Soles and Souls

Lena sat lazily in her lime green armchair, doing nothing but staring at the ceiling.

Her bored reverie was broken by the shrill ring of her doorbell. A quick glance at her clock told her it was still 2 hours before Vera was scheduled to arrive, so who was it?

She went to her door, and opened it like the normal door it was. A strange flying thing hovered in front of her.

It was sort of like a cat, but square and metal, and levitating. Not like a cat at all really, other than taking up about the same amount of space.

A voice came out of the flying metal not-cat.

“Lena Miller? Here is your delivery.”

Her eyes shifted downwards to the box on her doorstep. There was only one thing she was expecting to be delivered, and it was the brand new shoes she’d ordered about 10 minutes ago. Could it really be that? When they said same day delivery, she thought they meant at the end of the same day, not within minutes.

The robot didn’t linger, flying straight over the railing of the balcony and into the sunrise.

Lena crouched down to pick up her box in a hurry, and scurried back into her flat like a rodent about to store its food.

She placed the white plastic box on her glass coffee table and stared at it. There seemed to be a seam on the top, though no obvious way to open the lid. She ran her finger across the seam, hoping to find some kind of secret. And a secret she did find.

A soft purple light followed her finger’s movement. The top of the box split in half and slid open, revealing a bundle of brown paper, presumably hiding her new shoes.

She carefully pulled out the bundle, ready to unwrap and admire it, when the box’s purple light surged and formed into holographic words.

‘ONCE YOU ARE DONE WITH THIS BOX, PLEASE CLOSE IT AND PLACE IT OUTSIDE SO IT CAN BE COLLECTED.’

With great care, Lena placed the brown bundle onto her table. Still unsure of how this box operated, she tentatively pushed the edges of the lid inwards. As if it could sense her intent, the box closed itself without any other input needed. Lena once again acted like the little marsupial she was, and scurried back to her door to drop the box exactly where she had picked it up from.

Now that the box was out of sight and out of mind, she rushed back to her new shoes and grabbed them. She hopped up onto one of the green armchairs and hunched over to gently unravel the brown paper.

Unsurprisingly, these new shoes were nothing like her old ones. Her previous, well-loved shoes were made of a thin brown leather, while the new ones were made of a material Lena couldn’t possibly name.

They were shaped like a standard sneaker; the type Lena had seen many people in New Sol wear. At first glance, it could be easy to mistake the shoe as solely black, but closer inspection revealed a pattern of the night sky. Each little dot of a star shimmered as Lena tilted the sneaker about, revealing new depths of space.

The holographic image from her bracelet had looked cool, but not this cool. Lena couldn’t help but stare and stare and stare.

Before she even knew it, apparently 2 hours had passed because Vera was inside her apartment.

“Good Morning!” Vera greeted cheerfully, entering the living room and stopping once she saw what was in Lena’s hands. “You’ve got new shoes!”

Lena clutched the shoes to her chest and nodded.

“Did you get them just now?” Vera gestured to Lena’s front door. “I saw the box on your doorstep.”

Lena nodded again. The shoes still had her speechless.

“Well done!” Vera placed her bag by the front door and took her usual spot opposite Lena. “I’m impressed you managed to figure out online shopping by yourself. It’s pretty tricky.”

Lena tried to supress her grin of pride – pride was a sin after all.

“Thank you…” She said shyly, able to speak again.

“Let’s see you in your new shoes then!” Vera said excitedly.

Lena leant forward and laced the shoes onto her feet. They contrasted greatly against her bland and tattered clothing, but that hardly mattered to her; they were fun to look at!

--

Lena shuffled into the PFP group’s room again. Her gait was awkward, unsettled by the extreme comfort her new shoes offered her. But, for once, she wasn’t the last one to enter; only Hamish had arrived before her.

He looked up from his bracelet hologram as she entered and gave a polite nod of greeting that she returned.

Wait… Wasn’t Hamish supposed to be with ARC now?

“Uh…” Lena shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “So, you’re back now?”

“Yep.” He replied nonchalantly then gestured at her feet. “I like your new shoes.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

She focused on her feet again, trying not to be too confused by Hamish’s sudden return. Exer entered the room shortly after. They complimented Lena’s shoes, which greatly pleased her, but made no note of Hamish’s existence, which confused her even further.

Zan and Mizlin entered together.

“Oh, I love your shoes!” Zan immediately exclaimed, bouncing up to Lena. “Where did you get them?”

Lena raised her wrist and pointed to the metal bracelet that could do just about anything.

“Cool! I like to-“ Zan interrupted herself with an overdramatic gasp. “I just had the best idea! We should go shopping together!”

Lena looked at her own bracelet, then at Zan’s, wondering just how they would do that. She supposed they’d sit down and look at the pictures together? Zan followed her gaze and pieced together what she was thinking.

“I mean in person!” Zan giggled. “I could show you Forest Mall, and take you to some of my favourite stores. We could even go to a café!”

It sounded nice, but Lena couldn’t help but feel it was unnecessary.

“Why do we need to go to stores when we can get everything on this handy little bracelet?” She asked.

Zan tilted her head. “Because it’s way more fun? Trust me, I’ll make sure you have an awesome time.”

“Okay.” Lena smiled; she did like the idea of an ‘awesome time’.

Mizlin cleared her throat. “Please plan your trip later girls, we have things to do today.”

The two shared a cheeky glance and fell into silence.

Mizlin spoke again, “Today we’re heading to Tiny Monkey’s studio to play the demo of their new VR game, War of Dreams.”

The usually still Exer suddenly emanated an air of excitement, while Lena was busy trying to decipher exactly what Mizlin’s sentence meant.