12 Write About a Memory about a Stranger You Met on a Trip

Shoes

You left the Ukraine in 1980

with nothing but the shoes

on your feet and a few rubles

and now you are

a millionaire again.

And when you returned

to see your family you found

they had named streets

after murderers and turned

the electricity on once a day

for 3 hours.

You live on a wealthy island now

but once you made 1000

pairs of shoes for the Soviet Economy

and 99,000 pair for your customers.

The lines stretched around the block

of your Kiev shop and when the last shoe

was sold your family had a pile of illegal cash,

So the party began.

And when I asked you

if today you invested

in the stock market

you looked at me quizzically

and said,

"What is stock market?

Stock is the shoes in my warehouse.'

And when you said that,

I thought about

how a happy life is

an investment of sorts,

and self knowledge

the main asset.