June turned the wheel of her car swiftly with one hand, guiding her modest car around the last bend of the winding mountain road she'd been climbing for the past half hour. As the scenery caught up with her eyes, the girl pulled her car's gear into park without noticing the trained movement of her arm. Everything was green and glistening bright with condensation. She breathed in ever so slowly, as if to allow her smog-ridden lungs a moment to adjust to real, life-giving air for the first time. It was all so much at once, an instant realization that this is what she should always be breathing in.
In a fluidity never before known to her, June's fingers brought the driver door open. Her left leg floated out and landed her foot effortlessly upon the yielding soil. As it came down, a slight glimmer of smooth skin shone from under her long yellow skirt. Without a thought as to why, June pushed off one shoe and then the other by pressing her toes down on the backs of the heels. She reached down and shed each sock as well, tossing them back onto the gritty carpeted floor of her car. This place had taught her wordlessly that it was not one for well-tied shoes and thick soles to guard one's skin from the naked earth. Today was a day to go barefoot. Today was a day, the first day in June's plastered and painted life, to feel firsthand.
Her big toes pale from a lifetime of scrubbing and shade, were glowing amongst the deep, dark humus. They formed small impressions beneath her feet. She dug all her toes down into the coolness, and it was far more comfortable than the most expensive shoes in her closet. This feeling was lovely. It felt.. freeing. She had to feel more.