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Golgotha’s Boot

An estuary, about a miner’s lunch-break from my home, flowed water through underground channels and collapsed much of the topsoil from underneath. Water gurgled in and out of these pockets and eroded their walls, perpetually expanding their spaces. The holes above them became so wide over time that you could look down into them.

“Golgotha’s Boot” referred to a particular cavern where our beloved brute-maiden named Golgotha liked to soak her foot in the cool, cool water at the bottom. Many evenings, she approached the Boot and alerted everyone with her pounding footsteps. She could spend as much as two hours either standing or sitting with her sole submerged in the refreshing pool. A man easily could fit inside the Boot but he could not escape while Golgotha wore it!

My story took place one evening while I was walking back from my nine to three at Gordon Jewelers. I kept the books there, and I took credit for every occasion when our heads stayed above water. Our suppliers were the Undertow Mines, who operated on the slopes above the estuary. In perfect collusion, I advised their director of safety to make sure that their costs agreed with our prices. In other words, I had to maintain their life insurance claims at manageable numbers every period.

This last month showed our most dubious sale to date: a solid amethyst gemstone the size of a hundred mortgages, stacked up. We hastily received the gemstone as part of a special deal through Undertow. Apparently, a “mutual acquaintance” of ours contacted them with what resembled a mafioso ultimatum, the gemstone in exchange for no loss of property, or life.

They procured the stone but some poor soul drowned in the mines after high tide flooded them with water. They practically begged us to sell it at whatever price the acquaintance asked. Apparently, the amount that Gordon and Undertow received was about equal to the value of the property that was not destroyed. That was good enough for both of us.

I walked with these good numbers in my head and decided to detour through the estuary. The sun was setting in the sky behind my home, the clouds glowed as purple as amethyst, and the full moon mythically rose. I stared at them as I walked, and I thought about power, like the power of the gemstone we just sold, the power of the money we saved, the power of the full moon upon the tide. Power made things happen, and power operated much of my life.

Then, I mistook a hole in the estuary for just one of the numberless shadows that the sun cast against the earth. I screamed in surprise and tumbled to the bottom of the hole with a wet plop. The fall badly sprained my ankle, and I could not stand up without considerable discomfort. The walls of the hole extended a discouraging distance above my head. Darkness obscured everything around me except for an unmistakeable, vinegary odor, not unlike my wife’s shoes.

I had fallen into Golgotha’s Boot!

The Boot dripped and plipped with water droplets in the under-ceiling. Their echoes warned me as to the entirety of my enclosure. There was no time! My arms were strong, and I could lift myself up along the walls with their strengths alone. My ankle, however, could not support my weight. I reached a height where my arms could not grab anything. I could overcome the height if I could push upwards with my feet.

I fell with a splash. The sun was setting fast and darkness approached. Maybe luck would keep Golgotha away tonight. It was cool in other places, too. She didn't need the Boot to cool down!

That’s when I felt the rhythmic rumbling of a gigantic woman on a schedule. I scrammed from the ground below the hole and took cover near the “toes” of the Boot. A shadow enveloped the light coming from the hole, and I knew that I would have to deal with it.

Golgotha’s left foot slid inside with all the flatness of a careless bubble-gum chewer. Her toenails were small and her skin engulfed them on all sides with chubbiness. Her second toe glowed with a familiar purple hue, the amethyst gemstone that we sold!

I learned how correct I was as soon as the foot stopped just inches from touching me. Water sloshed on all sides around the foot. Golgotha began pressing her sole into the earth, wriggling the water between and around her toes. It was a strange sensation to have her body so close to me despite her lack of cognizance. Her foot behaved like a blind leviathan.

Golgotha sighed and laughed far above my head. Popular myth held that she loved cooling down her feet. The Boot maintained a constant temperature all season long. Those were the extents of anyone’s knowledge with respect to Golgotha and her Boot. Golgotha did not speak well, and her intelligence likewise was questionable.

She giggled with childish contentment, especially while in chorus with her splashing. Both droplets of cool ocean water and waves rose up to me. I nervously clasped the walls of the Boot in a vain attempt to stay dry.

Her gigantic foot began stretching the toes towards the ceiling. The toes eclipsed the purple glow of her amethyst ring. I guessed that she stretched her legs while “keeping her Boot on.” A twinge of fear accompanied the sight of her flat bare sole, a subject best glimpsed from a safe distance.

Suddenly, a great crack boomed throughout the Boot, and the foot slammed down into the pool. I screamed at the surge of water that engulfed me entirely. When I could stop coughing and gasping for air, I saw that the amethyst jewel atop her toe ring was gone.

Golgotha groaned in frustration. She must have realized that she broke her ring but she did not remove her foot to search the Boot. “YOU. IN BOOT,” she grunted with imbecility. “GET GEM OR FOOT SQUISH. NOW. GOLGOTHA HAVE DATE. DATE AT DARK. PRETTY MAN. PRETTY LIKE GOLGOTHA. GET GEM OR FOOT SQUISH.” Her foot splish-splashed as though to corroborate her point.

A great gurgle moaned throughout the Boot. Suddenly, a gush of water erupted from the wall. It foamed in the pool at Golgotha’s foot. The water level surrounded her toe and started to rise.

I had no choice but to submerge myself in the water. My body floated into her toes. They bucked me up. “STAND ON FOOT. GET GEM OR FOOT SQUISH.” My feet kept slipping off of her toes. I couldn’t see where I was standing under the foam. Matter of fact, I could hardly see anything at all because of how dark it was! I was running out of time.

I finally spotted the purple glimmer above my head. The gem got stuck in the ceiling, at least a whole body length out of arm’s reach.

“I can’t reach it!” I yelled as loudly and slowly as I could. “The gem is too high up! Lift me up! Lift me up so I can reach it!”
“GET IN TOES. FOOT LIFT. GET GEM OR FOOT SQUISH.”

As if her repeated warning wasn’t enough, I became stuck between the implements of my destruction. Her gentle grip allowed me to raise my arms above my head. She raised me up until her foot fully exited the pool and flooded the cavern with a cacophony of drips. The gem was just outside my reach.

“Higher! Higher!” I yelled.

But she lifted me too high. The ceiling rushed down to meet me like a wall of blackness. I lowered my hand’s just in time to meet a face-full of hardened earth.

“DUMB MAN! GOLGOTHA RUIN POLISH! GET GEM OR FOOT SQUISH!”

I dizzily groped the ceiling above me. In my dizziness, I knocked the gem loose. It bounced off my shoulder and plopped into the pool below like a stone.

“It fell in the water!”
“GET GEM NOW! GOLGOTHA LATE!”
“Let me go! I’ll get it!”

She spread her toes to release me. I fell into the pool, which had swelled up to my feet right below where I was hanging. I blindly dove down and reached my hands around the bottom of the Boot. I had no idea where it could have rolled to when it fell.

I resurfaced for air before diving again. I was up to Golgotha’s ankle due to the water level. The light was almost totally gone.

I blindly dove a second time. This time I searched closer to her foot. I accidentally brushed between her toes. They instantly seized me and rose me above the water.

I coughed and sputtered as she angrily said, “YOU TICKLE GOLGOTHA? THIS FUNNY? YOU WASTE TIME! FOOT SQUISH YOU!”

No longer gentle, her toes tightly wrapped around me, clasping me again and again and again to maximize her squeeze. I frantically squirmed to escape this impersonal monstrosity that was her foot. Darkness surrounded me, and the toes forced involuntary cries of pain from me.

“HUH, HUH HUH HUH HUH! FOOT SQUISH YOU! FOOT SQUISH BUG IN BOOT!”

My leg felt cold again. I realized that the water in the Boot had risen passed my feet. The mashing motion of her toe joints started to burn me from sheer friction. Soreness covered me from my shoulders to my hips.

“Golgotha!” I heard a distant male voice call.

The foot suddenly plummeted into the pool like a cannonball. Drowning in darkness, I pushed myself up and up to get out of the deadly grip of her toes. They no longer moved. She must have started standing upright in response to that voice I heard.

At last, her slippery grasp could not hold me anymore. My knee bounced against a loose stone in the water. With blind hope, I grabbed the stone and resurfaced, gasping for mouthfuls of breath. Indeed, the stone was the gem. But Golgotha’s conversation made me hold my tongue.

“YOU BEST MAN! GOOD TO GOLGOTHA! GOLGOTHA LOVE YOU!”
“GUNDER LOVE YOU TOO!” replied the male voice. It sounded like he stood right beside Golgotha on the surface.
“GOLGOTHA LOVE YOU MORE!”
“GUNDER COME TO GOLGOTHA WHEREVER SHE GO!”

I floated with the dumbest grin on my face of them all. Then, Golgotha lifted her titanic foot out of the Boot and let in the moonlight. I could see the surface just a foot over the water. The two lovers stomped away, and their stomps diminished as they left. I pulled myself onto the seagrass when I was sure they had gone away.

The gemstone seemed to gaze into me with all its power. I could return it, I thought, to Gordon and try to resell it. It was perfectly intact. I could try to find Golgotha and hand it back to her with my “apology” for not getting it. I could take it with me and keep it as a great story for my wife when I returned.

Instead, I tossed it back into the Boot so that Golgotha could find it when she came back, whenever that would be. If there’s one thing that never could be ignored, it’s a pebble in your Boot.