Personal Narrative - A Hole In My Left Shoe

A Hole In My Left Shoe

I have a hole in my left shoe. It’s on the inside of my left shoe, and it’s been there since the first week I had these shoes. It doesn’t grow or change, because the circumstances that begot it do not grow or change. It’s there because when I sword fight I drag that foot as part of my footwork. This hole in my shoe is a constant thing in my life. Even when I get a new pair of shoes it will still be back there within a week. Look closely at this hole and you can see into it, into me. You can see a story that begins several years ago.

I can see him coming from a distance; we stand in a wide expanse of grassy field in the upper reaches of the North Carolina mountains. The boy is a friend of mine; his name is Lucuse, and I’ve known him for a week and already we have the makings of life long friends. But right now we are enemies of the most mortal kind. We circle each other, a stick in each hand, our sabers, and weapons of choice. We size one another up. He is much bigger than me in all aspects except our height, which I take him by scant inches. I’m faster, and he knows it, but if we should get into a lock and are forced to rely on force he knows he will win. Our plans formulated we begin, a slash, a stab. The world around us blurs; it’s still there, but only as a memory. All that exists is a fog, a fog and my opponent. I see him in his entirety, I see the way his body moves, how each piece of him works to form his bid for my demise. I’m aware of myself; I can sense every movement that would at one time have been taken for granted. Now each step is a chapter in a novel that I can’t put down till the end. The adrenalin pounds in my mind as my opponent strikes at me trying to find a hole in my defense. It is in this feeling that I find true happiness for the first time in my young life.

That was then and this is now, and I’m a different person now than I was then.