Shoe Story (2021)

Shelby Lau, looking though her mobile device, sees a floor and a wall within the frame. She gets the image into focus and begins recording. Her flatmate Barney Pan remarks that her film is not very interesting. She agrees, but then drops a pink tennis shoe. 'Now we have a story!' she declares. Barney asks why dropping a shoe is a story. Shelby assures him that the audience cares about this event because it's only one shoe: 'Now we have suspense!' Barney wonders how her story is going to fit the usual three-part structure formula if Shelby can only work with two shoes. She assures him that anyone looking for three-part structure will find it anyway because the story will still have a beginning, a middle, and an end. 'They fall for that?' he asks. She assures him they do. At that moment Virna Lee, the third flatmate, steps through the door. She announces that she's back from the gym, then notices Shelby filming. Shelby describes the shoot as 'an experiment' in how long she can stretch the suspense before dropping the second shoe. Virna remarks on the similarity between Shelby's experiment and Anton Chekhov's remarks about guns as a plot device. Shelby, feeling she has reached the limit of how long the audience will stay with her, decides to give her film only a few more seconds before finishing--but Virna announces that she can't find the second shoe. All begin searching for it as the battery in Shelby's device begins draining.