Shoes    The mother pulled her black hair into a ponytail. She sat on a rough,  torn, gray airport seat with a tiny girl in her lap, crowded in by  hundreds of others. The girl seemed much happier than the mother.  She had a sweet smile on her face, and her big brown eyes were  bright with curiosity. She looked around, her long, brown braid that  hung down her back swiveling alongside her head.   “Mama?” she whispered in a voice so low and quiet, yet so sharp and  loud to her mother’s listening ears.   “Yes, darling?” her mother replied, tucking her long, silky ponytail  into the blackish-colored hood of her jacket. The little girl, who  looked about five or six didn’t reply. She either had forgotten her  question or no longer cared. The girl’s eyes were glued to an  advertisement, something with bold letters and cheery images that  her mother couldn’t quite see from the distance between them. The  little girl was mesmerized by the illustration on the billboard. The  little girl slowly slid off of her mother’s lap, leaving her solemn  mother behind. Tucking her too-tight and fading purple shirt into  her rainbow, flowing skirt, she began to walk toward the billboard,  her tight, clicking, black shoes, tapping against the tile floor.  “Come back!” her mother cried, although not nearly loud enough to  be heard through the airport chaos. The girl toddled along, taking  each step carefully, her black sneakers tap-tapping against the cold  metal floor of the airport. Approaching the advertisement, she  stopped. There was a brilliant drawing of a black-and-blue pair of  shoes, blue on the heels, black laces, and an extraordinary paragraph  of unreadable words.   “Shoes.” the girl pronounced the word with ease and gentleness, an  important word to her. She looked down at her own pair, battered  and old yet still comfortable and soft. The laces were well-worn and  appeared tired of being knotted so many times. The girl loved the  billboard with all of her heart. How much she would give to have a  pair of shoes like those.   “Come back!” her mother called, finally speaking up again. The  little girl looked up at her mother, toward the sign, and back to her  mother, as if trying to decide which was more important. Pulling  her braid tight in her little girl grip, she wandered back to her  mother’s seat. Without a word, she smiled up at her mother, the big,  happy smile that she’d started with, and said one word, just one  word: “Shoes.”