Concluding things

They found the shoe maker’s body in the river the next morning. He was floating face down, caught up in some thrushes. A pair of boys had gone out fishing and seen first, his coal black shoes, floating in the water and then realized that they were attached to a body, they’d gone to contact the police. It took a while to identify the shoe maker as most of the town he’d grown up had forgotten that he existed, forgotten about the comfortable and well made shoes of their youth, the shoes that cupped their feet so gently that it reminded them of being in their mother’s womb without them ever knowing. 

Eventually the butcher was told that an unidentified body had been found at the morgue, and he knew right away who it was. He walked the sixteen blocks across streets dusted by pollen, waving away two or three sneezes as he traversed back alleys, past old church buildings made of stone, and large glass obelisks that had arisen after the war, where it was said that men counted money all day, profits from all of the projects that had taken place during the war. Occasionally, he had to dodge a car, too much in a hurry to get somewhere to notice the lonely butcher walking, and for a moment he envied the shoe maker, even in death. He could see how he’d become obsessed with traveling back to the past. The pace of things was going to move so rapidly now, he was not sure that he’d be able to keep up. By the time he reached the morgue he hoped to have come to a conclusion about the shoe maker, but he hadn’t. The body he identified was his, he had the same round nose and thick mustache that had characterized him throughout his life. 

And yet, the butcher wondered if this version of the shoe maker did not appear younger, perhaps his crow’s feet were reduced from the man he’d seen only a couple of days ago. And he knew that he was letting fancy take hold. Certainly the shoe maker had wandered down into the river and killed himself to get away from the voices, or to join them. But what if he’d been right? What if he’d traveled into the past? What was he planning to do there? Perhaps, and now he remembered the day of the shelling quite well, perhaps the shoe maker had traveled back in time for a different reason than he’d first thought. 

And he could see the shoe maker now, stepping back into the past, walking down the street in his shoes, the buildings being demolished or reconstructing themselves as he walked, light posts falling and erecting themselves, their light pooling in the street or totally absent depending on the time of year, until he reached his shop, but rather than entering his shop, and warning himself, the old self working furiously on a perfect pair of shoes that this would be the last day to see his family, what if, instead, he walked right by. What if he went up to the crossroads and hailed a cab, had it take him out to the country, and paid the man handsomely for the trouble, and urged him to get back to the city. And then, the shoe maker walked up the old muddy road towards his house, towards his wife, beaming at him from the kitchen window. What if he walked into the house and kissed her, and called up to his two little girls to run and hide, let them know that he was coming for them, that he’d be counting to one hundred, and so they’d best find good spots. What if he’d walked up the stairs into that old house, his bare feet muddy from the road, and chased after his daughters, found them, held them very closely to himself, and kissed the top of their perfect heads. 

What if he’d understood at the last, that you can’t change the past, but realized instead, that at least he could be a part of it. That he could kiss his wife on the lips, and tell his two little girls that he loved them. Perhaps that’s what he’d used the shoes for after all. But then again the butcher was a fanciful man, and he suspected that he was probably wrong, that it was a mere suicide, but he mused all afternoon on the thought of his old friend kissing the tops of those little girl’s heads and greeting his death with a strange sort of smile.