A mutant among us

When someone is bitten by a wolf they turn into a werewolf. Forever destined to roam the moors at night, terrifying local hamlets, howling during a full moon and mauling stray children, virgins and belligerent old men. They are the stuff of nightmares, folklore and legends.

When a man is bitten by a spider he turns into a death defying super-hero who jumps from the roof of high rise buildings, only to fly from roof-top to roof-top using his spider web silk. He fights crime while also managing to pull off skin tight lycra. This is a story of courage and duty.

When a woman is bitten by a Goose, however, great legends and stories will not be written about her, as her feet will grow wide and sprawl un-naturally across the floor, wider than genetically anticipated, to form an almost web shape with its angles.

I remember a moment when I was quite young and walking through Hyde Park, London. My parents were walking behind me, guiding me along, to stop me from falling into the pond - something I had done only a reasonably short time previously. Thankfully that pond was shallow and I only fell in up to my knees. I did manage to make all the other pond visitors laugh and probably thank goodness that their children weren’t as intellectually incapacitated as I must have appeared.

Anyway, I remember this summer’s day in Hyde Park and our strolling under a rare English blue sky. I remember the pond and I remember the birds, quacking and squawking. I recall a bag of bread my mother had brought from home, which we used to feed the ducks and geese floating serenely on the water.

I don’t know what happened next, but what I do remember is a giant goose, fangs exposed and possessed by the devil, leaping out of the water, onto the bank and chasing me down until it savagely bit into my child-size calf.

Okay, so there were no fangs, buts its beak grabbed at my calf and pecked it. To this day I have no idea what I did to the goose. Yes, I was feeding its friends and family in a somewhat clumsy, chubby uncoordinated kiddy way, but surely the fact that I was providing them with sustenance would be enough of a reprieve. I am fairly sure, that at that point, I hadn’t eaten a goose either, so it’s not as though I could be held accountable for the death of the assailing goose’s distant family member. None-the-less, like a crazed lunatic, that goose did not like the cut of my jib.

And now I suffer the consequences.

No, no marks on my calves. Rather, I have unnaturally wide, somewhat freakishly wide feet. I often stare at them and wonder how it came to be, but of course, I now realise that I am a genetic mutation, sharing my DNA with a goose. An that DNA has manifested in my feet.

At their widest, a foot of mine is 9.5cm wide. LSH’s feet are 9cm wide, but are more in proportion. You see, it’s not so much the size that really bothers me, but how they look when compared to the rest of my foot. It seems that they sprawl out from my heel at an unnatural angle. Like the way a Goose’s foot does. While my toes are not webbed, they are wide. Making many a pair of summer stilettos impossible to buy.

And I love a summer, strappy high stiletto. When I think of summer, I imagine light-weight cotton frocks flowing in a light evening breeze. I imagine running across sandstone tile floors, champagne in hand, with my hair flowing behind me (bob aside. In these visions I have long wavy locks) and my legs are being held up by the daintiest of silver stilettos, with fine straps that culminate at my ankle. When I find these shoes in the store, my heart skips a beat. Finally, I think, my summer vision will be realised. With a smile on my face, I pop the little shoes on, only to have my fat feet smoodge, like blancmange, through the fine straps and out, practically onto the floor on either side. Visually, it equates to Babar putting on the glass slipper.

I have a friend who has the most perfect feet. As teenagers we’d sit for hours plucking and preening ourselves and I was always so jealous of her feet. They were long, straight and elegant. Mine were wide and clumsy, ending any hope I may have had for dating a man with a foot fetish. Thankfully, LSH likes my face so much, he hasn’t yet noticed my feet. Seven years in and he still doesn’t know about my genetic mutation. Mwa ha ha.

I was also bitten by a donkey. But that’s another story.