There is something equally charming and forlorn for me in seeing a lost child’s shoe. This one in particular caught my eye because of the little rainbow on the side of it. I took the photo in gloomy weather on a shabby part of a main road, and the little flash of colour caught my eye.

The shoe remained there for a few days after I took the photo, moving up and down the pavement a little bit, perhapse being moved to more prominent locations by a pair of helpful hands, before it eventually dissapeared. Perhaps it was finally reclaimed by it’s owner.

Like the other two prompts in this series (you can see them here and here), this photo makes me think of crime thrillers or police procedural TV shows. A child’s shoe on the pavement could be a good opening scene to a story in these genres.

How could it have got there? What could have happened?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see I also have a Patreon Page here.