If you sneak about in someone else’s shoes when they are asleep, then you can become that person,” my brother said before tucking me into bed. He often told me interesting tidbits, information that he thought necessary for the long march towards adulthood. He would stare gloomily out the window at the oak tree in the backyard, close his eyes for effect, and tell me of all his 15 years of experience with life and death. He was a master storyteller, my brother, pausing at just the right words, changing the pitch of his voice, mixing accents. He told me of the little girl who lives in the stream and cries if taken out of the water. He painted that picture of Bo Berek and his flying magic horse that is still fresh in my memory. The Hangman was his favorite, because it frightened me, and I would grab his hand and stare with wide-eyed horror when he told me of the headless figure roaming through the countryside.

And then, of course, there were the shoes.

“Can I be someone else forever?” I once asked.

“No, Princess. Only while you’re wearing their shoes.”

“So, I can be anyone I want to?”

“If you can fill their shoes, then definitely yes.”

“Even you!?”

“Umm...not quite!”

He laughed and wished me goodnight. Just then mother came in and told me to go to sleep; it was past bedtime. She did not seem to notice my brother, who was standing in the corner and grinning like a mischievous five-year-old. Mother then sat on the edge of the bed and kissed me on the forehead, and sighed heavily. She could not see my brother, now flapping the curtains like a summer hailstorm.

My brother had never been too affectionate. A kiss on the forehead, a hug here and there. Quite unlike Susie’s older brother who would shower her with candies, cookies and piggyback rides. Sometimes, he would carry me around on his shoulders and run through the fields, but only when he was with Sally Cushbert. I would close my eyes and stretch my arms to the side as we ran through the wheat, the summer air blowing through my hair, and Sally following closely behind us. My brother told me that I was an airplane. He showed me pictures of some in newspaper articles that he collected. I did not believe him; men cannot fly, I said. “Oh yes they can. Every man, woman, and little girl can fly. You just have to try hard enough, that’s all,” he replied, and Sally nodded in approval.

I lay there on the bed after my brother left, the distant chirping of the crickets the only distraction to my imagination. I wondered if I could sneak out in Uncle Joseph’s long boots and go over the creek to hunt fowl. Uncle Joseph had come to the house only a few weeks back, with two small leather suitcases and several guns which he polished on Thursday nights and hung in a glass shelf above his bed. Every Sunday he would gather his friends and go to the countryside to hunt ducks, partridge, or quail. My mother would be furious when he would come back home with a dead bird in his hands, and swamp mud on his boots. Click-clack, Click-clack. His boots made that characteristic sound when he walked around the house, dragging pounds of mud all over the floor. He called them his hunting boots, and heckled my mother whenever he misplaced them.

My mother was a very careful woman. Nothing could escape her stern eyes. She was pretty once, before my father’s death. But now she looked old and weary, and could not even manage a smile when Uncle Joseph kissed her on the cheek and called her the best sister in the world. I wondered what it would be like to wear my mother’s shoes. She wore tiny leather shoes that lent themselves so wonderfully to her graceful bearing. She carried her head high and spoke in a gentle manner that comes only with age and experience. She never cried, not even at father’s death. I remember her calm face at the hospital, peering through the glass at my father. I remember the way she kissed him on the forehead and said goodbye, as if she knew she would wake up the next morning and find him in bed next to her. That never happened, and I dug my face into my brother’s jacket when they carried the body away.

I don’t remember much about my father, except for his death. My brother said that he was a good man, a man who believed in hard work, honesty, and God. He went to church on Sundays, never came home late for supper, and loved his family. I only knew him from a picture that hung on the living room wall. He looked stern and intimidating in his black suit, standing beside mother, with my brother’s tiny face popping out from between them. I asked him where I was when the picture was taken. He said I was in mother’s belly, a full three months old.

That summer, my brother bought a shiny red bicycle from the large store in the town up north. He rode it everywhere—to the farm, the town, the church—even when mother told him to stay away from the highways. They were too dangerous for that flimsy machine. He never cared. Once, he took me to the town on the bike, where we went to the theater and the circus. I pointed out the fat lady and the yoga man, and roared with laughter at the giant and the midget as my brother walked beside me, dragging his bicycle along. He bought me cotton candy and ran alongside me on the merry-go-round. We had our picture taken by a photographer who made us sit in front of some flowers and forgot to say “smile.” We also saw a film in which they showed a tiny mouse singing and dancing on a steamboat. Steamboat Willie, it was called. I told my brother I wanted a mouse of my own, and that I would name him Barry. He laughed and hoisted me on the front of the bicycle and whistled “Turkey in the Straw” as we rode back home. I told him I would make a little house for the mouse, one with a tiny bed and a kitchen, and a small piano where he could sing and dance, just like that mouse in the film, that Mickey Mouse. He asked what if my mouse got lonely. I said I would then get him a wife, a female mouse that would do all the cooking and cleaning, and my two mice would live happily ever after, just like him and Sally Cushbert.

Sally Cushbert loved my brother. She was a petite, shy girl who always smelled of jasmine and lavender. Her house was about a mile from ours, and she would bake cookies for me whenever I went there. I remember her fragile wrists when she would take off her baking mittens and stuff my mouth with cookies. I thought Sally Cushbert was the most beautiful girl in the whole world. I asked my brother one day if he would marry her. He said he would, but only if I promised to be the best woman. I asked him what is the best woman. He said that the best woman is just that: the best woman.

Sometimes on nights like these, my brother would sneak out on his bicycle and circle Sally Cushbert’s house and they would tip-toe out to the countryside, where they would spend long hours gazing up at the stars, the radio crackling in the background. He would come back home late, climb in silently through the window, sit down by my bedside and tell me everything. I would pretend to be asleep, but he would still tell me all about Sally, the countryside and the stars. My brother always said that the stars had names. He called one Jack, another Tim, and one extremely bright one he called David. I asked if there was a star named Jenny, too. He said that there was, and it was the brightest star in the whole sky, and that sailors looked at it for directions because it was the star named after his sister.

I thought of all the people I could be, as I lay there on my bed with the night crawling by. All I needed to do was to sneak out in their shoes, just like brother said. I could be Bo Berek on his flying horse and ride over the countryside, past the edge of the world. I could be the little girl who lives in the stream and sings mournful songs laced with that smell of the cool fresh water. I could even be Sally Cushbert, but only if I could find her shoes.

————-

Sally always cried now. She wore black all day and her house did not smell of cookies anymore. I’d see her lean her head on my mother’s shoulder and cry for hours. Both women looked as if they’d been captured in an old black and white photograph, as if they’d aged hundreds of years in misery. Her parents took her away. She held my face in her hands and hugged me before going. I still remember the trickle of tear drops down her cheeks. My mother said that she went away to the town, away from all the memories. I knew I couldn’t be Sally Cushbert. She’d taken all her shoes with her.

I wondered if I could be my brother, if only for the night. Then, maybe I could sneak out to Sally’s place, and spend the night under the stars in the countryside. Maybe seeing my brother again would make her happy. I crept silently out of bed and tiptoed to his room. The door was locked, but I managed to steal the key from mother’s bedroom. I thought my heart stopped beating when I turned the key and the door creaked open. The entire room smelled of dust and very old paper, as if I’d come there for the first time in years. I made my way to his wardrobe and pulled it open. It made a horrible screeching sound that I thought might wake up my brother. I didn’t want to wake him up; I just wanted to wear his shoes.

It took me some time to find them, the brown leather shoes that he wore everywhere: to the farm, to church, to Sally Cushbert’s house. He wore them when he played ball with his friends, he wore them when he snuck out to the countryside with Sally and his radio. He even wore them the day he cycled up to the town and got hit by that car. He had them on when we took him to the hospital and the doctors could not stop his bleeding. I remember the shoes at the foot of his bed as he laid there, his face covered with that white sheet. He died wearing the same brown shoes I was holding in my hands.

I placed them on the floor and gingerly slid my feet inside. I closed my eyes tight and waited, just like my brother had said. But nothing happened, and I stood there for a long time in the darkness, staring down at his shoes.

He was right. I could not fill them.

Puranjay Singh is a sophmore Literary writer for Generation.