86 One Step at a Time

What the hell did I step in?

And barefoot!

I was stepping spryly from footfall to the next, using my feet to only mobilize. But ambulation requires watching where one steps so spryly. It requires proprioception, knowing when joints above the feet go awry.

But this lesson was learned much too late. I stepped in it.

It was messy and squishy, oozing between my toes. It smelled. The most malodorous wafts of offensive reality entered my nose to stamp their biochemical signatures onto the olfactory bulbs of my brain.

Who could have left something so foul and rancid? What had transpired to deposit this offensive splotchure splatter, so disgustingly sick, on my personal itinerary?

I needed to know. I had no intentions of ever stepping into this squalid dollop of dastardly disgust again!

I must retrace my steps.

Yes! That's how I will learn the truth. Retrace where I went wrong; where this fetid disproportionate darkness arose.

I went back to the beginning, from the very moment I awoke, sat up, and pivoted on my ischial tuberosities to land my feet — my pristine, clean, well-pedicured, immaculate feet — squarely on the floor.

I resat on my bed. Yes, this is the way to discover the truth, for I could smell the stench from this very spot. How had I missed it the first time?

I arose and perambulated the very path I had taken. Along the way, I discovered the tell-tale piecemeal disrobings of garments unshackled and fallen, en route. Much of it was not even my own! Nor even my own gender's!

What had I done? How had it come to this: the strange trail of a stranger's strange strangeness?

Was I this stranger? Unto myself. When I retraced my own footsteps, I could easily see where I had gone wrong, emblematic of my whole life. My travels' travails left reminders of what I had been at this or that very step.A trail of tears, indeed.

Of course!

That horrible spot, initiating my inquiry, was of my own making. I'd be damned if I would be dealing with it myself! No. I shall leave it for someone else to clean up. Not my problem.

________________

This story has a companion poem, "Dancing with Myself," at https://vocal.media/stories/dancing-with-myself

I couldn't decide whether this idea would be better presented as prose or poetry, so I did both. End of problem.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Word count (excluding notes): 366

Submitted for Tuesday, March 26, 2024

2024: A Story-a-Day for the whole year. This one is #86.

All pictures are AI-generated, but the words are not!