Mike's Footprints: a very short story about the importance of making a good first impression

I once knew a boy called Mike. I first met him in 1994, on a damp and dreary Saturday in Holland Park, London.

After an unnecessarily long negotiation with my mum over whether I should take a coat and an empty promise that I’d actually do my homework when I got back, she finally let me loose on the unsuspecting public. I did not, for the record, hold up my end of the bargain.

So there I was, stood on the Underground platform, meticulously minding the gap as instructed. I was near the back, next to some empty seats that I obviously couldn’t sit on because of my deep-rooted fear of missing the next train. The next one after that was a whole minute away, and I was already running late thanks to Mum’s Spanish Inquisition about my layering choices. I glanced at a crumpled newspaper left on a seat. Hugh Grant, all floppy-haired and quintessentially bumbling, had attended a film premiere with Elizabeth Hurley, whose dress had apparently fallen apart, necessitating a strategic deployment of safety pins. With that mental image firmly lodged in my teenage brain, I boarded the train.

By the time I arrived at my mate Ross’s house, the rain had been chucking it down for ages. My shoes were abandoned by the front door, and I was sat in his bedroom in my now slightly regrettable white socks, wishing I’d just taken the bloody duffle coat. Ross and I were deep into our third round of Green Day’s Dookie on repeat while he methodically vandalised his new acoustic guitar with a thick black marker pen. We were 14, and music was suddenly the most important thing in the world.

Ross lived with his parents, and older sister Sam, whom I secretly harboured an undying, unspoken love for.

A loud knock on the front door shattered our discussion about the Punk revival, closely followed by someone absolutely going to town on the doorbell. My argument - that Green Day was more Pop than Punk - had been swiftly and furiously shot down by Ross. You simply didn’t chat shit about Green Day in his presence.

Muffled voices from downstairs. Then, footsteps - heavy, erratic - pounding up the stairs. Ross and I exchanged a look. We braced. The door flew open.

There, in the doorway, was a boy I’d never seen before.

He was absolutely drenched. Rain-soaked, motionless, clutching a mud-caked football. He nodded at Ross, threw me a quick glance, then immediately looked down. I followed his gaze. His shoes were caked in fresh, wet mud. Somehow, so were his jeans, his coat, and - impressively - his blonde hair.

“Come in then, Mike,” said Ross, snapping the lid back onto his marker pen.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” came an exasperated voice from downstairs.

Mike stepped in, placed his dripping football directly onto Ross’s homework, and plonked himself down on the bed next to Ross, who made no move to introduce us.

“It’s raining outside,” Mike announced, picking up the guitar and casually strumming it with his thumb.

I laughed, assuming this was some kind of deadpan joke. Mike glanced at me, furrowed his brow in mild confusion, then carried on strumming, tuning pegs turning wildly in every direction as he seemingly composed an entirely new - and, let’s be honest, unlistenable -song.

Later, we left at the same time, carefully stepping over Ross’s mum, who was frantically shampooing the carpet on the stairs.

“She’ll never get that out,” I thought, avoiding eye contact.

And that, really, sums Mike up. Awkward. Unintentionally funny. And, like Ross’s mum’s carpet, he left a mark on us forever.

RIP Mike Langrell.

By Johnny Larran, 2025.