music        news/events        bio        contact        recordings The Red Shoes 2006 women's chorus duration 10' SCORE TEXT The Red Shoes She saw them on her way home from school, down a quiet side street  in the middle of the otherwise bustling city. Red as the reddest shade  of lipstick, they gleamed on the sidewalk with a fresh wetness. She  knew them, the way they say one knows one's true love, at first sight  (though she doubted it later for she had never known that feeling  before, nor felt it again, not even when she met the man she  eventually married).  It was a bit difficult, what with the crutch, to bend down to pick  them up, unzip her schoolbag, and carry the extra weight home. But  she managed. She never even bothered to look around to see if anyone was watching her. (No one was.)  She tried to recall the story as she slowly struggled home. Was there  a soldier in it? A crone? A mother? Was the girl lame, like her? It  didn't matter; there was a new story now.  Perhaps they would have been a bit more noticeable than a pencil with  teeth marks but no eraser, left behind carelessly by a strong young  man, but she hid them well. She never wore them, of course. She knew  what would happen. But she took them out occasionally to look at  them. (When? What did she feel at those times?)  When she died (from natural causes; it's not important what kind), her  will told where they were hidden (it doesn't matter where). Of course,  they were not the only secret she had kept from her husband or her  children.  She had requested for them to be put on her feet for the funeral, and  they were. She did not startle the mourners (a quite admirable number,  really) by rising from the coffin during the last hymn and dancing out  the church. More than one person, however, did notice that the shoes  did not fit (Were they too small? Too big?) but of course no one said  anything.  She was buried, and the shoes were buried with her.  And that was the end of that story.  And if I told you that the girl's name was Cathy, that the town was a  small village in Kent, that she was not lame, that the shoes were from  Marks & Spencer, and that they were a lovely shade of rich, woodsy  green, would you believe me?  Frederick Choi (b.1979)