Just a random drabble about a trampoline, a shadow, and some of my thoughts. Really short. Please review and tell me what you think.

Getting Away

Getting away from my mother’s badgering was easy. Just while she takes a break from her nagging me, to tell her mirror self that she’s fat, sneak away. Sneak away fast. Her rants about me being antisocial drove me crazy. Just because I didn’t want people to know everything about me, or to see me the way I see me, that’s not antisocial is it?

I run to the back porch, tip toeing across the lawn just for the fun of it. Padding up the old wooden stairs of the eating area, pushing past my mothers tree ferns or whatever ferns these ones were. Pausing only to hop about while brushing sharp mulch from my bare feet. Finally I arrive. At the trampoline.

When I was small, along with it being a hassle to get me into the bath…and out again, it was also a hassle to get me off the trampoline. You see, when on the trampoline, you’re in your own little world. You feel nearly as weightless as you feel in water, and everyone loves that feeling. On the trampoline there is none of the, underage limits, fees and taxes, any of the real world rules and laws. The only rule is that one person can go at a time (seeing as most of my family weighs too much for two) and the only law is what comes up, must (inevitably) come down.

I climb on unsurely; I hadn’t been on it for months, possibly years. I bounce almost shyly; short jumps, not risky. Not risky, and not what I was used too. So after the first few attentive jumps, I launch. Flying into the air, spinning around just before I fall again. Each jump is an attempt to go higher. Yeah, this is why I had loved my trampoline. Because jumping was like flying…but not.

While rocketing up into the air, I face the ugly brown metal fence, watching my shadow. I loved my shadow. In your shadow no one can tell that your legs are prickly, it’s just black, no one can say that those short shorts that could pass as underwear are slutty, because in your shadow they seem almost innocent, like what a little kid would wear. In your shadow that girly pastel green and pink striped thin singlet with the hot pink-laced edging isn’t revealing, it’s more like a smock on children. The short, dyed black, fringe covering one eye hair isn’t emo, because in your shadow it becomes that hair that your mum hacked off because you wouldn’t brush it. My shadow didn’t have fat thighs and wasn’t busty, it was innocence caught in a black.

I spin in the air again, dyed hair whipping around, free of hair gel… free of everything. I didn’t have to think about school, or getting my drivers license or getting a job or getting cancer like my parents, none of that jazz that dragged me down. All I had to think about was bending my legs. Now that I could do without stuffing up or freaking out.

I hear my mum stomping down the hallway inside the house. I bring my jumping to a halt. Everything crashing back down. I will fail biology, I won’t be able to handle English Extension, I’ll never get my L’s, and I’ll end up like my aunt, all alone.

“Sarah! Get in the shower, we’re leaving soon!” she calls. Whatever Trevor. I turn and bounce slightly again. I don’t want to go to her friends house, I feel awkward there. I have no one to talk to. I can’t help it; I’m not a people person. I climb over the thick metal bar, and walk across the lawn, there was never any point going threw the ferns. I bow my head heading indoors. I stop and turn around foot prints are noticeable from where I landed, and the metal still shone in the fading summer sun. There’s no point in me going anyway, they’re her friends. Her comfortable with themselves friends. Her comfortable with themselves friends that make me feel like a twit.

After my shower I pull on some clothes, whatever seems clean. And the only things clean are the things I don’t wear often, and the things I don’t wear often were those girly clothes that were now sweaty and my form fitting clothes, oh the horror. Tight jeans and a fitted top, it all making me feel uncomfortable. Mum’s messing with make-up, going back to saying I need more exercise, that it wasn’t healthy spending so much time one computer, that I should get out in the sun more. She doesn’t realize that I’m now scared of the sun. I just want to get away from it all.

“…and no more eating bread, it’s bad for you. And we can’t eat meat over cooked because it gets rid of all the nutrients and make it harder to digest. Instead of potato chips we’re making them out of kumara, it has more nutrients-”

“Nutrients don’t taste nice” I mumble.

“If that’s your only contribution to this conversation then you can shut it” she states, amused. Yeah, that’s right, people don’t laugh with me, they laugh at my stupidity.

Soon I was whisked away. To my mum’s friends, everyone’s talking and laughing and I’m sitting outside on a bench. Not alone. With Snowy. A Labrador. A white Labrador. Snowy is nearly as bad a name as Sarah. So simple and commonly used. I look up and the pale pink and purple sky. The clouds are slowly but surely moving towards the sunset. They’re getting away. Why can’t I?

Three hours later, and my mum stops ignoring my pleas to leave. The drive home another one of her babbles begins. How they all think I’m depressed and that mum doesn’t like hearing about it when she knows I’m not. Parents aye? But the again I suppose she’s right. I’m not depressed, just scared. Scared of what’s to come. Both my parents have cancer, and it runs in my dad’s family. All four of my aunts are obese, it runs in my mums side of the family, that’s probably why nana sends me such tight clothes, because I didn’t continue that gene (unlike my cousins), not yet at least.

Mum heads to the bath, telling me I should go to bed. But I don’t think I will. That would give me pure silence to think about how much more I fear. Instead I go back to my own little world. The trampoline. I scamper on, it’s dark now, and bugs are buzzing around me, annoying me to no end. Until of course I start jumping. Then they get left behind. Everything gets left behind. I leap upwards, bounding from one side to the other, bounce into the centre, crawl to the edges just to tumble back again. Being in this carefree world makes everything right again. Even if it’s only for a little while. If I keep coming back here, and leave my problems behind, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes, it clears my head to face it all again. How had I managed to survive without my trampoline for so long?

It takes me up and gets me away, and it brings me down to face a new day.