The Escape - NEW! - Chapter 1

Out of all the oddities that can pop out in this world, there is the story of that small shoe repair shop down at the corner of Main and 2nd. The owner was a mid 40’S woman from Indian origins and she worked there mostly alone. Her business was simple, she repaired shoes. Broken heels, used soles, stains, unstitched stitches, anything. And word around had it that she was very good at what she did. She had many customers. From the outside it looked like an ordinary shoe repair shop, but what happened inside was a total mess.

She had slaves. Tiny slaves. She shrunk them out of nowhere and not a single investigation found out where they were gone. Shrunken people were labeled as missing. There was Eric, Sam, Tina, Angie, Simon, Roberta, and…and there was me, Lisa. She shrunk us to various sizes. I think Simon is the oldest. He’s been doing that for years, repairing shoes I mean. The woman never talked to us except to dump a pair of shoes and materials into our Box and say “Repair” then she would close the plastic lid and we were left in that wooden large box to do our job. It was like a big garage with a plexiglass roof for lights. Always locked tight. Eric and Sam were the tallest, around 3 inches and a half. They were the ones strong enough to move the shoes around or flip them, so the others could do the repairs. Tina, Angie and Simon were all around 2 inches tall. Simon being very old he would mostly just do the glue jobs. All the scraping, and small repairs like stitching or anything that was an “inside job” like fixing the insoles or washing the inner depths of the shoes fell down onto Roberta and me, cause we were the smallest. Roberta was 1 inch and half, and I was a little short of one inch tall.

Since I was shrunken, I cannot remember a single day without Simon telling us about his new plan to get us out of there. He was a dreamer, Simon. Older than any of us he had the urge to get free. Others were just resigned and had long lost hope. All of Simon’s plans failed anyway. Some got us in trouble. Some were just outright stupid.

As a team, I think we could repair at least 10 pairs of shoes per day. Some were easy jobs, some were harder. But all in all, every single day was almost the same. Giant normal sized shoes were dropped in, repaired, and taken out, replaced by other pairs. That was our lives. We could sleep at night. We would barely eat. There was a bowl of water, and tissues. Our owner changed those once a day so we had to be careful and remain clean. She kind of tended to our basic needs, but never really gave us more than necessary. Bread crumbs here and there. I remember when she dumped that young girl’s barbie sneakers. There was an old gum stuck to the worn out sole and we had a feast. We were humiliated, but it was easier as a team, we comforted each other.

Now that you know a bit more about our predicament, let me tell you what happened one day in particular. I got free.

It was a typical day at the shoe repair shop.

“I have an idea!” screamed Simon, running around the pair of white womens Nike air max sneakers, size 7. They had scuffs on the sides of the soles, laces to be washed part of the insole was broken and folded in smelly dirt and dried sweat. Not a big job overall, but of course, I was the one dispatched inside them to clean and work on the insole. The shoe was on its side so I just walked out and some of us gathered around Simon to take a break and listen to his stupid escape plan of the day.

“What is it again Simon…You want to build another catapult?” ironised Roberta.

“No! it didn’t work last time so… so I have thought about the ultimate idea!” he said. “We’ll smuggle one of us out and they will get to call the police and save us!”

“Call the police…” sighed Eric. “Smuggle one of us out? I think you’ve reached the threshold of madness this time.” He added.

“No, listen, it’s the best idea of them all!” started Simon. “We pull the insole, we carve a small bit of it, enough to fit one of us inside. Then we glue it all back together, with the person inside the insole and we wait for that witch to pick the shoes up and replace them. She won’t know there is someone inside the shoe, then once the owner of the shoes get them back, all there is to do is get their attention and call the police, warn them of our existence and we’ll be saved!”

“That’s the most wicked plan you came up with so far, Simon, but wait a second… you want us to trap one of us inside that smelly worn out shoe, at the risk of being trampled by some unknown woman until they can get her to help us? Sounds far fetched.” Said Sam, dropping his rag.

“It’s pure genius!” said Simon.

“I’m out…anyway, I am way too tall for that…” said Eric.

“It would have to be the smallest of us….” Said Roberta. Then all of a sudden they all looked at me.

“uh…” is all I could get out of my mouth.

“My dear Lisa…” said Simon walking up to me. He crouched and placed one of his huge hand on my shoulder. “You’re our only hope.” He finally said. I felt stupid. I looked around at them.

“It could work…” said Tina.

“Not a chance.” Said Eric.

“But maybe with a bit of luck… you know… she could make it.” Said Angie.

“We can’t ask Lisa to risk her life for us.” Said Sam.

“But we’ll be stuck in here forever if we don’t do anything!” said Roberta.

“Lisa… it’s up to you.” Said Simon, standing up and walking back. There was a silence. A long silence. I didn’t know what to do. I took a deep breath.

“Okay. I’ll do it.” I said.

“Yeah!” Screamed Simon. “Freedom here we come. Let’s go guys, let’s smuggle our Lisa in this shoe!” he said. Everyone started scrambling around, and get to work. Eric and Sam pulled out the insole. Angie and Simon started working on a small cut out area under the foamy arch. They debated, worked together with hope and I felt very grim. Roberta walked up to me, she tried to comfort me.

“It’s going to be fine. You’ll be a bit cramped in there, but I think you can do it Lisa.”

“I will probably die.” I said.

“Don’t say that. Think of it as a…roller coaster of some sort, ever been on one?” she asked.

“Yeah, a few times.” I answered.

“See, won’t be any different. Except maybe the smell.” She shrugged and poked me. I gave her a short timid smile.

What was I getting into?