Old Friends

By Peter Bowden

He kept the boots by the door, even now. The leather had gone soft with years, cracked in places where the foot bends from climbing, from kneeling, from standing too long in rain. Dried mud clung to the soles like old memories—each caked ridge a trail, a moment, a place once wild and living beneath his steps. One lace had snapped clean through years ago; he’d tied the ends in a knot that never came undone.


He remembered the first time he wore them. The store smelled of rubber and wax, and the man behind the counter had told him they’d last a lifetime if he was lucky. Turns out, the boots outlived the man, and maybe the luck did too. Mountains, forests, even pavement—they had carried him through all of it. He could still feel the ache in his knees from the long descent into that canyon in Utah. Still feel the heat rising through the rocks, the sweat along his spine, and her hand in his before she let go to race ahead.


He never wore them anymore, but he couldn’t throw them out. That would be like burying the past twice. Some nights, when the house was too still, he’d sit beside them with a glass in hand, the knot in the lace like a symbol—something broken once, but made to hold anyway.




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