The Science of Pastel Eggs in the 22nd Century

He was walking down the street, just as you would on an ordinary afternoon, as anyone else a hundred, two hundred, a millennium ago, or the way a caveman might have. The street was much in the way that you understand streets now. The difference was the shoes he wore. They were conditioned for walking. It seems strange to say this, because no doubt you have worn a great many pair of shoes as you have walked, and you have felt perfectly comfortable in them.

But as I said, these particular shoes were made especially for walking. By this I mean, they never worn down. They were made to last, as they used to say, to endure a great amount of use, so that he never had to worry about finding another pair. He wore shoes, and that was all he had to worry about, and of course, he also walked.

He found that he walked more when he wasn't concerned about his shoes. He walked miles and miles out of his way, so that you might say that there was no real place that was out of it, that he might call the whole world his own domain, all the places he could walk. They were water-resistant, so he could walk, if he felt up to it, across a stream, a shallow river, even into the very ocean, and sometimes he did just that, living on the coast as he did.

He walked, and he was content to do so. He had the shoes that helped make it possible.