Not My Feet

I looked at my feet. Uneven and scrambled. After so many bumps into furniture, the third toe on my left foot, red and swollen, was ready to burst into pieces. It made me sweat every time I put on my left shoe.

I slouched and hid in my collar. I slipped under the dripping roofs onto the streets, glistening with traffic. Puddles reflected at me in disbelief. I felt like a city rat among the wealthy. They will never include me or speak kindly. All conversations, reactive and slanderous, revolved around my words.

‘You protected the little one from his fists.’

‘He was driving you to school. You should be grateful.’

‘For what? A wasted life?’

‘No! For having a life.’

A conversation with my mum made me realise what kind of life it was. As if waiting tables would make me a good guy. I didn’t know that the urgent need to escape dysfunctional family hooks would lead me to washing dirty dishes of someone else. This isn't how a thirty-year-old's life should be.

I walked past the playground near Claremont Primary School. The grass behind the iron gate looked fake. Maybe even the school principal advised to paint it to attract kids. I glanced at it again, and before I knew it, I found myself on the other side of the iron fence.

Suddenly, I was a seven-year-old again playing soccer between little square metres. Based on the past, unpredictable outcome lied close in sight.

‘Hey! Pass the ball, will ya!’

Didn’t mean to delay, but I have seen no ball around. Was it a fuzzy mirage from the past or a pure reality?

‘C’mon! Hurry!’

Boys grew impatient with every minute.

‘Do you have two left feet or what?’

I looked at my right foot and saw that it had quickly changed to look just like my left foot. Both sneakers on my feet unexpectedly matched each other like twins.

Someone noticed it too and said, ‘Look! He has flat feet! Let's tell Darryl! He'll know what to do with him.’

But before they could catch me, I escaped through a hole in the fence that seemed to be made just for me, serendipitously stretched out by someone else’s imagination.

I grabbed the city bicycle on the street to hurry to my job. Matthew, our head chef, disliked waiters that lingered before the shift. The Alchemist might not be the ideal spot for spoiled bourgeois masses, but every chef tried hard to change its image by creating new menus and unique drinks.

At a red light, a scooter driver mocked my old-fashioned mode of transport. He found it even more hilarious when my entire body, not only my feet, unawares, transformed into a dinosaur. Unable to control the wheel, I wobbled. I got off the bike and walked, easily covering the distance in a few steps. Drivers going the opposite way widened their eyes in great surprise. In reality, I was just like them. This change of my form on my way to work frightened me. I hoped to return to my human form by the time I reached Speaker’s Corner.

I walked into Market Square with my giant dinosaur steps. A crowd surrounded the speaker. Someone yelled “Chicken!” at the top of their lungs. In the heat of the moment, not registering the full meaning of these words, I transformed into a feathery bird. I gave up on the full comprehension of the human world. As soon as my chicken head showed up at the Alchemist, I ended up quartered into pieces, landing as a key ingredient of a chicken soup.

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Thank you for reading!