Shoes from Trieste

The shoes are light, almost weightless yet they carry an entire journey on them. The cloth is stiff with dried mud, with rain endured in the forest between Bosnia and Croatia, with the dust of Serbian roads. Inside, the insole is worn down: the shape of a foot is pressed into it like a cast. The big toe has hollowed out a small cave; the heel is smooth as polished stone.

When they reach the square in front of the station in Trieste, they sit down and slowly untie their shoes. They fall to the ground with a dull, weary thud. The smell is strong — the smell of poorly healed wounds, of skin kept damp for days. The shoes tell what the boys cannot: the sprints to avoid the police, the nights in the woods, the pushbacks, the steps counted so as not to lose the group.

When they finally slip them off, their feet are swollen, cut, covered in open blisters, but the shoes remain there, beside the bench, abandoned. They are no longer needed. In Trieste there are many like them: they are the tangible sign of a crossing accomplished, but also the mark of a price paid step by step. Every worn sole is a map.