THE MAGIC SHOES: 2) CECIL COURT

Meltdown Monday Madness: A Surreal Serial Novella

As the saleslady at Barker’s processes my credit card, I cannot believe I’m about to be the laughingstock of London venturing onto city streets wearing multi-colored dress shoes.

But these shoes march me out the store and, before I know it, I’m pounding Regent Street’s pavement toward Piccadilly Circus. Elaborate Christmas decorations hang overhead. I am beneath angels and lost in a crush of shoppers taking in the holiday season.

My new shoes whirl me around the winged statue of Eros and into Leicester Square, a crowded pedestrian zone full of gaiety and cheer. It seems too crowded for anyone to pay any attention to my fanciful choice of footwear. Besides, in this era of socially-accepted piercings, tattoos and dyed hair of all colors, why should I feel so self-conscious about six-toned brogues?

By the time I reach Charing Cross Road, I’m cognizant that these shoes are in complete control of my direction—and are leading me to a destination of their own choosing.  I’m growing curious. And since I’m in no real hurry to be anyplace else, I decide to go with the flow—though, in this case, it’s go with the sole.

My magical new shoes abruptly turn left into a quaint pedestrian street with cutesy boutiques shops and galleries on either side. Slowing my pace (the shoes, of course), I look up at signage to see where I’m at.

Cecil Court.

A few steps down the alley-like street, the shoes turn right… and take me through a door into Watkins Books.

Inside, the shelves and tables are laden with tomes on spirituality, metaphysics, mythology and esoterica. Its display cases are chock-a-block with antique talismans and amulets, vintage jewelry, crystals, Buddhas and bells. A round blueish disc flecked orange with a hole in its center sings to me the way my new shoes did earlier at the shoe store.

Since the case is locked, I seek the attention of a young female sales assistant, who kindly hands me the thin, two-inch diameter disc, which I study in the palm of my left hand. “What is it?” I ask.

She returns to her station to consult a manual that categorizes and defines all the eclectic objects on display. “It’s made of turquoise,” she says. “It connects spiritual awareness with heightened intuition.”

“But what is the significance of a hole in the middle?”

“Ah,” she replies. “It’s a portal.”

I nod appreciatively. “A portal to where?”

She shrugs. “Anywhere the bearer of it wants to go, I guess. Combined with turquoise,” she reads out loud, “it is believed to facilitate a connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.”

“I’ll take it.”

I didn’t even think to ask what it cost; the price simply did not matter to me. Somehow, as odd as this may sound, it was my new shoes that led me to possess this smooth if uneven time-worn disc, symbolic of a physical-spiritual gateway.

“Would you like a box for it?” asks the cashier.

I shake my head as I slip the disc into the watch pocket of my blue jeans.

A perfect fit!

And then, resigned to whatever journey I’m on, I look down to my colorful new shoes. “Now where?”

“Excuse me?” says the clerk.

“Don’t mind me,” I say. “I’m no longer in control.”

“Are we ever?” she asks rhetorically while gesturing at the bookshelves of wisdom that surround us.

My shoes walk me out, turn right, take a few steps—and stop at Number 14, a mauve exterior and signage in whimsical cursive that says Alice Through the Looking Glass.

Peering through their glass display window I inspect a glorious gallimaufry of books, engravings and objects d’art representative of all things Wonderland.

Almost comically, I gaze down at my shoes, and ask, “Are we going inside?”

Next thing I know, I’m pushing the door open and standing inside a whimsical emporium of white rabbits, Cheshire cats, tweedle dums and tweedle dees.

And books… lots of books. They are mostly volumes authored by Lewis Carroll.

My shoes step carefully along the fully laden shelves before planting me in front of several rows of early hardcover editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. They refuse to go any further.

So I choose a book and open to its copyright page with penciled-in price. Although this is not a first edition it isn’t cheap at 75 pounds sterling.

I then open the book to any page at random, an exercise known as bibliomancy.

Page 84 is the beginning of chapter seven. It reads, “A Mad Tea-Party…”