Uncle's Shoes

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

When gunfire cracked or shouting erupted in the near distance Luke thundered in and dragged her away, making sure she was covered up appropriately in case anyone was to see her peering out in terror.

In fact, it wasn’t that the outside world was completely alien. Nika had lived in this neighborhood for all her sixteen years. Her family inhabited a block of apartments, Uncle was at this very moment slowly shuffling down the communal staircase and Aunty was clattering around in the kitchen, preparing dinner. If she closed her eyes she could just about recall grainy memories of before.

But the outside world as she’d once known it had become something unfamiliar and terrifying. Long gone were the days of dressing up for Christmas and dancing at weddings. All her friends had fled, her school was a ruined shell and she had no one for comfort. At an age she should have been learning in the classroom, Nika’s innocence had been given to her oldest cousin, Luke, amid renewed civil unrest and pandemic terror. She cried and pleaded to her parents for her entire wedding day to no avail. She was assurance that their bloodline would survive and was safely kept at home like any fertile young woman.

Nika didn’t know what was more unsettling; the world outside, crumbling and bereft of joy, or her short tempered and insatiable abuser and uncaring parents living upstairs.

When no one was around, she’d tiptoe to the window. She could just make out the hills in the distance, surrounding the city. If she’d ever get the chance to escape and survived the hike, beyond those snow capped peaks lay a wider world she couldn’t even begin to imagine. The thought of it stirred something deep inside of her. A sort of fear, or excitement. But the corner of this city and this apartment block was really all she had ever known.

Sometimes Nika caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, old beyond her years and hollow-eyed. She cursed her parents under her breath as she clothed herself carefully, avoiding the bruising on her pale body or when she sat as gently as she could to avoid putting pressure on the swelling down there.

Mostly, she remained silent and spent her days fading into the background of the apartment as much as she could. She listened to Luke eating like an animal, and to the heaviness of his footsteps which determined what her day was going to be like. His beard had grown long and he often ranted to Aunty and Uncle. He had a rage in his eyes now, but he himself didn't really know a world before rampant disease and chaos.

One day he returned home with a rifle, and Aunty fought with him screaming and pleading, saying that he’d become one of them. One of the rats who beat women who dared vaneture out. One of those who shot bullets at protestors from rooftops.

He’d patrol outside at night on his moped, up and down, disappearing for hours and coming back smelling acrid. He’d crawl into bed pushing his body against Nika. He’d never take no for an answer.

Nika began to notice Aunty looking at her when she was doing chores. She’d smile when she caught her eye and then Aunty would look away. But one day, as Nika wearily scrubbed the floor Aunty gasped in horror when she noticed the purple bruise on Nika’s neck. Aunty’s finger pulled down Nika’s top. She silently beholding the entirety of it, extending down onto her chest. She took it all in then went back to resealing windowframes without a word.

Protests nearby became increasingly rageful as the winter snows arrived and Luke always returned from them with his rifle clutched by his side and a foul temper. One night when he returned he found Nika’s diary and read it aloud, his narrow eyes black slits. He hit Nika away when she tried grabbing it from his hands, and she fell back onto the bed. His blows kept coming, as if they would finally rid her of her autonomous thinking. He ordered her to stay in his room; the swindow had become her last view of the outside world, a firmly sealed portal to nowhere. No one came to check if she was alright for days, not even Aunty.

When Nika's brother David who lived downstairs came home one evening bearing a resistance flag Luke, waiting for him outside, beat him badly. Everyone poured out the apartment block and tore him off just in time. Nika watched from the crack in the curtains, heart beating through her chest, David’s bloodied, still body, Nika’s mother waving her arms in the air, Uncle shouting and grabbing at the rifle, cousins in disarray and Nika's frail dad being held back as Luke took off on his moped.

Suddenly Aunty grabbed Nika’s shoulder from behind and pulled her away from the window, her face anguished.

“Go now” she begged, pressing a parcel into Nika’s hands, “Now!”

Nika stared at the parcel as Aunty rummaged and pulled out a wool coat from the wardrobe.

“Money and food, now go! My brother is waiting for you. He’ll take you to the hills,”

Nika jolted and ran for the door, the only shoes she found to put on, her uncles. Aunty went down the stairs first carefully, allowing Nika to slip out behind the chaos, to the back of the appartment block where a car awaited with its door open.

In the dusk, Nika could just make out a familiar face, and ran towards it, diving into the back of the car. A man she had only seen a few times from the window of Luke's room pushed her down and covered her with a blanket. Then they took off, past the apartment block, past her family, past Aunty who threw the car a glance, past David and his bloodied face, down the road and around the corner.

“Stay down”, he told her. “It’s not safe yet”.

He turned up the radio and lit a cigarette and on they drove as night fell, towards the hills and the world beyond them with the parcel held tightly and Uncle’s shoes falling off her feet.