The Shoeless Shoemaker

As his family had done for countless centuries, the cobbler labored long hours each day to make shoes for the good people of the village. The shoe-making techniques his family passed down through the years yielded shoes that were of peerless quality, and the good people of the village would wear no other. When his son grew old enough to begin learning the secrets of the trade, the cobbler told him the story his father once told him, about a time when the first shoe-maker in their family was very poor and down to the last of his leather for shoes. His problems were solved by dwarves who came in the night and made perfect shoes for him, so that he soon became renowned through the village and the country as the best shoemaker in the land.

That was the source of the family’s superior shoe-making trade, the cobbler explained to his son, and it has been handed down through the years, father to son.

And so the father taught the son.

The cobbler also instructed his son on one other point: each year before spring, the son should do as his father and his father’s father and so on had done each year, which was to craft a pair of small outfits, two small shirts and coats, two pairs of pants, and two small pairs of shoes, all of which should be set out on the porch step on the first spring morning. Each spring their family had done so, and each spring the clothes were gone. This, the father instructed the son, was how they ensured that their shoes would continue to be of outstanding quality.

For many years, the father and son worked side by side in the shoe shop, and each year at spring the father crafted clothes to set out on the first spring morning. The son smiled at his father’s superstition, but took no part in it. If his father was content to make clothes each spring that were doubtlessly taken away by the neighborhood children, such was his choice.

When the son had a wife and child of his own, his father took ill and passed away, leaving the family shoe shop under the younger shoemaker’s watchful eye.

The younger shoemaker was diligent in his practice of his father’s shoe-making techniques, and continued to earn the praise of the good people of the village and country for making the best shoes in the land. The first spring morning came and went, and the young shoemaker set no clothes on his porch steps, nor did the thought of doing so ever cross his mind.

Before the moon had completed its first cycle of the spring, the young shoemaker had taken ill. His feet swelled and grew, and became tender and painful to the touch. He could not stand on his feet to do his work, nor could he conceive of covering his feet with shoes, socks, or even a light sheet as he lay in bed.

His wife did her best to make the shoes in his absence, but already the word had spread across the land. He became known as the shoeless shoemaker, and his family quickly grew poor and lost their home.

Terminus

This was written in response to a suggested experiment approach, involving rewriting part of Genesis as a way of working in a distinctive voice. I’m posting it today in honor of Zombie Jesus Day. Enjoy!

  1. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day before the end. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it displeased him.
  2. And God said, Behold, I have taken from you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be forbidden.
  3. And from every beast of the earth, and from every fowl of the air, and from everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have taken every green herb for meat: and it was so.
  4. And God cursed man, and God said unto them, Be barren, and die off, be starved by the earth, and subdued by it: and be dominated by the sea and its fishes, and prey to the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
  5. And God said, We have destroyed the man We made man in our image, after our likeness: and let them no longer have dominion over the fish of the sea, or over the fowl of the air, or over the cattle, or over any the earth, or over any creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
  6. So God destroyed the man bearing his own image, for the image of man repulsed him; male and female he destroyed them.
  7. And God destroyed the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it no longer mattered.
  8. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
  9. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day before the end.
  10. And God cursed them, saying, Be barren, and die off, and vacate from the waters in the seas, and let fowl be no more on the earth.
  11. And God said, Let the waters expel mercilessly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
  12. And God destroyed great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters expelled mercilessly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
  13. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day before the end.
  14. And God said, Let there be no lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them cease to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
  15. And God cast them out of the firmament of the heaven to no longer give light upon the earth,
  16. And to no longer rule over the day and over the night, nor to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it no longer mattered.
  17. And God destroyed the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he destroyed the stars also.
  18. And let them no longer be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
  19. And the evening and the morning were the third day before the end.
  20. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it no longer mattered.
  21. And God said, Let the earth bring forth no more grass, no herb yielding seed, and no fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
  22. And God looked upon the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it no longer mattered.And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be scatter among all places, and let the dry land disappear: and it was so.
  23. And God looked upon the firmament He called Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day before the end.
  24. And God dissolved the firmament, and allowed the waters which were under the firmament to rejoin the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
  25. And God said, Let there be no firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it cease to divide the waters from the waters.
  26. And God ceased to call the light Day, and the darkness he no longer called Night. And the evening and the morning were the last day.
  27. And God saw the light, that it no longer mattered: and God sutured the division between the light and the darkness.
  28. And God said, Let the light appear no more: and light was no more.
  29. In the end, God destroyed the heavens and the earth.
  30. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.