Short Stories
By Scott Niven
The Torch Is Passed (Stolen)
Will bought the boots on Sunday. By Wednesday, they looked worn in, used.
“Why do you wear those?” asked his mother. “They’re five sizes too big.”
But Will knew what he was doing. He baked the boots in the sun, fading their color from a rich brown to a dull auburn. He frayed the laces with a hunting knife. He walked through a nearby forest, careful to scuff the soles. And he stepped in puddle after puddle, letting the water seep through the shoelace holes to dampen his feet.
Five weeks later, he was ready. He crept toward the secluded lake, boots in hand, mindful of the time. It wouldn’t do for him to arrive too early or too late. When the familiar clump of honeysuckle appeared on his right, he ducked behind it.
The creature of habit had arrived ahead of him. On a dead tree limb, out of reach of animals but not out of reach for an 8-year-old boy, hung the clothes and boots of the nearby swimmer. Will slid out of hiding, judged the differences between the hanging boots and his own to be unimportant, switched the boots, then took off running down the path.
His plan had worked. He had stolen the boots of one of the greatest literary geniuses of his time – Mark Twain. Now he too could create stories of Southern greatness.
Content with his crime, William Faulkner shuffled back to his house, wearing the oversized boots and dreaming of the many wonderful stories he could now write.
End
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