The Bearer of Bad Shoes
A Cautionary tale of the Olympic Games
by David Niall Wilson
Mephistopheles Doufis could run like the wind across the plains; that is what his countrymen said. Unfortunately, Mephistopheles hailed from the recently annexed and extremely mountainous sovereign nation of Rozinia, where there were neither plains, nor winds enough to make this a point of distinction. Still, in the name of hot babes in lycra shorts, honor, and glory, Mephistopheles had a dream. He would run in the Olympics, to be held in the cursed and barbaric land of the Americans in the great city of
His current dilemma did not involve babes or Ducks, however. It was centered on shoes. No one could expect the self-proclaimed fastest man in Rozinia to run in the Olympics without proper equipment. His mother had fashioned running attire from several old curtains and a robe she’d worn as a young girl, but nowhere in Rozinia did they sell proper footwear for running. Considering the heavy robes and heavier veils of the women that trudged up and down the streets outside his small coffee shop, he reflected that it was a damn good thing he didn’t want to be a swimmer. He would surely sink and drown in the costume they would contrive, and while being the first Olympic swimmer to drown, trapped in his own suit would certainly bring him fame, it was lacking in certain elements of glory, and was absolutely unlikely to be attractive to women.
While Mephistopheles searched for the perfect shoes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs worried over the paperwork. It seemed that one could not just compete in the Olympics because he said he was fast. There was a requirement of International competition. In accordance with this the Rozinian government issued invitations to athletes of many lands to come, eat olives, and run very fast through the rocky trails of their country. They received in return many apologies, a couple of jeering notes, and a fruit basket.
Only one athlete responded, a man they called the Eagle. He informed the minister that if Rozinia ever got a full cap of snow on one of its mountains and wanted to erect a ski ramp, he would be proud to compete. Mephistopheles was not so easily deterred.
The Rozinian National Track and Field Championships were held on schedule to much pomp and circumstance, and Mephistopheles rolled to an easy victory against himself, though he was hard to console when informed that he had also come in last. More paperwork was submitted.
Mephistopheles had narrowed his shoe choice down to two brands, and was uncertain how he would resolve his dilemma. He thought of asking his father for advice, but knew the elder Doufis would only talk of farming, and how he had a hard Rozinia to hoe. It was difficult to get his father to enter into a hoe down conversation, and in any case it was unlikely the old olive farmer had an informed opinion on the merits of either Converse All-Stars or Red-Ball Keds.
In the end, Mephistopheles chose the Keds. The other shoes, while very popular, seemed of more use in fighting robots or attending raves, and while he certainly intended to add a rave or two to his American odyssey, once he had won his gold medals, he was certain his celebrity would overcome a slightly less stylish choice in shoes.
Red Ball Keds were designed to help one run faster and jump higher, after all. Even the fastest man in Rozinia couldn’t take the chance that all of the other athletes would take advantage of this, leaving him standing in the dust with his stylish All-Star sneakers to curse the mother of the great Will Smith for bringing such a charming salesman into the world.
Then the letter that changed Mephistopheles’ world arrived. He had been invited to carry the Olympic Torch for one mile of its journey across the face of
After a quick conference with the Minster of Finance, the shoes were ordered. The wondrous Red Ball Keds had grown difficult to find, but Mephistopheles persevered. He found a very gently used pair on eBay for a fraction of the original cost and splurged on overnight express delivery. This was unfortunate, as it meant airmail.
Rozinia had not yet managed to lay the runway for their first airport. All deliveries took place by airlift, and when Mephistopheles’ package arrived, it dropped like manna from the heavens, dangling from its own tiny parachute. He ripped it open eagerly but, to his dismay, found that it contained only a single shoe! He dug through the manuals forwarded him by the Olympic Committee, but he could find no event that involved a single foot. There was no time to suggest the hop, skip, and jump as a new event, and in any case, his hop was woefully below par, which might put him out of the running. Alone and fearing the loss of his dream, he remained at the airstrip late into the night, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
When nothing had arrived by the next day, he knew he would have to take his chances, so he packed his modified sarong running togs, a hastily sewn Rozinian Flag, his one Red Dot Ked and the address of the merchant from whom he was due the second shoe. There remained only a single week before the glorious day he would carry the Olympic Torch, and he knew he would have to travel quickly. Bags in hand, he boarded the train for the nearest airport and waved goodbye to the crowd of three fans, two tired old men playing checkers, and one donkey. This sight brought tears to his eyes, though, upon further reflection he believed it might have been the scent of the old men, or the donkey, burning his eyes, and he left his homeland with a mixture of joy and dread, his one shoe clutched tightly in his overhead bag.
The land of the Americans was both wondrous and a vexation to his soul. The first three uniformed servants of the people that he approached did not even make it through his halting English rendition of the directions he sought, and the fourth suggested a personal act which even the inundation of Lycra, Spandex, and tight-denimed babes could not wipe from his mind. Eventually he wandered out of the airport and found a stand lined with taxis where the first in line was obligated to remove him from the platform to allow those next in line their opportunity. The man was Arabic and apparently spoke no more English than Mephistopheles himself, but they jabbered at one another for a few moments, the man cursed, and they flew from the terminal on rubber wings, the radio squawking its dubious welcome and the meter ticking away.
Apparently some word or other of his destination had been miraculously imparted through the exchange of babble, because Mephistopheles ended up at a train station, a ticket in his hand with the single word “Pittsburgh” at the top, and only about a quarter of the funds he’d brought for his trip had been dissipated by the fifteen minute trip.
While waiting for his train, he found a t-shirt in one of the gift shops that made it clear to him his destiny was at hand. It featured a very menacing athlete (Mephistopheles knew it was an athlete because the man on the shirt was wearing white socks, Converse All-Stars, and his half-open jacket seemed to be ready to reveal the running attire within. It was difficult to understand the leer, but this was a new land, and the logo inscribed at the bottom of the shirt explained it all. “I Carry a Torch For You Baby.” On the rear of the shirt in bright letters was proclaimed “Broad Jumper,” and while this was only one of Mephistopheles’ chosen events, it was a start.
He bought the shirt, boarded the train, and watched a magical slide show of billboards, dark smoke and occasional flashes of green pass by the windows of the train in quick succession. The woman seated beside him thoughtfully took up only two and a half of the three seats. Her girth was astonishing, and Mephistopheles was certain she must be an American shot putter on her way to the games. He hoped that she would not carry the torch before he did, because the conglomeration of foodstuffs coating her fingers was as mysterious as the various scents of her body, and not more appealing. He did not want his fingers sticking to the torch at an inopportune moment.
The journey was not so long or so bad as he had feared. He was able to pry himself from his seat without adhering any unknown or unwanted substances to his person with only minimal bowing and apologizing to the behemoth of a woman beside him. With one shoe, his Rozinian flag furled carefully in his bag, and an eye peeled for attractive Lycra, he debarked the train in
The letter, which he kept folded three times and tucked into a special pocket that rested against his heart, said that Mephistopheles was to be the second to last person to carry the torch. He would bring it to the very doors of glory, hand it to the final athlete, and then make his way into the stadium for final registration. They had made provisions for his coach, as well, but the Minister of Finance had responded politely that, while Rozinia certainly owned a coach, their one Donkey pulled it, and the animal did not travel well. There was also the matter of which sports he would be competing in.
Mephistopheles, having intended to participate in all of them, was surprised by this, but recovered quickly. He reflected that the idle hours would give him extra time for Lycra scouting. He had scanned the schedule, carefully avoiding swimming and anything involving water. Since the donkey would not be making the trip, the equestrian events were out as well. He settled for the Decathlon, and several of the running events, capping it off with the marathon. Mephistopheles had never seen a marathon, but at the airport he had witnessed a young American boy opening a candy bar by that name. It had twisted in a braided pattern, and Mephistopheles believed this indicated an obstacle race.
Having run his own championship times through the hills, trees, farm implements and undergrowth of the Rozinian mountains, he believed this would give him an advantage.
Then came the most blessed news. There was a telegram waiting for him at the airport from the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rozinia. The other shoe, it seemed, had dropped the day after his departure and was winging its way across the ocean to him. He would have liked the opportunity to inspect the item and be certain it was the right shoe. He had been told his dancing was reminiscent of a sheep with two left feet, but had never understood the advantage in pursuing this. He had one day until the torch would pass through the city.
The minister of Finance had made his reservations ahead of time. He was staying at the Motel 6, where he was disconcerted to find, upon opening his room that they had not left the light on for him. They had, however, left a package from Rozinia. Eagerly, he tore the wrapping and drew out the second shoe – oddly not the same color as his first shoe, but at least for the opposite foot. There were also other items, and once he had lavished the proper admiration on the craftsmanship of his new footwear, trying on both shoes and running in place for a few seconds in front of the standing mirror in his closet, he set the Red Ball Keds aside and turned his attention to the rest of the parcel.
He found that there were three unexpected items, as well as a letter of explanation from the King of Rozinia himself. The first was a notebook and a nineteen-cent Bic pen. The letter explained that the Minister of Historic Archives had resigned. He had taken his position with the understanding that nothing of historic significance ever had, or would occur in Rozinia. Faced with actually recording events for posterity, he had taken ill, so the King was appointing Mephistopheles himself to the post. Included were the paper and pen for taking notes and a disposable Kodak camera with a quick shutter speed to capture his most athletic moments for posterity. The King admitted to understanding the difficulty of photographing one’s self while running, but felt that if anyone in their small country could be trusted with such an undertaking, it must certainly be Mephistopheles, who had, in any case, gotten himself into this situation.
The last item in the bag was a cassette tape. Mephistopheles read on. In viewing old videotapes he had found in the palace library, the King had been distressed to learn that when an athlete won the Gold Medal in an event, the national anthem of that country was played for all to hear. While the likelihood of Mephistopheles winning medals was, of course, in question, the lack of a national anthem to be played was not. Thus, the King had taken it upon himself to arrange a fitting piece and have it sung by a gathering of his sixteen wives and his gardener, who was lousy with gardenias, but boasted a most impressive falsetto for the soprano parts. Rozinian women, sadly, were more fitted to baritone and bass.
They had no actual musical instruments available, but had managed to put together a percussion section of kitchen workers and had included a most impressive kazoo solo by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had also thoughtfully provided lyrics. Mephistopheles eyed the tape dubiously, but supposed that it was not his place to second-guess the king. He expected the tape to be played many times over during the games, and he only hoped that the donkey had refrained from chiming in on the chorus.
The next morning, Mephistopheles was up bright and early. He put his notebook and pen in his gym bag, along with the camera and the precious tape. Then he dressed in his running attire, carefully preening and admiring himself in the mirror and reflecting that the chartreuse and fuchsia silk made an intriguing contrast with his dark olive skin. He would have preferred more conventional shorts, but the altered sarong served well enough, and in any case could barely be seen beneath his “Broad Jumper” t-shirt. He wore his slippers, for the moment, not wanting to cause undue wear to the Red Ball Keds, which were also carefully packed into his bag.
Preparations complete, he set out to find his portion of the assigned torch route. His letter explained that he would not be expected to arrive until
Motel 6 thoughtfully provided him a map with numbers and circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining how each turn and twist of city transit system could be used to best effect. Mephistopheles thanked the clerk profusely and made his way to the street out front, where he found to his dismay that there were no circles or arrows on that paved surface to match his map, and that his efforts to find them only annoyed those around him. He received many salutes of less than the Rozinian standard four fingers, and in an hour of searching found only one crossroads with a sign he recognized. It said, simply, STOP. He did.
Moments later another taxi screeched to a halt in front of him, and Mephistopheles gratefully handed over his bundle of lines and arrows and circles and pointed solicitously at the paragraphs on the back. The driver, who was Asian, jabbered at him in a string of incomprehensible words and phrases, flinging his arms to his sides and gesticulating wildly while leering in an unseemly manner at Mephistopheles’ clothing. When Mephistopheles did not answer in kind, the driver seemed satisfied, and roared away from the curve and into the city, still muttering under his breath. Mephistopheles clutched his bag to his chest and contented himself with whistling “The Eye of the Tiger” over and over to drown out the gibberish.
The taxi screeched to a halt as abruptly as it had roared to life, depositing Mephistopheles and his bag on the curb next to the largest Coliseum he had ever seen. He held out a small wad of bills, and the driver snatched them and began gesticulating wildly again as he threw his taxi into gear and backed away with a screech of rubber. Mephistopheles hardly noticed.
He turned slowly and gazed up at the stadium. The great Olympic rings stood out against the stone backdrop like a giant version of a puzzle he had owned as a small child. Mentally he noted this as a good story for the media when they interviewed him after winning his first medal. He could tell them how the Olympic puzzle had taunted him all his life and how, had his mother not been vigilant, he might still be handcuffed to his cradle by the accursed Chinese rings. In his mind, he crossed off men’s gymnastics from his list of events as images of himself, tangled and twined with the rings and dangling far above the safety mats came into clear focus.
He made his way across the huge parking lot and up to the gates. Crowds of people had gathered. There were trucks with cameras mounted on top, and hordes of workers rushing this way and that. Mephistopheles watched for a few moments, and then, spotting a single young man with a clipboard in his hand and a pencil tucked behind his ear that seemed, if not in charge, to be aware of what was happening, he approached.
What followed was a confusing whirlwind of shouting voices, smiling faces, large lenses and bright lights. Mephistopheles was hustled about the parking lot, posed, questioned so quickly that he was barely able to formulate thoughts to answer one reporter before the next chimed in with more questions. In the end he smiled, clamped his lips tightly shut, clutched his bag, and prayed for escape.
Finally a man in a dark blue running suit who introduced himself as “Joe from the committee” pulled him aside and explained that he would escort Mephistopheles to the point where he would take up the Olympic torch for his mile-long journey. The man apologized for the others, but explained that since they had never interviewed a Rozinian athlete, or, for that matter, any Rozinian before, that the tumult was to be expected. Mephistopheles nodded, smiled, and tried to look as if he were no stranger to such fame. Inwardly he was thankful his mother had provided several dark layers of protection in his running attire. His legs felt as if they had been replaced with damp noodles.
Afraid he would forget, Mephistopheles handed over the single tape of the Rozinian National Anthem to “Joe from the committee” and explained that he needed to get it to the proper authorities before the first medal ceremony. “Joe from the Committee” promised to handle this, as well, though the toothy smile and flashing eyes with which he regarded Mephistopheles were not reassuring. The large NBC button on his pocket looked official, and in any case, Mephistopheles could tell from the great Rozinian flag flying over the street corner they finally came to that the man had directed him properly thus far.
There was an excited babble at his arrival. “Joe from the Committee” introduced Mephistopheles to a number of people, some of whom jabbered, others of whom pumped his hand, and one young woman who, very harried and with hair sticking this way and that grabbed Mephistopheles by the arm and steered him away from them and through the crowd.
She informed him that she was Nell from “the real committee” and that he had about five minutes until his big moment. Mephistopheles immediately sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled off his slippers. He opened his bag and drew out the Red Ball Keds almost lovingly. He glanced up at “Nell from the real committee,” intending to explain to her how the shoes would make him run faster and jump higher, but she was chewing gum furiously, and the way her hair shot out in even more directions than it had previously made him think of a ticking clock (or a bomb). He donned his shoes without a word and asked her if she would please look after his bag, as he did not know if he could carry both the bag and the torch at the same time, and in any case, if he were to set the bag afire with the eternal flame he would have no Rozinian flag to drape over his shoulders for his victory laps.
“Nell from the real committee” took his bag, which event, Mephistopheles noted with consternation was filmed in detail by “Joe from the committee” and a group of others with cameras rolling on odd contrivances. In the street more cameras rolled about perched on motorcycles, whirling in circles like circus performers. Mephistopheles thought, just for an instant, that it would have certainly been more entertaining if they had stilts, or unicycles, as they had ridden in the last grand Rozinian parade. Then the crowd was crying out loudly, a roar of sound that removed all coherent conversation, and “Nell from the real committee” was pressing him forward into the street.
Mephistopheles glanced past the whirling motorcycles, and saw that there was a ripple of motion in the crowd. He turned back to tell Nell that he thought perhaps it was almost time, and she slapped a long tube into his hand, which he grasped quickly, lest it fall. Then another runner came into sight, wearing neither Keds nor Converse All-stars, and wearing the colors of
Many things happened at once. Nell gave him a not-too-gentle shove in the direction of the stadium, the Nigerian runner came up along side him, and Mephistopheles was forced to run to keep up, barely managing not to drop the long tube in his hand and waving it about madly as he pumped his arms like pistons to maintain the pace. As he did so, the Nigerian began to try and touch his flame to the end of Mephistopheles’ tube. Nell was screaming something at him, but he was working too hard to maintain his pace, trying to remember the easy gait of the donkey back home and matching his stride to that rhythm. Then he heard a single word that clicked.
“BUTTON”
He realized there was a button on the tube in his hand, and lowering it with a frown, he pressed that switch. Flame shot out the end immediately, coming within an inch of singing the short off of the Nigerian, who veered off into the crowd. The screaming continued, but Mephistopheles had no time to concentrate on it. He turned toward the stadium in the distance with resolve and held the torch high, hoping fervently that his mile was nearly up because his arm felt like lead, and the Red Ball Keds had begun to chaff his heels painfully.
It was impossible to make out any single voice in the roar of the crowd. Faces leered at him, women and children cheered. Fat men held out their hands, thumbs up and a few pointed and seemed to be laughing. Mephistopheles concentrated on planting one Red Ball Ked in front of the other, his multi-colored footwear flashing valiantly in the sunlight. He heard an awful keening over the speakers that sounded much like the death throes of a large Wildebeest, and he became afraid that the television equipment must have malfunctioned. Then he heard a familiar bleat – that of the Rozinian coach donkey, and suddenly he had greater strength and held his head high. What he was hearing must be the National Anthem of Rozinia, and no matter how godawful the sound, he must show pride through his actions. Besides, he had passed two streets, and knew that his mile must surely be close to an end.
Then bursting from the crowd to his left and pedaling furiously on a unicycle, a short bald man in an orange robe bore down on him. The man was speaking very rapidly and very loudly, and, though Mephistopheles spun as dexterously as possible with the long flaming tube in his hand, he was unable to sprint past, or dodge to the side. The man collided with him, arms outspread in a very unfriendly hug. Mephistopheles had time only to note the slightly Asian features and a set of very bad teeth before impact.
The torch was knocked from his hands and tumbled through the air, and like the wondrous Jackie Chan himself, the little man in the orange robe vaulted through the air after it. He matched the spinning cycles of the torch and grabbed it before it could hit the ground. He then screeched a most Bruce-Lee-like Heee-YAH and landed easily on his feet. The flame guttered momentarily, then caught and burned brightly. The little man burst into the crowd and started off at a trot, cackling madly as those surrounding him made tentative and wholly unsuccessful attempts to grab him and stop his escape.
Mephistopheles crashed to the ground, rolled through several sets of high-stepping legs wrapped in a variety of
Something inside him snapped. He heard the horrific tones of the king’s wives keening, interspersed with the bleatings of the Rozinian coach donkey. He heard voices in languages he did not understand, and was kicked by several over-large sets of feet. It was too much.
Rising shakily, he grabbed the unicycle. He remembered the long-ago hours of youthful Rozinian playtime, riding his uncle’s unicycle over the hills and down gullies. He purposefully avoided memories of smashing into trees and pitching headlong into donkey offal as he fitted the small seat to his buttocks and lurched upright, balancing precariously.
From where he sat, he saw a flash of orange, and with legs pumping, he charged. The crowd parted for him even more quickly than they had for the departing thief, and with a cry of outrage and anger, Mephistopheles Doufis sent the unicycle rushing over the ground at an astonishing pace, ignoring bumps and miraculously not crashing into the curb and sprawling headlong a second time.
The strange little man with the torch was babbling to himself, and to anyone else who would listen, and trotting off at a right angle to Olympic stadium as if he intended a marathon of his own. He did not look back, having apparently decided that no one was likely to pursue a lone monk with kung-fu talent and criminal intent with any seriousness. Just as the Rozinian anthem came round to the donkey’s bleat for the tenth time, Mephistopheles gave a final cry of rage and launched himself off the unicycle, planting both feet firmly on the pedals.
He flew straight at the old man, who, finally glancing over his shoulder, shrugged to one side. Mephistopheles rocketed across the man’s shoulder and into the bushes beside the road with a cry of dismay. The unicycle, however, did not waver. It took the small man directly between the shoulder blades, causing him to fling his arms, and subsequently the torch, into the air. He turned in a crouch, approaching the now quiet unicycle in a most estimable Dragon Stance, forgetting both Mephistopheles and the torch for the moment.
Scuttling like a crab, Mephistopheles skidded back over the bushes, attempted a kip up, as he had seen the gymnasts do with such ease, and cracked his head on the sidewalk. He brought his hand up to the sudden pain and by coincidence made direct contact with the handle of the torch. He gripped it and immediately whacked himself silly with the solid handle, but when his eyes cleared, he held it in both hands, and the flame still burned. He could not rise, but he held it aloft, and, when the monk had defeated his unicycle opponent and turned back for the torch, Mephistopheles held the flame to the hem of the man’s robe. The orange silk became orange flame, and the man began leaping about, kicking and crying out, punching the air and going up in flames. Within moments he stood buck-naked in the street, his hands held over shriveled, ancient genitals, jabbering at Mephistopheles in impotent outrage.
Still watching the short Asian warily, Mephistopheles felt strong hands gripping him under his arms. He tried to stand, but found that his left ankle would not hold his weight, and he swayed. The hands then lifted him once again, and to his astonished joy, he was held aloft on the shoulders of two very large men with t-shirts suggesting unnatural acts and baseball hats with tractors on them. The two turned resolutely toward Olympic stadium and Mephistopheles, the torch held high, rode in woozy disbelief as they carried him to his destiny. All along the way, men and women cried out to him, and he blinked back at them, unwilling to release either hand from the torch for fear of dropping it onto a tractor hat and causing another dance of flame.
The procession shortly came within sight of Olympic Stadium, with its huge colored rings and people spread out in all directions. Ahead was a slender blonde woman in red white and blue Lycra shorts, waiting in the center of the road. She beckoned to Mephistopheles, who, in his dazed state, believed her the woman of his dreams. He reached out to her, forgetting that he had the torch in his hands.
When he saw that she held a torch, as well, Mephistopheles’ mind cleared, and he tried to catch himself before he set her hair on fire. The result drew the tip of his torch lightly across the tip of hers, decapitated no one, and as he watched in amazement, the woman smiled up at him, winked, and pressed the button on her own torch, bringing the eternal flame to life. Mephistopheles depressed the button on his torch and snuffed the flame.
Then, with nothing better to do, and the only Lycra clad babe he’d been within a yard of running easily off toward the stadium, he clutched the long tube to his chest like a teddy bear and did the only thing that made sense. He passed out.
* * *
Hours later, Mephistopheles lay on the bed in his room at the Motel 6 with the light on. On the television screen, the news was recapping the opening ceremonies of the games. He watched in awe as the Lycra clad woman, an American swimmer he had learned, lit the huge, gleaming torch that would rise symbolically above the crowds and the world. It was just as well that they had not continued to speak, as his own nightmares of swimming were not so far behind him.
Mephistopheles’ ankle was bound in an ace bandage with a plastic bag of ice resting on top. The Red Ball Keds sat on his nightstand, and he glanced at them dubiously.
An odd screeching sound emitted from the television speaker, and he turned his attention to the screen once more. The Rozinian National Anthem blared discordantly, and he watched his fateful charge on the unicycle, watched the flaming dance, and heard the commentators proclaiming his bravery. They told of his long years training in his native land, and of his Olympic dreams and their untimely end in the arms of a renegade Buddhist monk who it turned out had attempted to ride his unicycle through the synchronized swimming event at the Tibetan National Championships only six months before. A tragedy.
Mephistopheles was not so certain. His Olympic torch rested on the chair beside his closet. Somehow, the wondrous Red Ball Keds had not worked their magic, even before the monk’s arrival, and it did not seem as if they would have helped him to run faster, or to jump higher after all. He had said as much to “Joe from the committee” when the man thrust a microphone in his face after his run. He had even gone so far as to suggest that the particular pair of Red Ball Keds he had purchased might be clever forgeries, or that the color mismatch had corrupted their power.
The phone rang, and expecting it to be the King, or the Minister of Finance, asking if he still intended to spend their money on the Motel 6, or if he would return immediately, he picked up the receiver.
He was surprised to find that the voice at the other end was pleasant, female, and decidedly NOT Rozinian. He listened, and a moment later, like the sun bursting through the clouds on a spring day, he knew what had gone wrong, and how fate had saved him from certain disgrace.
She had heard his words on the television, and had called to set him straight. It turned out that the advertisement on eBay had been incorrect. It was not Red Ball Keds that made one jump higher, or run faster, but P. F. Flyers. The woman on the phone represented the company that made these magic shoes, and she wanted to speak with him about endorsements, and the possibility of outfitting the Rozinian team for the next Olympics.
Mephistopheles closed his eyes with a happy sigh and watched the huge Olympic torch rise to its position above the stadium as that scene was replayed on the TV screen. Then, glaring at the shoes that had nearly been his undoing, he listened as the woman asked permission to pick him up and take him to dinner – her company’s treat.
He asked her if she owned any Lycra. When she sounded confused, he told her it did not matter, and that he would be honored to join her, which seemed to make her happy. Then he hung up the phone, laid his head back, and in the manner of all true Rozinian champions, closed his eyes and took a nap, dreams of donkeys and orange Lycra-clad monks kung-fu fighting with synchronized swimmers chasing him into a world of dreams.
