The Impressions of Violet

It was a Thursday, the last Thursday of October, and the entire university seemed to hold its breath. The semester break had emptied the halls of students, leaving only a skeleton crew of faculty and staff. The canteen was closed, its steel shutters drawn like eyelids over a dead eye, so the administrative building’s employees had to venture off-campus for lunch. I was among them, accompanied by my colleague, Delia. We found a small diner a few blocks away, its fluorescent lights humming over chipped porcelain and greasy menus. We ate quickly, the conversation sparse, punctuated by the clatter of cutlery and the occasional glance at our watches. By 12:55, we were back, the glass doors of the administration building sliding shut behind us with a soft hiss.

I decided to freshen up before returning to my desk. The restroom was at the end of the hallway, a narrow corridor lined with faded posters of orientation schedules and lost-and-found notices. The fluorescent light inside flickered, casting a sickly pallor on the tiles. I ran the water, lathered my hands, and brushed my teeth with mechanical precision, the minty paste stinging against my gums. As I spat and rinsed, I heard something—a faint, rhythmic pattering, like tiny feet running on the floor just beyond the door. I paused, listening. The sound stopped. I shrugged it off, thinking perhaps Delia was shuffling papers nearby. I dried my hands and stepped out.

The hallway was empty. But as I turned toward my office, something caught my eye. On the linoleum floor, a series of small, dark footprints trailed from the restroom door toward the main corridor. They were not mud, nor water—they were the deep, unmistakable purple of stamp pad ink. The imprints were tiny, the size of a small child’s foot, and they led away in a deliberate, almost playful pattern, like a child skipping or exploring. My heart gave a lurch. There were no children on campus during the break. The building was locked to students, and the only staff were adults. Yet the footprints were fresh, the ink still glossy, as if just stamped onto the floor.

I followed the trail, my footsteps echoing in the silence. Each print was distinct, each toe and heel clearly defined, as if a child had pressed their bare foot into an ink pad and walked with a light, carefree step. The trail veered left, past the Faculty Lounge, and stopped abruptly at a door I knew led to a storage closet—a room rarely used, its door always kept locked. I tried the handle. It turned easily, and the door swung open with a groan. Inside, the room was dim, cluttered with old furniture, boxes of files, and a broken photocopier. There, on the dusty floor, was a single stamp pad, its ink dried and crusted at the edges. But beside it lay something else: a child’s shoe, a small, pink sneaker with a scuffed toe, its sole stained with the same purple ink. I picked it up, my fingers trembling. The shoe was warm, as if just removed from a foot.

I turned, intending to tell Delia, when I saw the footprint on the floor in front of me. It was larger, but unmistakably a child’s. And another, and another, leading back the way I came. But now they were accompanied by a faint, powdery residue—a sort of dust that clung to the floor, resembling baby powder. I recalled that earlier, Delia had mentioned her daughter suffered from severe allergies and she kept a tin of powder in her desk. I marched to the office, my mind racing with rational explanations. But when I found Delia, she was pale, clutching her chest. She told me she had seen the footprints too, moments before I returned, and that they had turned into her office, weaving between the desks, and stopped at her chair. She laughed nervously, saying, ‘Perhaps a child snuck in, but the building is locked from the outside.’ She bent to inspect the floor, but the prints had vanished, leaving only a faint smudge.

That evening, as I locked my office, I found a note on my desk. It was written in a child’s scrawl, with crayon-like strokes, reading: ‘You found my shoe. May I have it back?’ I had not mentioned the shoe to anyone. I felt a cold dread seep into my bones. I looked down, and there, at my feet, was the pink sneaker, still warm. I knew then that whatever had left those footprints was not a child of this world, but something that wanted to be found. I placed the shoe on the desk, backed away, and fled the building without looking back. To this day, I cannot walk past a nursery or a playground without a shiver of fear, thinking of that tiny, purple-inked footstep and the voice that might call out, ‘You have my shoe.’