Life As A Shoe

Hi, my name is Nike. I am 21 years old. 21 years is very old in shoe years. I'm a black and blue Nike, size 10 pair of shoes. I live in a dumpster and I have lots of friends that have a similar stories to why we were put in a dumpster. I had a wonderful life before I got thrown into the dumpster. I used to live in a closet with other shoes. I was worn almost every day of every week. Living in a dumpster is very depressing because while I was in there, the shoes were sharing their stories of how they ended up there. Well, today is my turn to tell my story, and this is how it started.

When I came out of the factory, that's when my life started. As I got to the store, I just couldn't wait to be worn by whoever bought me. Days, weeks, months, and finally, a year had passed, and I was still on the shelf. I started to loose home in ever being bought. One day, I was a mother and her son walk into the store. The boy had a balloon in his hand that said "Happy 14th Birthday". Therefore, I seemed to be the boy's birthday and his mom was buying him a new pair of sneakers. As I watched them, they didn't even come near me. I became sad because I thought today was actually going to be my lucky day. Suddenly, I saw the boy turn around and look in my direction. As he came towards me, I became excited again. He looked at me multiple times and he finally picked me up and took me to his mom. When he showed me to his mom, she told him to try me on. As he put me on, I loved the way his foot felt in me; it was nice and warm. However, I was just a little bigger than his foot. When he told his mom, his mom said that he had to choose another shoe. He told her that he really wanted me and that his foot would grow into me, but his mother still said no. The boy wanted me so bad that he kept on begging and begging. Finally, his mom agreed to buy me and both the boy and I rejoiced. Then they took me home with them. When I got into his

room, the boy took me out, put me on and ran around the room with me. Today I experiences my first run and jump with my owner. I was so happy that I made the boy run faster and jump higher. When the boy was tired, he took me off and told me his name. His name was Justin. He told me what I am his new pair of basketball sneakers and that he would always wear me whenever he was playing basketball.

As the years went by, Justin and I did almost everything together and Im ade him a better basketball player than his peers. I made him jump higher and run faster than before. In 11th grade, started to get dirty and stinky but Justin didn't care, he still wore me because I made him a wonderful basketball player and I was still his favority sneakers. When Justin got to college, he took me and played with me throughout college and by then his foot finally grew so he could fit me better. In college he was also a basketball star and he was so good that one day the NBA wanted him, so he played for them after college. 2 years into the NBA, he became famous and by this time he was 24 years old. I got weak but I still had a little skill left in me. One day as Justin was playing in his basketball game, he was going to shoot the ball but he got pushed and he fell. As he tried to get up, his leg was broken and so was I. As he looked at me, it looked like he was going to cry. I was torn at the bottom. I knew that this was very bad and that something bad was going to happen. When Justin got home, he looked at me wasn was very, very sad. He started saying the fun moments we had together: the good and the bad times. It was so hard for him to do this but he had to, so he toold me outside, said his last goodbyes and threw me in the garbage.

My first day in the garge was very lonely, stinky and too quiet. One day I heard noises outside of the garbage can and I got lifted up. I thought James changed his mind about throwing me away even though I was torn but I thought wrong. I was being dumped into the garbage truck and taken to the huge dumpster full of everything that was thrown away. When I arrived there, I was wasn't alone anymore because I saw others like me that were thrown away. When I got put with the other sneakers, we bonded queickly because everyone knew why they were thrown away. We were old, torn, weak and were all replaced. Everyone wanted to know what happened to each other and why they were actually thrown away, since we were living with each other for the rest of our lives. Every day a story was told and today was my turn and I told my story. Those were the best times of my life.