Goines On: How times goes by

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Goines picked up his left shoe to remove its orthotic for use in his left walking boot, which was out in the garage, where he routinely readied himself for his daily morning walks. How many times had Goines transferred the orthotics? In how many pairs of shoes and boots and even sandals had he used them? He couldn’t remember in what year he had been fitted for the devices, on which he had become so dependent that he couldn’t walk far comfortably without them. Did he get them before they left Chapel Hill? That would make them at least eleven years old. The surrounding inner soles showed little wear for all the walking, transferring, walking, shoe-exchanging they had served.
    He wanted to hurry up and get today’s walk over with so he could get on with other things. But it struck him – could it be for the first time? – that you couldn’t hurry-up a timed walk. A 30-minute walk took...thirty minutes, whether you walked fast or slow. Of course, in another sense, he routinely did hurry up his walks, make the thirty minutes pass quickly. He did it by thinking, by composing his thoughts, arranging their words, editing the sequence of their sentences. He was doing it now.
    Back from his walk, in restoring the orthotics to his shoes, Goines examined the label on the bottom of one. “05/30/2012” – seven years and four months of service, almost a tenth of his lifetime. His life seemed now to have passed quickly too. Had he been occupied by other things than living?

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