EULOGY FOR THE SOLE

I would like to begin this piece with a moment of silence.

For the shoes.

They know what they did.

These were not just any shoes. These were the shoes allegedly designed for adventure, engineered for comfort, reviewed (somewhere, probably) by people with functioning arches. They were supposed to carry me through Nepal like a small-footed mountain goat with elite taste.

Instead, they took me on a pilgrimage of pain, poor decisions, and increasingly surreal plot twists that I am still spiritually untangling.

What follows is not just a eulogy.

It’s a cautionary tale.

The kind that starts with optimism, veers into butt-clenching incline, and somehow ends with wine and diplomatic handshakes.

All because of a pair of shoes that had a life of their own.

Let me set the scene.

Morning mist. Big mountains. High hopes. The promise of a four-day trek through the hills of Nepal: the kind travel blogs describe as “gentle,” “scenic,” or “perfect for first-timers,” which in hindsight feels like a personal attack.

I tied the shoes. Tight.

And together with Jorge (my then-friend, now-husband), we set off.

Thirty minutes passed. Then an hour. Then ninety minutes. Something strange was happening. People were passing us. Cheerful, well-rested-looking hikers heading towards us.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I now recognize them for what they were: human breadcrumbs. People-shaped clues in moisture-wicking fabrics. But at the time, we smiled smugly, nodded, and pressed on, unaware we had started the Annapurna loop… backwards.

No matter. We were full of optimism, electrolytes, and misplaced confidence.

Until the stairs began.

9,000 of them. Going upwards.

To what looked like heaven.

Nine. Thousand. Stairs.

The kind that chip away at your soul and leave you questioning your life choices somewhere around step 4,206. Stairs clearly designed by someone with a deep, unresolved grudge against knees. At one point, I wondered if I’d joined a stair-based cult of repentance.

By the time we reached the village at the top — the wrong village — my shoes had turned.

Not dramatically. Not with a noble rip or a cinematic collapse. No. These shoes were subtler than that. They began to… squidge. They developed a strange, half-hearted flop in the sole that made every step feel like I was being mildly gaslit by my own feet.

Too soft in the wrong places. Too firm in the others. One of them developed a noticeable “heel delay”, as if it was quietly questioning the entire journey.

Which, honestly, same.

And yet we continued. Hobbling toward what Google assured us was the best guesthouse in Ghandruk, burying our doubts with the hope of seeing the awe-inspiring Himalayan mountain range.

The guesthouse, when we finally arrived, looked… abandoned.

We pushed open the door. No one. Not a soul — except my own, which had mostly exited my body via my socks.

Out of nowhere, a small figure emerged and informed us that the place was fully booked, and that, on a clear day, one could see the entire Annapurna range “right there,” as he gestured past my throbbing head..

Booked by whom? Was this a prank? A morality test?

Was I dead?

Fuck you, shoes.

I closed my eyes, clicked my heels three times, and waited.

Nothing.

Then a voice:

“The guesthouse is full, but you can book a table for dinner if you want.”

Fine.

If we couldn’t sleep like royalty, we’d at least dine like them.

I limped toward the dining area, technically part of the same guesthouse, though in my condition, it felt like crossing a national border. The lights were warm, the decor charmingly floral, the overall aesthetic whispering: Yes, this is the best guesthouse in Ghandruk. And no, you absolutely cannot stay here.

We sat. We ordered. I exhaled. For the first time that day, things almost resembled normal.

Then came the rustling. The whispering. The owner began performing frantic laps between the kitchen and the table beside ours, laying napkins, polishing glasses, rearranging spoons already perfectly aligned. The kind of cutlery choreography that screams: VIP incoming.

And just as I began to wonder, for the second time, whether I was dead, two men entered.

Crisp. Composed. Suspiciously unsweaty for the Himalayas.

We exchanged nods. Polite chat followed. The kind where you slowly realise you’ve wandered into a subplot.

It turned out one of them was the Indian Ambassador to Nepal. The other, his head of security.

Of course.

Because why wouldn’t the day that began with spiritual betrayal by footwear end with diplomatic small talk over momo?

They were kind. Curious. Remarkably tolerant of our general disarray. And then, in yet another surreal moment of the trek, they offered to help arrange our upcoming visit to Patan.

Just like that, we were on an accidental state visit.

By the time dessert arrived, it was dark and the mountains, if there at all, continued to be a rumour.

But somehow, none of that mattered anymore.

Dinner had been served.

Dignitaries had been befriended.

My shoes had lost all moral authority.

And I, against all odds, was finally winning.

---

A week later, still limping and spiritually dehydrated, we arrived in Patan. A city we hadn’t planned on visiting, now made unavoidable by one fateful dinner and two extremely well-connected strangers.

Waiting for us was the ambassador’s friend.

The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation of Nepal.

A man so gracious he didn’t flinch when we arrived slightly sunburnt, moderately confused, and still radiating four days of sock trauma.

He gave us the royal tour.

The same one he’d once given The King of Spain.

Except this time, it was two very average humans and a pair of shoes held together by dust and blind faith.

We wandered temples. Whispered through alleys. Smiled politely while my shoes audibly gave up on life.

And then, reverently, I left them behind.

Not in anger. Not even in pain.

But in thanks.

Because those shoes, catastrophically unqualified as they were, had led us here. They’d taken the wrong trail, made the wrong steps, and somehow delivered us to the exact right place.

They carried me not just up 9,000 stairs,

but into the beginning of everything.

---

The Raw Society was born.

The shoes did not die in vain.

My they rest in pieces.