THE PRESIDENTIAL DECREES #2 (1996)
BY JOHN HORNE CANNING
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In an effort to unify a fragmented nation, the President decreed that only one make of footwear could be produced: a brown crosstrainer. The shoe was made of canvas for flexibility and synthetic leather for durability. Shoe-store owners protested and sneaker companies initiated massive advertisement barrages against the decree. But by Presidential decree, the sneaker companies were conscripted to produce the new and only shoe. The government grant was substantial. The companies retracted their protests. Advertising companies fired copy writers who, with a hero’s fervor had spearheaded the campaign, now wandered listlessly, unemployed, beating the pavement in the required crosstrainers. Occasionally these old sneaker designers and terminated copywriters gathered in warehouse spaces and admired heaps of outlawed hi-tops, running shoes, wrestling shoes, and cleats. They came to realize that they were an underground, the foot soldiers, literally, of a burgeoning revolution. The nation was upset with the decree and secretly complained to trusted loved ones. The summer Olympics were approaching and the trials were foreshadowing a great humiliation. Times in the 100-meter dash were tenths of a second off, not personal bests or world records, but losing times from the 1938 games in Holland. The sneaker employees devised a plan of action. They would strike immediately after the final heat of the 100 meters. They planned to airdrop thousands of pairs of contraband inventory onto the track. Between that glorious moment and the present in which they schemed, their feet comfortable with tight-laced sneakers, they would have much planning, much work ahead of them, from that moment on the revolution had begun. Their first move would be to contact the competing presidential nominee and alert him to a surefire path to election. The platform: repeal the crosstrainer decree. |
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