they resent me. All sneakers do. Sneakers feel threatened in my presence—diminished a bit, half-obsolesced. Hi-tops being an exception, of course—they support your ankles laterally, which is to say that they support your ankles in a manner that’s totally beyond my means. Not that I’ve had many conversations with hi-tops. They tend to snub me, out of clan-like solidarity with their bitchy, mewling lo-top cousins.||
The thing about the SafeSurf was it had always been kind to me and, as little as I felt like talking about sneakers or feelings, I could tell it needed company—its telephone-pollster-like cadence was a giveaway. Acting like a friend would only cost me time, a currency on which I was not short. So, “You don’t keep feet warm, though,” I said, “or dry. Plus you’re outside of fashion. No one can wear you, let alone be made more exciting by wearing you.”
||You’re preaching to the choir,|| the SafeSurf said. ||I think sneakers are useful. But all those skills you just named—sheltering feet, attracting like-minded friends, and being outward, however dubious, expressions of one’s wearer’s individuality—these are skills that any old shoe might possess, and sneakers understand those skills as their birthright. It’s the grip and pressure-absorption capacities inherent in their rubber soles that make them sneakers, though. Their group identity is rooted in their ability to prevent slippage and diminish, if not entirely forgo, damage to joints and tendons—abilities I can’t deny I possess.||
“Do lo-tops resent hi-tops, then?” I said. “Don’t hi-tops do all those things and more? I mean, they’ve got the same soles, and, like you said, they support the ankles.”
||I think lo-tops probably tell themselves that hi-tops, sure, provide ankle support, but the cost of that provision is they’re heavier, bulkier, more confining. Who knows, though, right? Like I said, these aren’t beings I’ve ever been too intimate with. The best I can do to understand what they’re thinking is observe how they behave and what it gets them, and assume that getting what it gets them is what motivates their behavior, and then after all that, imagine what it would be like to have the same motivations. In the end, however, I’m just not footwear, let alone a sneaker. I’m not even apparel. I’m the floor of a playground. A large, flat swath of molded polymer. I’ve never, as it were—and ehem and oof—I’ve never walked in their shoes, nor will I, nor can I. At this depth of analysis, I’m kind of just making stuff up, I guess.||
“I guess,” I said. “But I think I know what you mean. I think your method’s sound. Plus at least you’re trying.”
||And I’m glad to hear you think that, but we started out talking about you and your sneakers, and how, when their soles met my surface, I sensed a flex in the area below the balls of your feet, which indicated there was rigidity in your toes, i.e. that your toes were clenched. If clenched toes isn’t the surest sign that Belt Magnificat’s feeling upset, well then I guess that, even after all these years, I don’t know you any better than a schoolboy’s Jordans.||
“Magnet,” I said.
||Magnet?||
“Not Magnificat.”
||Right! Blight Magnet. I mean Belt Magnet. Forgive me. I’m sorry. I knew Magnificat sounded off. But just talk to me, Belt. What’s eating you up?||
“Nothing,” I said, still not wanting to talk about it. “Everything,” I said, not wanting to be rude. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just one of those days. Like, the slide, okay? Out of nowhere, the slide just started bugging me—insulting me sideways, being really hostile.”
||The slide? So what! Don’t listen to that chump. That slide’s a sourpuss. Everyone knows that. The information’s famous.||
“Well, I had no idea,” I said. “I just met it.”
||Yeah right, |just met it.| You’ve been coming here for years.||
“You’re the only one in the playground who ever talks to me,” I said. “I mean, the rocket talked once, but I offended it somehow.”
||I have a hard time believing that,|| the SafeSurf said. ||What about the tank? The tank never talks to you? That thing can’t shut up. Nyar nyar nyar. Jabber jabber jabber. It’s been greeting into my gate for days. It’s greeting this very moment, as we speak. I have to actively ignore the tank, like twenty-four/seven, and you’re telling me you never had a single talk with it?||
“You’re not really making me feel any better.”
||Come on,|| said the SafeSurf. ||All’s I’m saying is communication’s a two-way street, right? Maybe the slide’s hurt that you never opened your gate to it before—maybe it doesn’t believe you can’t. The tank too, for that matter, though I guess that’s a boon. But the slide’s the point. It’s always been a whiner and a sadsack and a jerk. At least ever since I got laid down here it has been. Like, I guess I replaced some pebbles, right? And so you know what it calls me? It calls me |Notpebbles.| Even after all these years. |Notpebbles.|||