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9 Descent of Man Dear Darwin, or Charles, or Chuck, or Chaz, I write to express my sincere derision over the abominable state of my feet: my twisted toes, the fused and arthritic joint on my left foot, the stress fracture on the right, the thick and yellow nails on both, my flattened instep arches which pronate my ankles (so that my whole uncle monkey body hangs its saggy weight over nothing but a few aging, aching ligaments) and which twist my knees and spine, tightens my hamstrings and my Achilles tendons until they are ready to pop. The podiatrist slobbers at the thought of their scalpel and hammer reconstruction. Every barefoot walk cracks like branches as when a man falls through a tree. I will have trouble walking at all as I get older. Were it not for these orthotics, grown thicker each year since I was fifteen, I would be one of the crippled and wrecked left to huddle alone, hungry and cold, as the rest of the tribe follows herds across the glaciers. Instead, I plod, breed, and eat more than I need. ...

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