The Jordan Shoe

Xintong Han

No one knew why a blue Jordan shoe was hanging on the utility wire above the Chinatown parking lot, not even the oldest trap on the street, not even Michael Jordan himself.

A man with orange hair sat near the exit of the parking lot. He held a cigarette in his hand and was ready to catch anyone who was about to leave without paying the parking fee. He didn’t know why there was a Jordan shoe hanging on the utility wire.

The waiter across the street, who had been serving grilled fish since the restaurant opened at 11 a.m., was concerned about how much tips this woman would leave. After many years of serving, he has developed a keen instinct. He could tell whether the customers were the generous or the stingy type as soon as they stepped through the door. Sometimes he wondered whether there is a difference between the way they walk or the way they push the door. He failed to figure out a pattern, but he just somehow knew it. He walked to the front desk and opened the holder, and as expected, the woman only left five percent. He took a sign and walked back to the kitchen. He didn’t know why there was a Jordan shoe hanging on the utility wire across the street.

In the Indian Ocean, which was on the exact opposite side of the planet, a fish swam by. At the same moment, a signal was sent through Earth’s core and was detected by the Jordan shoe. Two droplets of tears trickled down the side of the Nike logo; the Jordan shoe started crying.

The tears dropped onto the head of a bald man.He yelled to his wife, “Ai-ya, I told you it’s going to rain today!”

The Jordan shoe kept crying. His loneliness burst out into a stream of tears and poured onto the man’s head.

The bald man looked up and saw the Jordan shoe. Five minutes later, all the people in Chinatown gathered in the parking lot, silently watching the crying Jordan shoe. A tear suddenly dropped from a little girl that stood in the crowd, and then the whole crowd burst into tears. The loud bawling was noticed by the Central Philadelphia Police. They drove to the parking lot and saw the crying Jordan shoe, and they also burst into tears.

The traffic completely jammed in Central Philadelphia. The big press companies sent journalists to the Chinatown parking lot. The crying Jordan shoe soon appeared on all the front pages of newspapers in America, and every American started crying. Then it spread to the rest of the world, and every human, every dog, every tree, and every mosquito all started crying.

The tears of the Jordan shoe slowly dried up, the crowd suddenly awakened and confused at why they were covered with their own tears and standing with police, journalists, waiters, and a man with orange hair in the middle of a shabby Chinatown parking lot. They looked at each other oddly and haltingly dispersed back to their life.