When I was little, my father and I would stroll through the fields in all the lands surrounding our manor, wishing a good harvest and fine tidings to the peasants who worked the soil.

He never meant those words, of course. My father could be a cruel, capricious landlord. One winter, when the driving rains turned the soil to mush, and the mung-beans and wheat-stalks lay rotten in the waterlogged earth, the peasants cried out in starvation and cursed the gods for their ruin.

....

I awoke one morning to find our castle engulfed in flames, my father screaming for his life and fleeing on horseback, abandoning me to whatever cruel fate the revolutionaries had in store for me.

And so I grabbed what little I could, including these fine sandals by Adidas, and I ran out into the dusty streets, beating a hasty escape from the life I had known and all it entailed. I know not where the road ahead will take me. But I do know that I will walk that road in comfort and style, with these reasonably priced and durable Adidas Duramo Slide Sandals in Navy and White, Size 12M.