Everyone remembers them, right? Clunky trainers with a hidden superpower. I wrote this piece a couple of years ago, and after seeing a young girl gliding around on these magnificent inventions just yesterday, I realised they could be making a Britney Spears comeback. (In case you weren’t aware thats a metaphor for an extremely under the radar and over before we even noticed it kind of comeback.)
Click the PDF for the short story:
Thought I’d include something other than poetry. Although there is something about trainers with wheels that is inherently poetic, is there not?
I know that nearly everyone in and around my age group will know the feeling of unboxing those heelies. Not just that, but the initial power of choosing which colour combo to get and bragging about it to your friends at the park as you wait 3-5 working days for your new-found-coolness to rock up at your door.
Come to think of it, heelies might have been the death of roller-skates. Everyone realised at that point that roller-skates were far too blaringly obvious as a locomotive footwear. The sleek hidden wheels of the heelies trainers far surpassed the lilac, groovy chick clad, 8 strap, death trap roller-skates that were forever kept in the attic of my garage never to be seen again. Even after the heelies trend died down, (or didn’t according to the young girl I saw proudly sliding about in 2018) roller-skates never fully recovered from the social snubbing.
But at 22 I have long exceeded the acceptable age range to be using these kinds of things, light up trainers, scooters, heelies, hula hoops that rattle, and even paddling pools. So I shall have to just live out my whimsical fantasies in my nostalgic early naughties memory of those hot pink heelies.
writing for myself 