Innovation is Afoot

The rocket was sweating in the Florida heat like a bottle of cola released from an icy cooler. A few hundred, dressed in shorts and vacationer wear, watched from a distant dirt lot. Set in rows along the silver bleachers, their prim shaded gazes reflected a pale imitation of the clear blue sky above them. The televisions and screens around the world watched in suspended awe, as an invisible voice by the slick giant announced a string of monotone brevities to the busy platform before takeoff. 

On a summer street corner in a far city, a crowd funneled into a Pizzeria to watch the spectacle from a greasy flat screen. The mailman disembarked his little buggy parked by the curb and made his way through with a delivery under his arm. His quick feet slapped the ground as he moved through the buzzing huddle of people, excusing himself. A woman, excited by the action of the grand mission, had shuffled to her left to see better, and accidentally struck her dainty foot atop the mailman’s hairy one. She shot him an ugly face and he returned fire patiently with an apologetic one. 

His travel-worn feet were squarer than most and thick with callouses, like the hands of a laborer. He patted his way over to the back, stopping in the doorway of the manager's office with a parcel under his arm. 

“Here you are Doug, almost got trampled by the wall of folks at your entrance. Guess you're pretty busy then?” 

“Thanks, just set it there. Yeah they’re all here to steal my cable.”

Doug was going over the numbers for the day again, and glanced over his thick glasses to watch the live stream of the launch from his desktop while he twirled a pen with his right foot. He itched the bottom of his foot with the pen, and groaned.

“This sore is killing me. I tell you, I’m getting too old to walk around these tiles and stub my toe on ovens all damn day! They should send ME to Mars next, or somewhere with nice fuzzy carpets at least, like a French restaurant. I hear the sand’s softer there because of gravity; Mars I mean, not France.” 

The mailman inspected his own dusty feet with a turn and set the parcel down by a stack of others. 

“I know what you mean. It blows my mind we can call someone on the other side of the world, send packages anywhere in two to three days, hell, send people to Mars-“ he gestured over to the screen above the bars counter, “but we can’t come up with a good enough medicine for sore feet. How’d that trial go with the pain bandages you got from the VA by the way? Any good?”

Doug leaned back and shoved his bruised and dusty feet on top of his paper covered desk, inches from a half eaten sandwich on a plate and slouched his head sideways bitterly.

“The VA, ugh, those guys… Let me put it this way, if you gave me a scalpel right now I’d cut these puppies off myself!” The two sore footed men griped like this continually and often. 

Outside the bar, a voice commanded, “Stop! Police, don’t run!” 

A colorful blur sped passed the entrance with a darker blue blur close in tow behind it. The crowd by the tv hardly took notice of the commotion, staring instead at the live footage of the metallic ship which was now steaming like a majestic dragon recently awakened. 

The cop was just half a block from his suspect when the figure bolted through a china shop. He rounded the corner breathlessly and ran smack into a shelf full of beautiful antique plates, spilling them with a crash. The officer behind swore and maneuvered between the shards, getting a big piece stuck in the meat of his heel before speeding past a grumbling old lady with a broom and into an alley-fed door. 

The suspect spun his head around and echoed out to his pursuer, “Bite me pig!” 

He scaled a chain link fence with his toes gripping the wire impressively, propelling himself to the other side. The officer choked out a sentence of directions into his shoulder radio and performed a running vault over the fence.

Exiting the shaded alley of a brick building, the two carried on tirelessly down a hot industrial street, never slowing their pace. The piece of glass in the young patrolman’s foot was stinging against the burning pavement, but not unbearable and didn’t slow him. Men in his profession carried a preternatural tolerance for foot pain, and even received specialized shots or pain bandages that aided in numbing stimulation during action (this procedure was until recently unanimously accepted before the Association For Husbands and Wives of Officers lobbied to remove its usage in some cities, on the basis that sensual foot massages were an integral part to the maintenance of their marriages, though no correlation to relationship success has been proven yet, or so says the census bureau).

The cop then suddenly pulled a pill shaped device from his belt which he activated with a twist that let out a high pitch arming squelch. He flung it underhand, just a few meters ahead of the assailant. It landed and burst apart spectacularly, releasing a wide-spread layer of red hot gel-like beads across the sidewalk. The runner couldn’t slow in time and instead stepped right onto the mess, sliding into a parked car and crumpling over in pain. He screamed and hollered, groping his cut, inflamed feet while the officer jogged up out of breath, his pistol drawn. 

“43rd and Santos street, I got the suspect down here, I repeat, suspect down. Step it up with medical- Don’t move sir, let me see you hands and feet!” 

“I said let me see your hands and feet.” Repeated the doctor in the white coat. 

The astronaut snapped back to reality and assented, lifting his hands and feet up as he sat back in the padded exam chair. It was safe to say he had a lot on his mind. The doctor poked and prodded at the skin, feeling the surface of his hands, then his feet. He stopped at the big toe.

“Hmm.”

“It’s just a scar, I got it working at a Pizzeria before the army, jammed it on an oven when I was taking the trash out. Hurt like hell but it doesn’t hurt anymore doc.”, he assured the squinting old medical officer.

“I’m not worried about the pain son, I’m worried about your maneuverability, up there Captain.” He nodded to the invisible heavens past the fluorescent lit roof of the prep room, 

“You’ll be doing a lot of electrical maintenance work, fine motor stuff with these 'piggies'-” he wiggled the toes playfully, “not to mention operating key joysticks and controls of the ship with both your hands and feet. You’ll need all 4 appendages if you boys expect to get to the Red Planet in one piece. We wouldn’t want the colony mission jeopardized because of an underlying injury would we?”

The captain stood gingerly, balancing on his toe mockingly like a ballerina and replaced his state of the art form fitting foot wrappings one at a time 

“Trust me doc, I’ll be fine. Don’t you know? You're talking to the steadiest feet in the unit!”

The captain departed down a long narrow hallway and was met by a barrage of hand shakes, camera clicks, and official looking suits along the way. When he reached the end, he was greeted by a brightly dressed woman and child. She embraced his hands and petted his feet lovingly with her pearl lined toes.

“We’re just so proud honey! They installed a tablet screen to stay in touch from home and see every step of the trip, so we’ll be watching down here. We’re gonna miss you, aren’t we sweetie?” 

The boy by her side was picking at a toy train with both his feet and flipping it up and down in the air when his father bent over by him and set his helmet on the ground. 

“Hey dude, you're getting good with those feet. Maybe someday you can fly like daddy too huh?” 

The young man looked up with a wonder-filled smile before it drained away into a scrunched frown.

“You're gonna miss the new movies aren’t you. We always go watch kung fu movies together. It’s not fair. ” 

Hair was tussled, feelings were smoothed over, and in a minute, the aviator was kissing and hugging his family goodbye. As he reached the final platform entrance, he found his colleagues stretching out and checking their suits while a team of nearby engineers checked off a list of procedures. 

“Hey captain, there you are! We were starting to think you got cold feet”

Laughs all around, some stern remarks regarding preparation, then the group was packed into a dim briefing room with a projector and table. After the final schedule was reviewed and checks were complete, a gaggle of scientists headed by a gray haired woman entered from the double doors. She gathered the crew around the long table and wrapped up the final details of the mission.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been one hell of a ride to get here, and I’m proud to say this is the bravest group of Americans I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. So as you depart, we bear you one more gift from our humble little planet, a special order from our friends in China.” 

She signaled a sweating curly haired, collared shirted man who in turn hurriedly picked up a case, one of eight laid on the table. He snapped open two latches and lifted the lid revealing two strange objects inside, seated in foam. They were dark and sleek, rounded in corners, slightly polished, and about the size of crumpled baseball hats. They each were one of a pair, and had an opening at the top rear. Below this compartment, was a line of slotted cord that zigzagged down the top face from end to opening. Two ends of the cord hung in a meticulously tied bow which rested neatly on top. 

They all stared in amazement at the alien objects, not one person speaking while the devices were carefully placed upright on the floor. 

“Try them on.” Said the director as she smiled.

Assuming they were gloves, the captain stepped forward and bent over at the waist, pressing his hands carefully through the holes.

“Ah ah, try the feet my dear.” Suggested the director.

The crew whispered in shock, what a ludicrous thing to do! The captain wiped his brow and sat, folding his feet carefully into the devices with a fitted pop of its material, and pulled the strings tight.. A deathly silence rang out from around the padded room. One of the astronauts spoke up from the side.

“Madam director, I thought the rigid foot wrap program had been decommissioned in the 50’s? Weren’t human trials inconclusive, and the Chinese and Soviets sai-“

She waved off the voice to a hush with a flick of the hand then stepped forward, patting the captain on his broad shoulder.

“Stand, if you’ll please captain. Trust me.” 

He stood, at first like a baby deer with shaken legs. To stand with his feet fully enclosed, encapsulated in a body which allowed for none of the micro-flinches in stabilization, to have the sensory ends of the members that connect him to the earth muted to a fuzzy softness, this was all very jarring indeed, even for a seasoned vet as him. Nonetheless, he sturdied himself and erected his posture steadily, looking down strangely at the foreign masses covering his muscular feet. 

“They feel.. Actually quite natural.” He finally reported.

A sweaty scientist from the back started clapping but he stopped when the director stared daggers into him. They watched as the captain moved around, gaining confidence, even taking a small controlled jump to their surprise. 

“This changes everything! My god” said a crewmember. “imagine the splinters, the glass, and damn pizza ovens we don’t have to suffer by anymore!” added the captain “The guys in R&d have really outdone themselves. What do you call them?”

The director signaled a different scientist who also happened to be sweaty, “Yes what are they called?” 

The boy began to sift through a book of scribbled notes rapidly, eventually trapping a line of text between a flapping page and his shaken finger. He cleared his raspy throat.

“ahem- they want to call them: "shoes" mam, which stands for the plural of "Sapien Heeled Operational Equipment" of course, but the media department looks to be more in favor of the name: "Feet Defenders". "

They agreed that the second name sounded way better and then went about scurrying into place for the final walk up to the ship. 

Meanwhile, in the roar of the outside world, the trickle of far off places, market-goers, commuters, farmers, business men, athletes, criminals and plane pilots, all tuned in to watch the team’s final ascent up the platform and into the rocket. Fingers jutted out at the screen while the alien things attached to the feet of the heroes moved past. What a sight! 

Blasphemy in some cultures, in others, an engineering revelation. As the fire ignited and the booming voice was drowned out by the rattling of the takeoff, the sky darkened with ash and light, and the jet lifted high. 

Away they went past the limits of the cameras and eyes watching, but the images of the future which held tightly to the soles of their feet were forever burned into the eyes of humans everywhere. The word would never be the same again.