In Their Shoes

IN THEIR SHOES

Jeremy pushed the joystick to move his wheelchair forward, but his hand slipped off when he got a spastic jerk and he didn’t go anywhere. He puffed in frustration, waited a few seconds and tried again. His hand jerked again just when he almost got the joystick pushed. He tried to relax the spastic muscles in his hand and arm, but he was feeling the pressure of people passing around him.
He heard some people talking in what they thought were low voices about him and his chair, and he also heard some laughter. It frustrated him even more, and when he aimed for the joystick, his hand swung wildly in a circle to the side. His hand struck a young guy walking around his chair.
“Hey, spazzo! Watch what you’re doing! Keep your spazzy hands off me!” the boy named Smokin’ yelled. His friends laughed and high-fived each other. One of them, Oro, looked embarrassed at his friend’s behavior.
Jeremy mouthed “Sorry” but obviously the group either didn’t hear him or didn’t understand him. They stared at him, and then Smokin, the leader, laughed again in a nasty way..
“Hey, spazzo, why don’t you get off my street? It’s making me sick just having to look at you.” Smokin sneered. He looked around at his gang for approval, and was satisfied when they smiled and high-fived him again. Oro’s hand didn’t quite touch his for the high-five, but he dismissed that.
He turned back to Jeremy, ready to blast him with another really smart comment, but Jeremy had managed to hit the joystick with his thumb and was halfway down the block.
“Yeah, just keep on going, and don’t come back! This is my street and I don’t want no spazzos messing it up!” Smokin shook his fist towards Jeremy as the others yelled “Yeah! Yeah!”
Except this time, Smokin’ noticed that Oro kept his hands in his pockets and didn’t say anything.
“What’s the matter with you, Oro? You like spazzos or something? “ Smokin’ taunted Oro.
“You really shouldn’t say those things, Smokin, you know?” Oro spoke in a quiet voice and looked sideways at Smokin.
“Why not, they don’t have any feelings, and they don’t understand anyway. Friggin’ spazzos, they shouldn’t even be here. They should stay in their home or whatever place they live in. They don’t need to be coming here on my street” He rolled his shoulders in his coat for emphasis.
“Maybe he’s going to work, Smokin. Maybe he has a job,” said Oro.
“ A job?” yelled Smokin. “What friggin kind of job could he do? Spazzo retard,” He waved his arm.
When Smokin turned to his friends, he noticed that they had moved back a few steps from him and Oro. They all looked embarrassed. He didn’t know why they would feel like that, he was their leader, wasn’t he? His word was law, wasn’t it? They should be feeling the same things he was, annoyance and anger at the spazzo who dared to come down his street.
“I’m just saying, maybe he’s going to work, and you shouldn’t say those things.” Oro repeated softly.
Smokin was angry, but he was confused, too. He managed to control his temper, and just said,
“We’ll talk about this later, you hear, Oro?”
“Sure,” Oro answered calmly. He had noticed what the others felt, too. He hoped it might start the others thinking differently about people other than themselves.
The group moved off down the street. They didn’t notice as a figure melted back into the shadows as they passed.
****************
In another larger city, Trixie made her way towards the front door of her company’s building. She hoped she would get through the door without anybody bumping her or tripping over her cane. She swung the cane from side to side, trying to locate the revolving door. She heard the swish of the door, and slowed down a bit and moved her cane more slowly. This was the tricky part, because if she moved her cane to the wrong place, the door would grab it and people would keep on pushing the door and her cane would be jerked out of her hand. Then the door would get jammed, and her cane could get broken. It had happened before, and she had no way of knowing how close she was to the door.
Unless someone offered to help her, but today, no one did. She hated to ask people for help, she felt foolish, especially if nobody responded.
Trixie hesitated, and someone bumped her from behind.
“Excuse me, are you going in or not?” a loud angry voice sounded by her ear.
“Sorry, I can’t tell where the door is. Could you aim me in the right direction? I can get through by myself.” Trixie responded cheerfully.
“ Oh, man, I am late and I really don’t need this right now. Just move aside so I can get to work.” the voice was angrier and the person shoved Trixie to the side.
“Hey, I’m going to work, too. I just need a little help getting to the door. Then I’ll be out of your life. I promise,” Trixie smiled.
No one answered, and no one helped her, either. She wasn’t surprised, things like this happened more often than not. Oh, well, if there was no one around, she might be able to get to the door this time without being bumped or shoved. She listened for the sound of the door, and moved forward slowly. She bumped the doorframe softly, and felt around for the opening. She slipped into the section, pushed the door and went into the company lobby.
She breathed out, and relaxed a bit. From here she could handle things, and when she sat down in her cubicle, she pushed the incident out of her mind. Just another one in a very long list.
She did not see the shadowed figure, not because it stayed in the shadows, but because she did not see at all. But the figure in the shadows saw her.
*********
No one had seen the light streaking through the night sky and falling to the earth in the mountains, because the visitor in the ship did not want to be seen or noticed.
The visitor studied the people and their behavior in many cities around the world, and entered long reports in its ship’s records. It analyzed media broadcasts and monitored movies and music. It was also able to study the economies and governments of all the countries of the world.
After all this study, the visitor made a decision. It would take action, and then monitor the results of its action.
******************

Jeremy felt like his muscles were going to cooperate with him today, so he looked forward to a decent day. He thought he might get through the day with only a few spastic episodes, or maybe only one. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt this good in the morning.
As he headed his chair out the door to get himself onto the lift van that took him to his work, his hand moved easily on the joystick. He was able to push and even turn it, so the van aide, Marshall, didn’t have to do anything except lower the lift and then strap his chair down.
“Wow, Jeremy, my man! You’re having a good day,” Marshall grinned at him. The aide moved his hand to automatically high-five Jeremy, but then he remembered Jeremy couldn’t control his hand enough to do the high-five himself. Marshall usually lifted Jeremy’s hand to meet his, but today Jeremy’s hand moved up to meet Marshall’s and he did a perfect high-five.
Both of their mouths fell open in amazement and they were both frozen for a few seconds.
“Man, Jeremy, you are cookin’ today!” Marshall grinned even wider.
Jeremy laughed, and tried the high-five again. His hand moved easily, and Marshall’s hand moved up to meet it. Another perfect high-five.
“Jeremy, my man, you have got to show this to Ms. Marion! She is going to go wild,” exclaimed Marshall.
Jeremy grinned and nodded his head. Marshall shook his head in wonder as he strapped Jeremy’s chair down and then they took off for work.
At work, Jeremy spent the first half hour showing all his co-workers and Ms. Marion how well he could high-five. Ms. Marion tried some other movements, and examined Jeremy’s arms. She couldn’t find any reason why he had become so flexible, so she congratulated him and told him not to overdo it.
*********************
Smokin rolled over in bed and groaned. His hands felt stiff today. Groggily he tried to remember what he had done the day before to make them so stiff today. He couldn’t remember any reason for the stiffness, so as he sat up in bed he flexed his hands and arms to loosen them up. They didn’t get any better, but he figured he would feel better after a long hot shower.
He stood in the shower flexing his hands in the hot water until his fingers got wrinkly. He still couldn’t move them very well, and when he tried to pick up the towel, his arm spasmed out and then back, and he missed the towel altogether. He yelped in amazement, and tried to grab the towel again. His arm spasmed again, and his fingers wouldn’t grasp at all. What was happening to him?
A brief memory of the spazzo he had seen yesterday popped into his head. He was behaving just like the spazzo. Now he began to feel panicky. Why were his arms doing this?
After several more tries, he managed to grab the towel, and then wrap it around his waist. He couldn’t move his fingers to tuck it in, so when his arm spasmed again, the towel fell to the floor. He went over to his bed and sat down. He tried to grab the sheet to pull it over himself, but had no better luck than with the towel.
He sat there trying to get the sheet pulled over himself, finally he succeeded in getting a corner over his middle.
“MOM! COME HERE! HELP ME!” he yelled.
Downstairs his mother was blending her breakfast drink and watching the news on the tv in the kitchen.
When she turned off the blender, she turned up the news to listen to the day’s weather forecast.
“Tom! Hurry up, it’s getting late!” she called up the kitchen stairs.
“MOM! COME HERE! HELP ME!” Smokin yelled again, but he knew his mother wouldn’t hear him with the tv on. He beat his arm on his leg in frustration, but his arm spasmed again and he hit the air instead of his leg.
“What’s happening to me?” His voice got higher as panic filled his mind.
“MOM! MOM! COME HERE! I NEED HELP!”
His mother looked at the clock, sighed, turned off the tv and called up the stairs again.
“Tom! It’s late! You’re not going to have time to eat! Get down here now!”
She sighed again, and started gathering her stuff to leave.
“MOM! MOM! DON’T LEAVE! HELP ME!” Smokin’s voice was a scream of panic this time.
Downstairs, his mother stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“Is this a joke? It’s late, I don’t have time for this,” his mother was just about out of patience.
“MOM! COME UP HERE NOW! I -” His voice broke and he sobbed.
“I NEED YOU! HELP ME! SOMETHING’S REALLY WRONG”
***********************

Steffi’s phone was ringing as she approached her desk, and on her computer screen the email icon was flashing, telling her she had 18 new emails. She smiled in satisfaction at the emails as she snatched up the phone.
“Bronson Publications, this is Steffi,” she chirped.
She balanced the phone on her shoulder and put her stuff away. She found three new proposals in her inbox and smiled again. She grabbed her date book and wrote down the name and number of the person calling her, and then made a date with them and hung up.
She looked even more satisfied as she read her emails. They can’t do without me, she thought smugly. I have so got this job for good. Nothing could get me out of this place, except maybe a promotion upstairs, she laughed to herself.
What a life! Read a few proposals, a couple of books a month, write a short note to pass them along to somebody else, and collect that fat paycheck.
She frowned when she remembered that she had almost missed the call this morning because she was stuck behind that stupid blind lady who was trying to get in the door. She was delayed getting into the building, so she missed the elevator, and it always took so long for it to get up to the top floor and get back down to the lobby in the mornings.
If that stupid blind lady had made her miss that phone call, she would have been sorry she ever tried to get in the door of this building.
I wonder what she was doing coming in here, anyway, Steffi thought. I wonder if she works here? What work could a blind person do, anyway? They can’t see, so how can they work? She should just stay home, where she wouldn’t stop real people from getting to work.
Steffi huffed in anger, and started writing answers to her morning emails. She didn’t notice the being standing in the shadow of a column in the corner.
She noticed that her screen seemed to be getting dark, so she tilted it back a bit to catch more of the overhead light. That didn’t help much, so she turned on her desk lamp. Funny, she usually didn’t have to turn that on until it got dark outside. She stood up and looked out the window. It didn’t look cloudy or anything, but it did look kind of dark out there. Oh, well, maybe there were clouds blocking the sun somewhere else. Yeah, that must me it.
She shrugged and went back to her desk and got back to work.
After a while, she found she had to squint to see the words on the screen. She adjusted the brightness of the screen to the maximum, and that helped. She got back to work.
She finished replying to all the emails, and stretched. Time for a caffeine break, she thought. I wonder if there is anything to eat in this place.
As she walked down the corridor to the break room, she glanced up at the lights to see if any of the tube lights were burned out. She didn’t see a dark one, but it sure was dark in the corridor. Must be because it has no windows, she thought. When she entered the break room, she looked at the blinds. They were open, and the sun was shining outside. Then why did it seem so dark in here?
She opened the refrigerator to see what there was to eat, and she couldn’t make out what was in there, it was so dark. She bent over to check if the light was on, and it was. What is going on here, she wondered.
Maybe we’re having a brown out. Yeah, that must be it. A power fluctuation. That’s why it looks so dark in here. She felt better when that thought occurred to her.
“Hey, Steffi. Anything good in there?” Martin asked, from behind her. He tried to see around her into the fridge.
“I can’t tell, it’s so dark in here, I can’t make out a thing,” Steffi replied.
“You’re joking, right? I can see those bagels clear as day, and if you’re done, I’d really like to get at them,” Martin said.
Steffi backed away from the open fridge door, frowning.
“You can see everything in the fridge? It doesn’t seem too dark to you?” her voice was tense, even though she tried to sound nonchalant.
“Sure. I can see the cream cheese, too, and I am going to have some of that,” Martin’s head was still in the fridge.
When he stood up, he glanced at Steffi, and said, “Are you ok? You look kind of upset.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tired, I guess,” Steffi mumbled.
“Right, aren’t we all, with this latest campaign going on and on,” Martin turned away and began working on his bagel.
Steffi walked slowly back to her desk, but she found she had to touch the walls to find out where she was going.
When she finally sat down, she looked at her hands, her clothes, the stuff on her desk. She could barely see them.
She began to panic. What was going on here? Why was this happening? She didn’t feel sick, she hadn’t been working too hard, so why was she not able to see?
****************************
That morning Trixie had opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. Man, the sun was bright today. She could make out things in her room a lot better than she ever could before. This is cool, she thought happily. Maybe it will last all day, at least if the sun shines all day. And maybe I won’t bump into so many things today. She rubbed her sore shins as she thought about this. Today is already starting out better than yesterday.
She could make things out even in the bathroom, where she usually had to feel for everything. It was so nice, but she knew it probably wouldn’t last long.
She could see her clothes, even make out the colors a bit. She knew the names of the colors, but had never seen then so well before. Her clothes were all tagged so she could match them.
When she got to work,she was excited as she got her desk ready, daring to think for a minute how absolutely wonderful it would be if this lasted. She sighed, knowing her vision would get dark again, probably at the worst time, too. It would likely happen when she was getting on or off the bus, or trying to go in or out a door.
She winced as she remembered getting in the building this morning, and the rude person behind her. Oh, well, that was past, no use thinking about it again.
It really was a beautiful day. She decided to call her boyfriend Benny, and see if he could meet her for lunch. The restaurant on the ground floor of her building at work had outdoor tables, but she had never had the nerve to eat there with Benny, even though he had tried to persuade her it would be good for her. Today would be the day she ate outdoors.
I’d better take advantage of this while it lasts, she told herself.
***********************
Steffi sat at her desk, trying to make sense of what was happening, but she didn’t come up with any answers. What should she do?
She sat there for nearly an hour, moving papers around and sometimes tapping on her keyboard, with no idea of what she was typing.
By then, she couldn’t see much at all, just different shades of light and dark. She decided to call her friend Liz and ask her what to do.
She tapped the desk nervously as she pressed 'O' on her phone. In this office, they made you ask the receptionist for an outside line, which she thought was so cheap of them.
“Hi, this is Trixie, how can I help you this beautiful sunny day?”
********************
“Well, Tom, how do you feel today? Any better?” the doctor smiled sympathetically at Tom.
Tom tried to answer that he ‘felt’ totally crazy, and his body was not working right at all, but when he opened his mouth, only garbled sounds came out, and he couldn’t shape the words with his mouth.
“Aaaa-aaagggg-rrrrrrhhhh! Uuuuuuuun-nnnn-nmmmmm!” he said. He tried to hit the arm of his wheelchair in frustration, but his arm just spasmed and waved in the air.
“Yes, you are having trouble talking, as well as moving, and unfortunately this will get worse. You may lose nearly all control over your voluntary muscles. As for the spasms, we can give you some medicines to make them less, but we can’t completely control them. You will need physical therapy, and occupational therapy, and I am going to get you a speech therapist, so you can learn how to talk again.” The doctor patted Tom on the knee, smiled and said,
“You’ll be fine, you’ll learn how to do everything again, with the therapists helping you. And, we are ordering you a special electric wheelchair, so you can propel yourself wherever you want to go. You’ll be much more independent than you are now. Won’t that be great?”
Angry tears stung Tom’s eyes, and he lowered his head and tried to rub his eyes. His hand would not touch his eyes, and he tried to yell and hit the chair in frustration, but only succeeded in hitting the air and garbling out more sounds.
“I understand one of your friends has offered to push you around until the electric wheelchair gets here. Here he is.”
Oro stepped in front of Tom, looked down at him sadly and said,
“Hey, Smokin’, what’s happening, dude?”
The doctor smiled and patted Oro on the shoulder and then said,
“Oh, yes, and I have a former patient of mine in the other room. He has recovered from the same condition you have, and I wanted him to talk to you to give you some encouragement. Let me bring him in.“
The doctor opened the door and motioned someone in.
“Tom, this is Jeremy, Jeremy this is Tom.”
The doctor couldn’t understand why Jeremy just stood there laughing.
***************
The visitor sat in its ship, recording the latest results of its research, and the results of its actions. After a consultation with its home planet’s elders, it decided to revise its original plan.
It wouldn’t make the substitutions permanent, just long enough for the replacements to realize what had happened. Just long enough to make sure they had changed their attitudes permanently.
A few decades ought to do it.