It was the activity over by the soccer field that really drew me in. There were over a dozen boys out there playing a game of shirts and skins, just like every other organized sporting group in the park, but strangely, these kids were all barefoot as well.
I saddled up to the bench on the sidelines where they had all abandoned their shoes. They'd left behind a sizeable pile of giant cleats mingled with long neon tube socks; the irritating-looking kind that practically go all the way up to the knee...
While all the other boys were out on the field, there was still one who was hanging out by the bench. He looked to be about twelve years old, and he was thin with freckles and he had bleached tips in his feathered hair, a lot like almost all the others… He was as barefooted as the rest as well, and he seemed to be intently watching the game unfold in front of him while he fidgeted about thoughtlessly.
He appeared to be rotating through entire sets of automatic maneuvers that seemed particularly designed to keep his legs busy. Currently he was shifting his weight from one foot to another and lifting his knees high enough to strike the fists he was holding out in front of him.
He was so deeply engrossed in the game that I was sure he hadn't seen me approach, so I didn't feel entirely self-conscious taking a closer look at their abandoned shoes. They were all well-worn with scuffs and scratches on every solid surface. Some of them were done up with custom shoe laces in different color combinations, maybe indicating different teams or lgbt identities, etc… They certainly didn't look like the newly acquired footwear I knew them to be. They were battered, well-loved, and unique, every one of them.
I thought, if only I could snatch up one of those pairs of shoes, I might be able to get to the bottom of the Funko mystery once and for all. I'd finally have physical proof of the strange things I'd been seeing all over town… But It was extremely risky… I couldn't get caught stealing shoes in the park… So it wasn't safe to just bend down and swipe a pair. I'd have to be subtle. I figured the best option would be to take my own shoes off and plant just my toes into a pair of cleats, then tip-toe away without actually fully wearing the shoes. I figured that ought to be enough to keep myself from being affected by their influence, assuming I'm even susceptible as an adult…
With my plan solidified and the children distracted, I discreetly slipped off my right shoe and reached just my toe over to the nearest cleat. After making initial contact with the inside rim of the shoe's opening, I gently coaxed it out from under the rest of the shoes until it was free, but my meddling had caused a few other shoes to become unstable and the small mound of cleats began to fall apart, just a little too noisily. The minor commotion left me spooked enough that I lost my balance for a moment and I ended up planting my entire toe firmly on the bottom of the stranger's shoe by accident.
"HEY!" The sideline boy turned around and shouted.
"Uh… HI." I replied with far more guilt in my voice than I would have intended.
"Are you a coach?!" He said, starting to hop in place, seemingly oblivious to my transgression.
"No… Not a coach…. Not exactly."
"Oh, are you one of the guys' dads, then?"
"No. I just, uh, love the game."
"Yeah! Isn't it great? Soccer is the best game around!"
I really wanted to ask why none of them were wearing shoes, but I didn't want to draw any undue attention to myself or the stranger's shoe I was currently half standing in, so I ultimately went with a more general path of conversation. "So… Have you been playing long?"
"Only all my life." He scoffed.
"You didn't just pick it up this summer like the other kids?"
"Who, them?" He asked, pointing to the others on the field. "What do you mean? Soccer is their whole life. They've always been devoted to the game. When have they ever had time for anything else?"
"Well, aren't these your first pair of cleats?" I asked gently, hoping I wasn't tipping my hand.
"Nah. My mom had those bronzed a long time ago. They're really tiny."
"So, you don't have any other interests?" I prodded.
"Of course I do." He shrugged. "I like all the normal stuff. There are lots of really good soccer video games, Foosball, hacky sack, running… and… Oh, have you heard of Footgolf? It's like soccer, but instead of regular goals, it's got holes in the ground. Plus there's no goalie."
I couldn't even reply. I was just so stunned… I had no idea these kids' personalities were taken over so completely. This boy probably had hundreds of minor interests throughout his life before falling afoul of Funko, and now it had all been reduced to one single, all-consuming, sport.
"Hey, What's your favorite team, mister?"
I just stood there for a moment looking completely befuddled. I couldn't think of any single team I had ever heard of in my life, and it wasn't just due to a lack of time to respond and an abundance of pressure…In all honesty, I didn't know the first thing about most sports, and soccer even less. After all, it only seemed to be played by tiny kids who were high on sugar, at least in the United States… "Oh, I'm actually into one of the more foreign teams, you probably wouldn't have heard of them." I finally said, coolly.
"Oh, sure! The best teams are all foreign." He nodded exaggeratedly and started effortlessly working a ball he'd found beneath the bench between his legs. "What country are they from?"
"Uh, Singapore?" I said, hoping the place wasn't too absurd.
"Is it Gayleng United?"
"Uh, yeah. That's the one."
"Oh cool! I haven't been paying enough attention to that club. How have they been performing in the Premier League so far?"
"They could always do better." I shrugged.
"That's true." He replied distractedly, as he flicked the ball up from the ground with his foot and started bouncing it casually from knee to knee.
I took the opportunity presented by his newly-raised eye line and slipped my foot out of the cleat and back into my own shoe. There was no way I was going to snag a matching pair until I had a chance to look down again without anybody looking, so for the moment, a small retreat seemed to be in order.
"Are you worried Perth will give them more than they can handle before the open?"
I had no clue what he was even talking about, but I figured a good fan would never doubt their team, "Not a chance. My guys are… solid."
I braced myself for the kid to respond negatively, but it seemed he'd grown even more distracted when he'd kicked the ball over his head and began bouncing it repeatedly off his forehead, so I assumed my answer wasn't too suspicious.
I wasn't sure how long he could keep the ball in the air like that, but the kid seemed fully in control of the ball at all times, so it shouldn't have been too risky to take the plunge and swap out some shoes… I looked down and scanned the pile for any pair of matching cleats that I could easily step into, but before I even found a single matching set, the rest of the boys charged off the field and descended like wild apes upon the pile of discarded shoes.
I stood back to give them some room and marvelled at the spectacle of them each grabbing their own pair of gaudy tube socks and forcing them over their filthy, oversized feet and up their scratched-up and grass-stained legs to the very heights of their kneecaps. They were all chatting single-mindedly about the game they'd just played and their excitement for upcoming games and the latest predictions for some of their favorite professional teams… As the clan started to fill their cleats with feet, I had to admit to myself that I'd clearly lost the chance to snag a pair for myself.
I walked away without another word. The sideline boy had already been pulled off into a new side conversation with one of his pals, and nobody paid me the slightest bit of attention as I wandered home.
That night I wrote in my journal about everything I had learned that day in the park. I especially emphasized how the boys who had been affected by Funko's shoes seemed to be completely altered in every way to match strictly defined male roles. Even their pasts seemed to have been altered to match their new realities. I also planned another excursion to the park. I did some research online and found that playing soccer without shoes is actually a very popular thing to do. It's likely their new personalities had pushed the boys to engage in the sport at its most fundamental level, so with any luck I would find another opportunity very soon to take what I needed…
With that, my day was through. After I got ready to retire, I sat on the edge of my bed and pulled my socks halfway off my feet, then I rolled them off onto the floor next to my bed and swung my legs snugly under the covers.
That's when I noticed something felt a little off… It felt like my right sock hadn't come off all the way and had accidentally hitched a ride into my bed. I pawed at the cloth intruder with my other foot and gave a gentle pull to coax it off the rest of the way. I was too lazy to bother grabbing at it with my hand, and I didn't particularly care if the sock spent the night between the sheets. I just didn't want it hanging off my toes all night… But the thing is, it still didn't come off.
I was getting annoyed at his point so I pinned the sock down with my left foot and I gave a forceful tug with my right leg. It should have slid right off, but it didn't! It felt like it was glued to the ball of my foot!
Frantically, I sat up and lit the light on the nightstand. I pulled my leg up, crossing it over the other so I could get a good look at everything and, sure enough, the sock was inside-out and stuck to the bottom of my foot. I gave it a strong yank with my left hand and it really did feel like it was glued in place, just along the bottom tip of the foot. I could actually feel it exert a pulling force on the bottom of each toe! I pulled again with both hands as hard as I could stand and the sock simply did not release!
At that point I was desperate to get a full view of things. I pulled the sock back on and inspected the actual outer bottom for the first time and was shocked when I saw that the entire surface from the ball of the foot to the tip of the underside of the toes, the entire surface that had come into contact with the Funko shoe, was a brilliant neon blue… A shade of neon blue, in fact, that was strikingly similar to the socks worn by some of the soccer boys from the park…