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                                                   " you don't have to be shoeish........"

Adventures of the FMP:

Butt first:      Hommage to Marcel Duchamp:      

December had sent us to the Gallery:

But for now.......

on with the story:

It’s been said that every end is a new beginning.

Well, this story has an “in the end” beginning

to an odyssey.

Now, everybody knows

that girls are a diamond dealers best friends:

And furthermore: Some affairs end with violence, as did this one;

and it happened on a day that somehow hadn't been going well at all.

Truth be told, it was an ill chosen departure that could have been

arranged with a little more grace and consideration,

but then, the exchange wasn't supposed to leave some portal

open for redress;indeed quite the contrary was to be the case:

Terminal separation. So, when Fred popped his surprise by saying:

“It’s over between us” while tossing the second ferry ticket

off the crossway into the drink just as he was handing his own

ticket to the ticket taker while stepping onto the ferryboat from the pier,

it could have been hardly a surprise for him to meet up with an

emotional, instant and swift, fare well kick into his behind.

So hard was it in fact that the red high heel pump (from here on out

to be lovingly referred to as FMP) lodged itself painfully between his

cheeksand remained there until later, when it was mercifully removed

by a group of sympathetic French tourists who were also bound

for San Francisco.

Susan was always quick on the uptake, and realizing that the right FMP

is most likely gone for good and she couldn't really do much now,

walking with only the left left-shoe, she turned the shoe left to her

into a projectile to be reckoned with and hit Fred on the temple of his head

with remarkable precision. This occurred with a power and accuracy that

contributed much to her own surprise about her spontaneous action.

Uncontrollable tears further propelled her resolute turn and hastened her

steps, she didn't want to be seen crying and had thus turned immediately

 to get back to her car without really checking to see if she had done

serious damage that she might have to answer for, had occurred.

Fred survived, embarrassed and bruised and a bit dazed and bleeding from

the forehead. Approving and disapproving murmurs from the crowd ensued

all around, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats; he wasn't sure

who murmured on behalf which side, but then they might not have been

certain either. Dizzy or not, having gotten more attention from a crowd than

ever before, he decided to keep both FMP’s for further consideration:

Perhaps as evidence for some legal action that might suggest itself later,

or at least as a Voodoo fetish to get some modicum of satisfaction with the

aid of some hair pins, or......?!?  As he was not particularly yearning for any more

notoriety just that minute, he sought to relieve pain and ego at the ship's bar.

The FMP’s placed on the bar next to his drink created a bit of a stir.

The quizzing glances from all the people about the room and some cautious,

yet surprisingly direct inquiries from perfect (and not so perfect) strangers

 as to the origin, or possible purpose of the shoes that were coloring his drinks

by way of refraction made him soon realize he was onto something; something bigger

than what his usual everyday activities customarily yielded. Three more drinks

had convinced his courage and his ego to devise a somewhat nasty,

but perhaps fun, plan to have some venting for all his pent up anger and confusion

 in the hope to restore his ego to its former, ..... its former, .... well: "Glory".

It didn't take long to formulate a worthy strategy; camera in pocket he soon

took the first step. He knew that technically the FMP’s didn’t really belong to him,

although they had, in a way, been “given” to him (affirmation by way of body language.)

It was among such considerations that his plan had festered and had ultimately

 fermented: Postcards, photo-postcards, involving one or both shoes, from wherever he went,

shoe in hand: sent to her office for everyone to see and ask.......

Any activity pursued to excess will soon turn into a compulsion;

 or worse.  At the very least one can expect consequences.

Messing about with the FMP’s in public immediately yielded pay off,

at first the inquiries demanded ever ready and immediate responses,

custom tailored to whoever was asking or demanding. A FAQ-list

(Frequently Asked Question - list) had to be constructed simply because

there were no discernable patterns to be divined; old and young would ask,

or at least stare, demanding some sort of response and without a predictable

audience all other possibilities had to be accommodated. Writing these responses out

proved to be a formidable task, though not an entirely disagreeable one.

There was an undeniable element of fun and satire in all of this, so, why not

rejoice in it; wallow in it! For the time being all the postcards prepared at an earlier

time were sent. One card a day; though I am not sure if the purpose of this

activity remained entirely in focus any longer, it had sounded better ....

well, on paper, so to speak.

Where to take this from here? Clearly, the edge had to be honed to

“up the ante”, so to speak. A computer port was soon fitted to the back of one of

the heels. People would still ask, but some of the audience got clearly

lost in the shuffle. Placing demands on the untrained eye limited the responders

to a more sophisticated (in the true sense of the word) audience and thus

shifted the demands on the FAQ-list (Frequently Asked Questions) to yet another

focus.  Susan was soon forgotten, or at least lost in the buzz of activity that ensued.

Drowned out by statements like: "Broad band is it?", "Is that USB2 or USB3"

and "I haven't seen one of these in a long time".... forgotten. Or was she?

A more low-tech remedy was needed, this gave rebirth to an earlier

plan and thus a tantalizing Voodoo shrine evolved based on some unsatisfactory,

failed "bed of roses" concept - messy thinking. Because of this "pseudo-AI macro "

the shrine initially targrted Microsoft's op-system and its lack of protecting itself,

clearly reason had little to do with things and it was soon re-purposed under the

influence of some serious accelerant (coffee) in pursuit of the original quest:

Revenge! Back on track, but a bit uncertain about the purpose of it all Fred

 rattled off several incantations he had retrieved from the Internet under pressure

from his new found audience. 

Without seeing the immediate effect of these efforts and dampened by the considerable

by the impact of the exercise there was still an element of juvenile satisfaction

in the procedure itself, bordering on magic, ..... power and ego!

Things got progressively bizarre....... Arrrrrrrrgh!!! He woke in a sweat,

with a start followed by ice cold shivers. Had he been sleeping all this time, dreaming?

Perhaps unconscious from the blow to his head? Rubbing his eyes did not

 help. If he had dreamed all of this why was was he still tired? His eyelids

were getting heavy again, heavy, heavy, sweet relaxation just around the bend. Was

giving in an option? As horrid as it all seemed at the time this was better

than most movies.

He decided to give into his desire for rest and peace and enjoy the ride.

Things seemed tame enough now, which lulled him right back

into what may have been a dream ..... deep, deeper, restful.

Guinea pigs? Oy!

He startled once more before going into deeper trance.

Can you overdose on coffle in a dream?

The shoe kept resurfacing as a guiding image thread, in spite of all

 the concentration against exactly this, the more he tried to extricate

himself, the more he succumbed to his own susceptibility.

The effect was immediate and devastating, aside from being unexpected by him.

Suddenly images kept bombarding him from all directions and with all manner

of subjects, a brush dipped into a psychological painting pallet that would

have been an inspiration to Sigmund Freud. All that had been cruising through

his mind lately had found conceptual expression in some convoluted

freak show of pictures:

What must have had to do with their first meeting at the library.

The "three shoes for one" - sale at the accessory store, s

till didn't make much sense.

He remembered the quaint Italian restaurant where they had their

first lunch, the one with all the odd artworks on the wall

that gave wings to all their conversation:

Ha, Italians!

Confusing, very confusing, but more images kept bubbling up

and bobbing about. Then he remembered the letters; he remembered

the letters he had sent, they must be on the internet by now!

Oh no!

Reason, by this time, had gone out to lunch

as all kinds of raw images made their debut.

At least all the pictures had a common thread, something to latch on to:

Obsession! Obsession!!!  Must wake up, must wake up, he thought.

But he had forgotten how to get out of his trance, something about counting ....

Surely not sheep. He should have listened to what his mother had always said!

Alas, he hadn't listen then either.

Other things kept morphing, possibilities suggested themselves .....

a disconnect ensued.

But it just wasn't the same, things could never be the same!? Sane?

Nothing clicked, nothing to click; the only one thing certain was:

This wasn't Kansas anymore, but then it may never have been Kansas.

Back to counting, ....but counting what? ........

Most certainly not squirrels. No, not squirrels

How did we get into squirrels anyway? Guinea pigs yes (a Peruvian reference.)

I mean they at least served to test her boy friends for suitability to her purpose,

but squirrels? Squirrels?!

Surely Carl Jung would have something to say about this.

He was slowly morphing to play his own analyst.... must stop!

S T O P !!!

The following image was even more unsetteling:

Susan, gearing up to get her ticket back out of the water!?

    Now he knew this couldn't be real, awake! Awake!

After all she was a hydrophobic claustrophobic with a propensity toward acrophobia

and now she had just one red shoe left?  Right, eh?!  Hahaaa! A triumph of logic,

a winning streak of his intellect!

Or was it? He remembered the "three for one" sale ..... that explained the additional

red shoe.  No way out, no way out, again:  Got to wake up! But what was

he supposed to count? Or what counted at all anymore? ........Backwards.

The images morphed and mellowed and contracted again as he devoted less energy

to his struggle to get back out of his trance.

Visions of Christmases past floated by; ahhhhh, the good old days.

But how good were they really?  They had morphed into concept.

No sooner had he thought such, when the red shoe reappeared,

in yet another incarnation.

Outsch! Was there to be no end to this madness?

Soon to be continued......

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