Part 5 of Unfeet by Alex Valdiers
A year after their marriage, Namily and Boyal knew all the feet stickers in Andreapolis by sight.
There were but a handful of them left, yet there were still two legged people living in
Andreapolis, despite the city’s blatant ignorance of their presence and their need to move about.
Eighty-three percent of the streets had been transformed and were now non-walking streets.
The flybus had ceased to operate, which meant that getting out and about through Andreapolis
was a near impossible affair. As a result of those thoughtless changes, most feet stickers had
relocated in the Vevoel sector, where a small block of three avenues crossed by four streets had
been left untouched. There were about six hundred feet stickers living in the Vevoel sector, but
that number decreased on a weekly basis.
“I want you to seriously consider it,” said Namily as she closed the kitchen door on Boyal,
forcing him to stay in the same room as her to go through with a discussion he delayed for too
long.
“I have, and I have already told you, I won’t run away from who I am.”
Namily erupted. “No, that’s what you say. But I know you. Believe me, darling. I know you. You
haven’t thought about it. You decided long ago that you’d live and die in Andreapolis and you
never looked back on it. Even with the feet revolution happening. It’s some kind of a defensive
system with you. You decided everything at one point in your life and you stick to it. Just getting
you out of your mother’s apartment was like ripping your heart apart.”
Boyal was pained. He stared at the floor and his two feet, only one of them wore a sock. “It was
a great place, you know it. I had lots of memories there. And, you know, there was the view.”
“Screw the view. That view was in your head. You saw there what you wanted to see. But it’s all
changed. It is, darling. Andreapolis isn’t the city we grew up in.” Namily put both her hands on
her husband shoulders and searched his mouth with her lips. “It’s time for us to leave.”
Boyal shook his head, resisting his wife’s kiss, pushing her and this future away. “I don’t want to
live in the wilderness. I’m no good with my hands. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“So you’d rather stay here in this stinking apartment to adjust your minerals all day?”
Boyal shook his head, but he could not face her. “At least I know what I am doing, and it’s safe.”
“Safe? Safe?” She banged on the kitchen counter. “We’re parked in Vevoel like animals. That
ain’t living.” She rolled her eyes and heaved at length. “I won’t stand for it.” She took a long look
at her husband, then grabbed his chin with her finger. “I am leaving. With or without you,
darling.”
#
It was rumored that outside Andreapolis’ walls, beyond the great barrens, the new city of
Polipolis was growing at a fantastic rate. It was a paradise for full-fledged humans, and Boyal
often imagined himself living there, at the side of his ex-wife Namily, carrying wood, plowing
fields, doing all sorts of archaic hard labor, just to feed themselves.
“To do all that work just to eat unhealthy nutrients,” he spoke aloud to himself, like he often did
since he lived alone in that spacious apartment the city converted for him in Footland.
In twenty minutes, the park gates would open, he better got ready. He needed to do his hair and
put a clean pair of slacks on. He checked his feet, the nails were nice and clean. He rubbed a
bit of moss cream on his archs nonetheless, more by habit than need. Then he finished his
preparations for the day and sat in his lounge chair.
The lights came on, the first humans came to visit through the protective window. They hovered
by the dozen to marvel at Boyal’s two passive rebellious feet.
The End
