Pair is a word commonly associated with two. Examples could be a pair of socks, a pair of gloves, a pair of birds, and more. The two subjects in question were always meant to be together, completing each other. This was the mentality that a pair of new green shoes shared when they were first packaged together in a shoe box. It wasn’t long before these shoes were given as a birthday present to their new owner. They were well-liked and often used as everyday running shoes. The pair was always stored in a shoe cabinet together, side-by-side. They were never once separated and planned to keep it that way. Many days went by since then, and then months, and then years. However, a point in time comes where physical objects, like these once-loved new shoes, wear away. Like all the other old items before them, the shoes were thrown away, never once missed by their owner. 

Now, what were the two green shoes thinking at this moment? Did they feel betrayed? Angry? Depressed? Not quite. The pair of green shoes dearly wished they could go back to their owner. But as they were stuck together in the looming pile of trash in the landfill, they knew there was no way they could go back to their home. However, they were happy, because at least they were still together, in this sad situation, in the middle of a landfill. However, that too only lasted for ten minutes. Because at this time, one of the green shoes was positioned near the edge of the pile of trash the pair was on. It was dangerously close to losing its balance and falling to who knows where. Simultaneously at this time, there was more trash being piled up in the landfill. The movement of more trash being piled up was enough to provide a little push toward the pile that the pair was on. The next few moments were a blur, as the green shoe that was close to the edge fell. It remembered rolling down the heap of trash, and then feeling wet, being washed away somewhere. The last thing it remembered was that it was plunged into a body of water before everything went pitch black. 

It is practically impossible for a physical object like a shoe to pass out. But at this moment, it thought it did. After all, when someone passes out, everything is supposed to look pitch black, unless they were dreaming. A few minutes later, however, the shoe managed to resurface. It couldn’t help but look in awe at where it ended up. Somehow, in some way, the shoe found itself in a wastewater facility center. The darkness that the shoe had experienced was when it was flowing through the pipes of the landfill’s sewage system. It felt itself being collected by a large net, interrupting its journey through the dirty waters. From there, it was lifted off and joined the pile of other sewage materials. Everything happened so fast. The poor shoe was in a state of disarray. It was already dirty from the landfill, but its once prominent green color was now covered from head to toe in sludge. But that was the least of the shoe’s concerns, as it faced a bigger problem. As the readers may presume, it has been separated from its other pair. Now, this may not seem like much of a big deal to others, but for the shoe, it was. Moreover, the law of the pair, where two things were meant to be with each other, was broken. For most of the shoe’s life, it was always with its other pair. Without its pair, it was nothing. Even if the situation was out of the shoe’s control, it felt like it still betrayed its other pair.

The shoe must, no matter what, find its other pair. At the moment, the shoe didn’t know how it was going to pull it off, but it must. As a machine was hoisting up the net, the shoe found an opening, where it could easily slip through. Once again, the shoe found itself falling into an unknown area. This time, however, the shoe didn’t fall into the water. Rather, it fell into a grassy area, along with many other items that also slipped through the net from the wastewater facility. At first, the shoe didn’t know where it was. It was surrounded by grass on all corners. But in the distance, it could make out some trees, and then a pathway. From its many years serving as its former owner’s running shoes, it realized that it had ended up in a park near the wastewater facility center. A daunting feeling slowly began to rise within the shoe, as it knew that it was lost. It had already been lost once it fell into the sewer, but being stuck near the boundaries of a park erased its hopes of being reunited with its other pair. At least in the wastewater facility, it had an opening in the net where it could escape through! Here, in the corner of a park, there was no circumstance in which it could escape to its next destination. It was impossible. 

Sometimes, in life, there are strange circumstances. Even if it seems that a situation has trapped someone from all corners, eventually, an exit will be found. This is exactly what happened to the shoe, as to its surprise, a team of people carrying trash grabber tools came its way. The shoe felt itself being picked up once more and put into one of the disposable bags that the team was carrying. After a few hours, when the team was finally done picking up trash in their local park, the shoe was fully expected to be disposed of in a trash can again. Where else would it go? However, it was completely wrong, as the team took the bags of trash they had collected and started to sort things out by size. The shoe was placed with objects that seemed salvageable, such as an empty pot, a motorcycle helmet, and a metal spatula. It was then thoroughly washed and sanitized with the rest of the items. 

The shoe never expected itself to be part of an art project. It turns out that the group of trash collectors were environmentalists, and to advocate for cleaner environments, they had created a collage of the earth, made up of the different trash they found in their local parks. The team proceeded to show their art project to every environmental conference they went to, trying to leave an impactful message. In a way, the shoe’s wishes came true. It could now go from one place to another, and it was traveling much more than its previous situation. However, it was still confined to this art project, unwillingly becoming a part of this collage. If the shoe was lost in the park, it was now truly lost in its current situation. It was capable of moving from one place to another, but in many ways, it could not move freely on its own. Its hopes for reuniting with its other pair were once again reduced to zero. 

Many years passed after these events, and now, the art project was left abandoned, becoming an antique of its own. Later, an antique store owner found the project and brought the collage to their shop to be displayed. The collage became a popular spectacle of the shop, adored by many. Although the collage brought joy to many customers, one of the items that helped make up the collage was not. The old green shoe, who at this point, had given up on its search for its other pair, had accepted its fate. It was never going to find its other pair, and the law of the pair had long been broken anyway. It was now reduced to merely a display, and its days serving as a pair of running shoes were a thing of the past. 

One day, the antique shop was going out of business, prompting the owner to host a massive clearance sale for all of the shop’s items. The collage piece, which was one of the most expensive items in the shop, finally got sold. As the piece was being loaded into the back of the buyer’s car, the shoe felt the glue that held it into place starting to loosen and fall off. Keep in mind that at this point, the collage was an old antique, and much of the glue that held it together was falling apart. In the next few moments, the shoe broke free from the collage and landed on the hard pavement of the street. Many pedestrians walking on the streets began to accidentally kick the shoe. A series of patterns began to occur, as the poor shoe was kicked back and forth from one point to another, and then back again.

Eventually, a kind soul picked up the shoe and freed it from its misery, placing the shoe inside a trash bin in an alleyway. The shoe couldn’t help but find its situation ridiculous. After all it went through, from the landfill to the sewer to the wastewater facility to the park to the trash collectors to becoming an art piece to residing in an antique shop, and finally, being kicked around in the streets, it eventually found itself exactly where it started. Back to a trash bin where its owner threw it away, which eventually leads to a landfill. 

As the trash bin made its way into a landfill, the shoe was ready to accept its final moments. Wasn’t there supposed to be an incinerator that burned all of the trash that could no longer be reused? In the old shoe’s current state, that was most likely possible. As the piles of trash began to move downward, the shoe began to see that certain trash was being sorted, similar to how the environmentalists sorted their trash to build their collage. The shoe itself was sorted into a random basket, where it was shipped to some facility. Confused that it wasn’t incinerated yet, the shoe looked around at its new destination. It seemed to reside in some sort of factory, piled up with many other materials. Many of the objects in the factory were being reused, and put together to become a new item. As the conveyor belt that the basket was on began to move, the green shoe took a look at what items were in its basket. There were empty water bottles, a broken tire, keychains, a headband, and something else at the bottom. Come to think of it, the last item seemed strangely familiar. It was a shoe and looked similar to the shoe’s other long-lost pair. But that was impossible. The shoe had traveled far and wide, so the chances of it reuniting with its other pair were statistically impossible. But as the shoe looked closer, it saw the faded print of the brand that the pair was made from. Although the other shoe had lost its beautiful green color, everything else was identical. There was no doubt about it, and it seemed as if the other pair had realized it too. The once pairless shoe had found its other pair. 

Life is truly unpredictable. After so many years of traveling and searching, once the shoe had given up on finding its other pair, unpredictable circumstances led the pair to be reunited once more. Although the two were overjoyed to see each other again, their time was once again cut short, as the basket was nearing the edge of who knows where. However, this time, the shoes quickly got close causing their shoelaces to tangle together. After so many years of searching, they weren’t going to fall to the unknown alone anymore. Whatever happens, they are going to do it together. And so they did.

The shoe’s assumption that the facility was a factory was indeed true. The factory was part of a famous recycling company that produced state-of-the-art items from recycled material. In this case, both of the shoes were recycled together, fulfilling the law of the pair by completing each other. But instead of becoming a pair again, they combined into one material, becoming virtually inseparable in the end.