The Sound of the Bones
It is impossible to sleep at night when you lie awake and listen to the sound of your bones growing. The sound is horrendous, the squeak, the groan, the agonizing stretching sound like ten thousand cars and trucks in one big accident that stretches for miles and miles inside my head. The problem with all this is that I do not want my bones to grow.
Don't get me wrong, being tall would not be a problem except when you get to a certain height new expectations are forced upon you, like jobs, responsibilities and money all summed up in one word: adult. That word is a trap, a bottomless pit where they take all your childhood, all your toys, all the pies in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter and put them in a little box that is locked up and opened only for memories and stories to tell to children.
As I sat at the table on a warm spring morning and looked at my mother as she swished around the kitchen making breakfast, the sound of my own body rebelling against me, growing and broadening, made me want to run outside and vomit my anger up into the feathery wisps of clouds in the light blue sky.
"Hey, Cathy, what you been doing? Been playing with all your dolls like a little girl?" Ronny yelled.
Freddy and Ronny both fell into fits of laughter, but Catherine only gave a little smile and kept walking.
She looks a little unsure of herself, I thought, although I was not sure why. She's starting to get breasts was my next thought, and I felt my face redden.
Next period was a science class which, unfortunately, was a lesson on anatomy. I looked up at an overhead of the skeletal system and shuddered. I could hear the sounds of growing bones all over the room.
I could not concentrate the rest of the day because my bones were getting longer.
"Hi, Tommy, anything I can help you find today? My, you're getting taller."
I thought about it, but being around all those boys and listening to the sounds of their laughter and their bones growing sent shivers dancing down my neck and into my shirt.
As I was walking, I noticed that Catherine Benjamin was sitting on the edge of the bridge. As I approached she looked up. My face reddened.
"Hi Tommy. What are you doing?" Her face shone in the light.
"Just walking."
"Mind if I come along and just walk, too?"
"Sure, come on."
We walked towards the town. I looked over and looked at her face and the curve of her body in the half-light that gave her blond hair a silky shine. The thunder sounded again, closer.
We were both drenched and shivering from the cold, so Catherine pressed her body up against mine and I shivered from a lightning flash of excitement.
Her hair was against my cheek and I could smell a flower scent, mixed with the smell of earth and rain, smells that tore into my mind and made my body stiff, smells that danced and sang along our bodies as I looked down and saw her small breasts outlined in her shirt and felt her hands as they pressed into my stomach.
She looked up. We kissed.
We kissed and the taste was at once salty and sweet and the feeling was warm and wet. We kissed as the rain tore down outside and pattered against the ground, echoing against the walls of the cave and drenching over us as the sound of the rain merged with the sound of our kiss and became the same.
The rain brought in the scent of fresh water and a sudden blast of air made our skin quiver. We kissed, and slowly, so slowly, the smell of woman overcame me, showering me in a song of rain and lightning and wind that still drenched me long after the kiss had ended and I was at home, in bed, still and silent as our cave had been.
That night, the sound of bones grew quiet.