In Continuum.

Kelly Grew Legs

Nothing ever happened on the street i lived on when i was a child.The most exciting aspect of it was probably the fact that the street was called "Garfield Street",and every cat in the neighbourhood suddenly had an uncanny similarity with that fat cartoon cat.The truth is,other than the relationship with that famous cartoon character,people who lived in the same estate never cared too much for each other,nor did they bother to bridge the distance between one another.Everybody watched from between curtains or from across rosy fences.We were like any other Jacksonville or Springfield,one of those very common towns you find anywhere on an American map.

My father was a lawyer in the city,and he spends most of the time away from home.I'd be lying if i tell you now that i knew my father.Because truth be told,he was the person in my life who provided the toy truck,the plastic shovel,the set of prehistoric animals,G.I. Joes,the Santa Claus.I remember whenever my father comes home from one of his overseas trip in the late afternoon(It's always in the late afternoon),he'd be hiding something behind his back,and made me guess what he had for me.I usually went for the impossible: Superman's cape, mini-Bat Mobile,or Disneyland tickets.Nonetheless,i got the present anyway,and they never disappointed.So much so,that i'd remain in the front lawn and begin a prehistoric battle between a T-Rex and Raptors,which werent built according to scale,but it's not like it mattered back then.

But there was something special about a particular evening.It wasnt the present,that my father brought home,for i was shovelling sand into a plastic bucket in the mini-sandbox my father had built at the back of the house,along with a rusty swing.I felt a presence then,a sort of curiosity staring at me from all around.It didnt feel hostile,which mustve been why i didnt dash under the kitchen table right away.I remember calling out for a name,and as soon as i did so a rustle of the leaves from across the fences greeted me.I took a peek through the leaves,through a hole between the wooden planks of the fence,and all i saw was the back of a little girl in a yellow summer dress,with small flowers dotted all over,running through the creaking screen door into the house.She had beautiful blonde hair i remember,and though i did not see her face,i remembered that presence,which was full of fascination and almost a childish and innocent desire.

Kelly lived next door with her angry father and step-mother.She had a sister who was fifteen years older than her.She ran away from home when Kelly was born,or at least that's what my parents told me later on in my life.Kelly's mother died from pneumonia,and that caused an uproar in the neighbourhood for about fifteen minutes or so.I remember Mr. Johnson's hoarse voice from the back of the house,always screaming for his wife or for Kelly.He was always looking for somebody,or something.He questioned me once while i was shooting hoops on my driveway with my friend Alex,if i had seen his pack of cigarettes.

'Are the cigarettes afraid of you,Mr. Johnson?' i asked.

'What the hell for?'He replied.

'If they aren't,why are they hiding from you?'

The summer of 1983 was a strange year,because it rained for two weeks straight.My playground was reduced from the lawn to the front porch,and Alex was grounded for breaking his father's windscreen all summer.My father came home last evening with a new box of crayons i recall,and the exercise books from school became my eventual canvas.I drew the rosy fences and my collection of dinosaurs.I drew Mr. Johnson's cigarettes with legs,running away from him around the house.I drew the backview of my father,with tickets to Disneyland one hopeful afternoon,and i drew her.Though it was merely seconds before she vanished behind the screen door,i coloured her as vivid as possible,and i didnt know why exactly.I just...did.

'White,actually' a voice said.

I raised my head,and before me was a girl drenched from the rain.Her blonde hair was all over her face,and she had her left index in her hair,brushing them back to the back of her ears.It was Kelly,i realised,and she repeated what she said to me earlier.

'But i saw yellow.' I replied, confused.

'It mustve been the sun.Here,let me help you.'

I hate to admit this,but what i remember the most of Kelly was her wrist,as she took the white crayon from my box and coloured over the yellow portion i was halfway through then.I didnt know why,and i still dont.But as her wrist made invisible circles above my exercise book,i found my eyes trailing the imaginary lines,as if the pale skin on her wrist left a sort of light as it went by.It was purely innocent,and that was how i fell in love with Kelly Johnson.

She came by to my place almost everyday for that two weeks of rain.She'd come with her same dress drenched in rain,and at the door she would greet my mother with a smile across her face.She leaves before dinner most of the time,and always on time for some reason.She said her father comes home at that time,though sometimes a lot later than that.But she didnt want to take chances,she said.She said so while rubbing her wrists against the side of her dress until they were red,and in her eyes i thought i saw tears,but dismissed them as rainwater.But they werent rainwater,but real tears that welled up and disappeared almost immediately,like the secret she so desperately tried to keep,until the last night of the rainy days.

From the side of the porch,my father built a wooden fence that stretches to the balcony of the second floor.My mother loved gardening,and that was where she grew periwinkles,climbing up the fences all the way to the railings on the second storey.That stormy night the rain came down hard,and i remember the way the wind was blowing against my room's window was keeping me up all night.The long wailing of the wind through the fissures under the panes,sounded like frightful screaming of a dying dog somehow.And as i laid there with my covers drawn up to my nose,there was a shadow that appeared at my room's window.

I uttered a soft scream,but realised only seconds later that it was Kelly.As usual,she was drenched from head to toe,and she climbed into the room without waiting for me to answer.She wasnt in her dress then,but a white t-shirt and only her underwear.I wasnt quite sure what that meant,but as soon as i opened the window for her,she gave me a long cold hug that i still feel till this day.

'Protect me...' she said. 'Protect me...'

'What happened?'

'Remember those cigarettes you drew?'

'Yes?'

'I grew legs too.'

She kept crying and she wouldnt stop,and with her right hand she grasped her stomach while her left,she clinged on to the back of my neck,sinking her nails deep into my skin.I kept asking what happened,but that look in her eyes returned.It wasnt rainwater,but real tears rolling down her cheeks this time.She was rubbing her wrist against her shirt again,but this time it left not only a sore skin,but what looked like scars on the underside of her wrists.

Silently,without my knowing,a trail of blood came down her inner thighs,and though she tried to stop them by putting her legs together,they left a mark on the wooden floor that still remains till this day.She cried softly that night,and the rain kept falling and falling.