Brown Sandals

I bought them on Beach Road. A cheap, unremarkable, purchase. By Phnom Penh, they wore the oil and sweat of summer. By Hồ Chí Minh, the perfume of a hundred sois, markets, dirt roads, and cities baked in motorbike fumes. Dust, rain, rocks, back alleys. Silent witnesses to recovery. They bore the weight. Until they didn’t.

Soles worn thin, I replaced them. The same street vendor. The same pair. No brand name. No thought behind it. Two hundred and eighty baht. Brown. Slipped on, slipped off. For six months, in Pattaya. Then it was off to Pai, Thailand. Native home to my spirit animal — peace. Township paced end to end. A rhythm. A routine. Feet fit, sandals strained.

Awoke Saturday afternoon to a vista view. No plans. From bed to hammock, sun-rays, mountain backdrop, fields of green, and reflection. Insects, birds, creek, rooster’s crow — measured in slow exhales. Introspection, interrupted by a craving — the enchilada plate scraped clean the evening before. Tank top and sandals, off to town.

A nip every other step, pavement grinding skin. A burn on the ball of my right foot. I glanced down — a vent in the sole. No snap, no break. Just the ground peeking through.

Found a boutique shop, the kind that thrives on tourists who didn’t check price tags. Only two replaceable pairs in my size. Both lacked humility. Well-crafted foot-ware for two thousand baht. Black. Eight dollars for sandals I enjoyed. Sixty for foot-ware I didn’t want.

It was an uneventful end to mundane wares. Nothing extraordinary — unless cursed to find meaning in the trivial.

Get up. Get ready. Set about the days. Never knowing when will be the last. The last day “this” is said. The last day “that” is done. Mostly, the last day goes unnoticed. For whatever reason, I noticed that last day. I noticed me throwing those brown sandals into that recycle bin on that road in that town.