“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” | Teen Ink

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

January 8, 2014
By liveloud70x7 SILVER, Private, California
liveloud70x7 SILVER, Private, California
6 articles 0 photos 34 comments

Favorite Quote:
&ldquo;You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.&rdquo; --john green<br /> <br /> &quot;self-consciousness is the enemy of all creativity&quot; --ray bradbury<br /> <br /> &quot;We suffer each other to have each other a while.&quot; -Li-Young Lee


I posted the sign up yesterday, with a picture of the shoes. Tiny pink shoes, with pink ribbons. Innocence all over them. But red on my hands…

It was the right thing to do, though. Because now we are beginning to be all right and happy. I didn’t do it for me – I don’t even care about me, you know. We can just be happy now.

He doesn’t need to know I cry sometimes, cry because I feel empty inside. I don’t feel sad, just empty.

I had something growing inside me…some call it a bundle of joy, some call it a burden, some call it a fetus, embryo, zygote, I don’t know. It’s gone now, anyhow, the only thing he said made us unhappy.

Now what made us unhappy is gone – out of me with a gush of air – and I suppose we are going to be happy now. What was inside me blocking our happy is gone, and now I am empty. I suppose feeling happy beings with feeling empty. Maybe it ends with empty too. And that wouldn’t be surprising. Just another piece of licorice, if you know what I mean.

Well, he never found out about those shoes and he doesn’t need to. I bought them on a whim because they were pretty and they made me wonder about that something growing in me like maybe the real thing that could actually be a bundle of joy and then I remembered he doesn’t want it, we don’t want it so I almost threw them away on the train tracks when he wasn’t looking but then I thought maybe I could get a bit of pocket money.

Just in case…well, just in case he lies, you know.


The author's comments:
This is a response to Hemingway's 6 word story. It is based off another short story of his: "Hills Like White Elephants."

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.