Hello, I'm the Ghost of Feet Past

by Victoria Barrett

Image via Victoria Barrett

In honor of it being October, we're introducing you to some household ghosts you may not have heard of... Check back all month to see what regular things in your house might be haunted.

Hi, it's me, the ghost of your pre-pregnancy feet. You thought I was an adorable orange patent-leather loafer with an Italian leather sole and stacked heel, but no: ghost. Listen, you almost never wore those shoes anyway, because even before the expanded joints and muscles they were a little bit small on you, but they represented something in that past life, your ability to be quirky and interesting and maybe a little bit fashionable, before the soft knits and washable fabrics and sometimes changing a shirt three times in a day because of the baby puke.

Read more: Hello, I'm the Ghost of Your Produce Bin Past

I am the ghost of your stylish life, one box over from the $400 studded leather boots you got for $60 on clearance and never wore because you should've bought the extended calf size in the first place. You're never going to wear them now. Might as well be planters. Planters where the ghost of fresh herbs will hang out, collecting gnat corpses and dead leaves and root rot because you can grow bigger feet, but that's it, that's all, not even a fucking basil plant in a sunny window. 

Victoria Barrett's fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Glimmer Train, Salon, PANK, and other outlets. She lives and writes in a house full of men and boys (even the pets) and tries not to feel too bad about it.