In The Tunnels of Time - The Skater.

There are three things in nature that are expanding.

The universe – so they tell me, Iceland and the Bitsnbobs Archives.

Only yesterday we discovered a small file secreted in a sub file on a dusty hard-disk amid a forgotten computer at the back end of the Tunnels Of Time, and since it is open day month at The Tunnels – A Ms Penny initiative (explained here) – we can bring you this extract...

My shoes.

1. The red embroidery on the black heel – it looks cool.

2. The shape, round toes, I like that.

3. The fabric, there is a soft ‘hugeness’ to it, my feet feel warm looking at you.

4. The support, I thank you, when I walk.

5. Their ability to look both cool and professional.

6. The price was good.

7. That someone, much younger, female, impressed… once asked – ‘Chris – where did you get your shoes?”

8. The DC logo discretely at the edge of things.

9. Their off kilter aspect, oddness, unique-ish.

10. The solidity - and colours that match my cat.

1. That you will fade and die leaving me without you.

2. The way your soul collects dirt, you are not perfect.

3. The way the mud sticks to your edges, you have faults..

4. Your laces that have frayed, showing your age.

5. The impossibility to find your twins, I should have bought two pairs, maybe three.

6. The thinness, now, on the ball of the foot, in the soul where the rain will come in soon.

7. The little crease by the lace part where the dust and debris collect.

8. The fact that you are covered in corporate logos.

9. The toe where you are scuffed.

10. The unknowing that you may be damaging my physical stance or stride.

1. A boat for a mouse.

2. A mobile phone holder.

3. Gloves.

4. Book ends.

5. Christmas tree decorations.

You only see what you want to see, I was born for so much more and I could reproach you for your lack of understanding.

You never feed me, once you put me in the washing machine and I was so humiliated.

I’m a skate shoe goddamit – when do you ever skate? Do you even have a skateboard? Look at you, you are over fifty, I am meant to be on some young dudes feet hanging out on the board walk, I’m meant to help him get laid!

The office!! You take me to the office, I’m so, so bored sitting under that table staring at the other guys office shoes, they are so dumb.

Take me to the beach, take me to the ramps, let me slide let me glide let me ride!.

Yeah, yeah, I know you treat me kind but kindness can suffocate and kill I need action!

Do you know anything about my birth?

It was in china, in the ugliest of paces, grey industrial belching city of morons, only interested in profit. I was torn from the fabric of my colleagues, cold piercing steel made these holes, withered hands of gasping half dead zombies stitched me up, forcing me to bend to their will not mine. Then I was dumped into a metal container with thousands of others. Some of us died in the bowels of the ships that brought us to Europe, lying in darkness knowing not what awaited us. Still feeling sick when we were wrenched into the startling light yet it was so cold.

The only love I ever saw was the young dude in the shop who set me on the shelves. He looked at me, tried me on – you never knew this – and he almost took me for his own.

He was a skater.