TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge 7 of 30

TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge, 7 of 30

Title: Walking a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes

Author: R. Scott Tyler

Genre: Fantasy

Word count (500 max): 494

Jason’s mom stuck her head into his room and said, “Jason, time to get up. You need to get ready for school and walk Linsey to her school. Remember, it’s Wednesday and I must go to the O’Neil’s house to clean.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he replied and added, “I’ll take Linsey now so I can come back and walk with you to the O’Neil’s place. Then I can walk to school with Kim.” Kim was the O’Neil’s only child, and they attended the same Senior High School.

His mother was a cleaner for some of the affluent families in Makati and was sought after due to her attention to detail and efficiency. They were lucky that she was happy and healthy, and she enjoyed her work. Their dad had lost the use of both of his legs in a machinery accident but was gifted mechanically and could fix almost anything the neighbors brought for him to look at.

Jason had a happy, if modest, home life, and all four household members were grateful for what they had and loved each other dearly.

Kim had been Jason’s closest friend since childhood, when his mother started working for their family. Kim had always been shy and quiet, but had now become almost melancholy and dispirited.

“Hi Kim, how’s it going? Did you read that next chapter in Noli Me Tangere? Rizal was a great writer,” Jason asked with enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I read it, and yeah, he was great,” Kim answered glumly.

“What’s up with you today?” Jason asked him.

“Same old thing, dad can’t shut up about my friends or my grades, or even my school,” Kim replied. “He wants me to quit hanging out with Arturo and wants me to go to private school for my senior year.”

“All I want to do is go to school with my friends and spend my evenings with Arturo. I told Dad I’d quit school and sell meat at the fresh market if he made me change schools. He didn’t like that very much.” Kim raised the sunglasses he’d worn out of the house and showed the black eye his dad had given him the night before.

“Geez, tsk,” was Jason’s only reply. His dad has never raised a fist to anyone in his life, as far as Jason knew. Kim’s dad, on the other hand, gave him a 10,000-peso-a-month allowance, as well as buying him pretty much anything he wanted.

Jason looked down at his friend’s pressed chinos and brand-new, non-imitation deck shoes, and then at his pants, with frayed cuffs, and his only pair of tennis shoes, scuffed and worn from running on the basketball court, as well as attending church and school. His dad bought him these tennis shoes for Christmas last Year.

He was pretty sure he preferred his old tennis shoes to Kim’s new deck shoes and shut up, walking the rest of the way to school quietly, with his hands in his pockets.

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