Unexpected feet; a report from a short time ago, during which there were still very few convenience stores north of the border within The United Kingdom.

There is a hill that has numerous pairs of disembodied legs protruding from the surface and over two years since their first appearance, the kinds of people who wouldn’t take the needy seriously if they knocked on the door with an honest request for help had removed the shoes and socks that shod them against the elements, thus, winters and summers alike played a harsh card across the now calloused, red, blotchy and corned feet. Some of them became tagged too, or felt-tipped with words of baseless accusation, casting doubt upon the possible standards inherent to hidden faces that the scrawlers had presumed were hidden below the ground. I had decided, given the lack of local care, to dedicate my time to making them socks and thereby keeping them warm, dry and their continued presence there protected and clear at least of my troubled conscience.

It has come to my attention since then that the phenomenon is a rare, though not unheard of experience across the globe and suggests the machinations of a certain biological principle of natural organisation, i.e. disembodied feet doing their best to make good of an awkward situation. In the Mediterranean for example, they've been able to survive upon generous food handouts, specifically paellas and I understand this to be a foot favourite. Sandwiches, here up north and amongst the hillocks, will have to suffice due to a lack of the corporate convenience store ... I can't get the sort of prawns best for paellas from the corner.

Note: The cries of "Dandelion", reportedly heard from time to time around the general areas of foot distribution are being looked into. I'm wondering whether there may be some parallel here, for example the Dandelion produces seeds without pollination through a process known as apomixis. Could it be that the bodiless feet might also be asexual and disseminate offspring after having their toes blown?

Interregnum

I am the bunion of river thistle, downstream of acorns and fire, scorched by the sun desiring my carbon. I am lost here though buoyant, scattered seed, stamen risen, parched, coloured, bruised and scribing the unutterable, tied by linguistics to familiar torments and acceptable codes, seeking recognition for bravery, finding acceptance in self deprecation and jest. I am the river thistle, a bunion floating upturned, a hedgehog accepting its fate beneath the moon as the darkness falls and the enormity of beasts look down upon me passing from the banks, their taxonomies mapped in vapour. I am the river thistle, downstream to the sea.