A Magical Pair

         Often times I have wondered where the path of life would have taken me if I had chosen door number two instead of door one.  Maybe I would be attending a different college or no college at all, maybe I would still be with that one special girl that always brought a smile to my face, and maybe I would have never driven my car home if I knew I would be getting a DUI.  We all have that moment which leaves us thinking boy I wish I could have played that different or man why can’t my life be like it was ten years ago.  How much would an object be worth if it could grant such a wish? 

            In Salman Rushdie’s short story At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, the ruby slippers from the movie Wizard of Oz where the item that was being auctioned off.  Yes the original pair in which “we do not know the limits off there power.”  For many people at this auction the ruby slippers represent a way home.  A fresh start from the life that the never wish they would have left.  A chance to start over to make things right where someone might have made a mistake in the past.  People from all walks of life are bidding on an object out of pure hope that they contain some sort of magic that will in turn better there life in a way that could never be dreamed of by any person containing the smallest amount of logic in their head.

For the narrator of this story the slippers were a chance to win back the love of his life named Gale.  Gale is the cousin of the narrator in this story who he had been madly in love with but had been betrayed when he found her in bed with another man.  It is the one moment in his life that he wishes to change and the ruby slippers are the only way to make him feel the way he did so many years ago.  He continues to bid away as he becomes “detached from the earth.”  To him the slippers provide a chance at a new beginning until he finally realizes what he is doing.  He drops out of the running for the slippers and goes home. 

After the auction had ended, the ruby slippers ended up selling in the price range of five figures.  Whether the ruby slippers ever contained the magic that they were thought to, probably not.  We all have that spot in our brain were temporary insanity takes place.  We no longer know what we are doing or why.  We just want that object and there is nothing we won’t do to get it.  For me it is sports that do the trick.  When competing with others there is nothing I won’t do to win.  Something takes over my brain and my competitive side leashes fists of fury.  The logic is not known or cared about at the time.  The same thing happened during the auction.  Logic went out the window and the dreams of a better life came in.  Although these dreams might not have been granted with the magic pair of slippers, the price at a chance of this happening seemed to bear no expense.