No Shoes That Fit
Author: Ukari (translated with author’s permission, please visit their website to see the original Japanese works!)
To say here is far, and to call yonder nearby. Stories on the edge of the every day, strange tales you may or may not be moved by. Strange, curious, fantastic stories told by me, you, him and her. There are many stories but they’re all concluded within a single page, each story around 200 to 1200 characters in length, a short story collection you can easily read. Please enjoy them. Updated every Saturday at 6pm.
***
I was drinking at an izakaya bar the other day. Yeah, that one in front of the station.
So, last orders for the night had been called and it was about time to head home, so I went to the bathroom.
I was in the stall when I heard someone follow me in, but his footsteps were strange. Like, the guy was clearly barefoot.
‘Come on, man, how drunk are you that you’re barefoot in the toilets?’ I thought.
The toilets there, they have this open space at the bottom of the door, right? So, I had a quick peek.
And just like I thought, the guy was barefoot.
But the shape of his feet was odd.
His ankles, the ankle bone, his heels, that was all normal, but like, there was a hand or something coming out from the top of his foot. His toes were stupidly long.
Also, they were massively dirty. There was dried mud or something stuck to them, like he’d been walking around everywhere barefoot.
Well, I was drunk, so I wasn’t especially afraid or anything. That was probably for the best.
As I stared at his feet, he then turned around and left. And so I was able to leave without incident as well.
And yeah, it wasn’t until later that I realised something. The reason that guy was barefoot.
I mean, there was no way a guy with feet like that would ever find shoes that fit, right?