The sun shining through the musty street window mixed with the particles of wood hovering in the air to make a delightful effect, unless one is trying to squint at the tiny holes in the leather with which Gorvip was working, or attempting to work, with his pudgy little fingers. Surely if he stabbed at enough, the needle must go through eventually. Eventually. Gorvip had been working on the sole of one single shoe for over an hour now, and was beginning to wonder if he would ever finish. But he hadn’t given up quite yet.
The shoes were a lady’s walking shoes, ordered specially by some costumer Gorvip had yet to meet—apparently his boss liked to keep a good face to the company. And Gorvip’s was not a good face. Gorvip was thankful to the shoemaker for hiring him, and he’d been working there for two days now—the longest he’d held a job since he left the underworld—but he still wished he could at least see a smiling customer, or greet the delightful young lady who would be wearing his shoes. Gorvip tried to picture her—size 6, small but not too small (perhaps, he wishfully thought, she is short). And small feet are often equated with those small delicate hands that Gorvip at this particular moment imagined with some admiration and much jealousy. And what kind of dress might she wear with these shoes? Gorvip imagined it in his mind; as blue as the sky, and flowing like a river. He imagined how he might greet such a fine, young girl, and how he would politely bow, and she would charmingly curtsy in that dress of hers. As his imaginings of her flourished, he was unconscious of how much time he had spent daydreaming, and how little time he had spent working.
At that moment Gorvip saw a shadow cross the front window—not wanting to appear an undutiful worker, Gorvip took up his work again with fearsome stabbings at the unforgiving leather until the needle fell broken to the floor.
“Good evening, Mr. Akeof.” Gorvip heard his employer say from the display room, “I trust you are here for the shoes you ordered yesterday?”
“You are correct.” Whoever Mr. Akeof was, he had a surly sounding voice with no fragment of friendliness in it.
“Just one moment, then,”
The door to the room Gorvip sat in swung open, revealing the portly form of Kapif, the shoemaker.
“The shoes, Gorvip, are they ready?” Kapif grunted.
“Uh well, you see … extenuating circumstances … and …” Gorvip seemed to grasp at the air for any excuse “… my needle!” he said, bending down to pick it back up off the floor.
Surprisingly speedy for his size, Kapif waddled up to Gorvip, and snatched the unfinished shoe from his hand. “What have you been doing all this morning!” he bellowed, “There’s no excuse for this!”
“Sir…um…” Gorvip began, but was quickly interrupted by his boss.
“THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR THIS!” Kapif repeated, exhaling such quantities of air that Gorvip’s few hairs bent back in terror, “Out! You’re fired!”
Rapidly, Gorvip stood up and ran for the door. The unfinished shoe sailed over his head as he exited.
“He-Ho,” he called to his faithful hell hound. He waited a moment, and when He-Ho didn’t come, Gorvip turned in anger at the dumb dog. And that’s when he saw her—the girl, the girl the shoes were for. Just as he imagined her. She stood bent by the door, petting and spoiling the scraggly dog. Her flawless face looked up in surprise when she noticed Gorvip; Gorvip stood frozen, half in terror, half in love; the shoemaker continued slowly charging at his former employee.
Another shoe flew past Gorvip’s unsuspecting hairs, and He-Ho, noticing the threat to his master, suddenly stood alert.
“What’s going on?” the beautiful girl asked, as Gorvip dodged yet another shoe.
“Well, I got fired, you see…” Gorvip began. And then Kapif , having finally made it to the front entrance, exited into the street. He-ho, recognizing that this barrel-like man was the cause of his master’s fear, ran for him, bearing his teeth and snarling almost as much as the real hell hounds Gorvip had worked with previously. The girl stood suddenly to her feet, shocked and scared.
“Toe, He-ho! Toe!” Gorvip yelled, attempting to stop his loyal companion before he reached Kapif and tore him apart. The reason for this strange command was that according to Gorvip’s recollection, the proper command to stop a dog was homonymous with a part of the foot; he just couldn’t remember which part of the foot it was. In reality, the word he was looking for was ‘heel.’
“He-ho …” the girl muttered. He-ho, apparently more obedient to his new-found female friend, turned. At that moment Mr. Akeof came out of the shop to see what all the commotion was about. He looked first at Gorvip, then to the his daughter, then back to Gorvip, then to the dog, and finally to the shopkeeper.
“You will understand, I presume, that we have decided to get our shoes elsewhere.” He gave a condescending glance at Gorvip, who was in the act of coaxing He-ho back to him.
“Come on Merrida.”
Merrida.
The girl glanced obediently at her father, but her attention was on He-ho. The shopkeeper was engaging her father in a short intercourse—no doubt hoping to get some gain from the partly finished shoes, a compromise of sorts. Merrida took the opportunity to move closer to Gorvip.
“You’re not from around here are you?” she asked.
“You could say that…” Gorvip replied, scratching the back of his head nervously, and staring down at the senseless stones on the street.
“You’re dog’s name is He-ho?” Merrida inquired, “Why?”
“Yes… well, it’s quite a story really…” Gorvip replied, still awkwardly scratching his head, and trying to say anything but the truth. Would he have any chance with her if she knew he was really a devil? And that his dog companion’s name was really just short for hell hound? Would she still want to talk to him after that?
Fortunately, the conversation didn’t make it much farther beyond that. Mr. Akeof turned back to his daughter and said, “We’re leaving. Now.”
Merrida scurried over to her father, and began walking off with him. Without looking at Kapif, Gorvip motioned to He-ho, and they began wandering the other way down the road. Kapif was left in the middle, fuming by his door.
“Well, I guess I’ve got to find another job now,” Gorvip said. He-ho looked up at him; his eyes seemed to smile with hope. Gorvip scratched his friend’s head, “Thanks for trying to help me out back there.” Even with Merrida gone for now, he was glad to have He-ho around, who helped lessen his feeling of insignificance. Maybe dog’s weren’t just man’s best friend; maybe they were a devil’s best friend too.
