In a Single Bound

Andy danced the ball across the court, bouncing through player after player. He faked his way around the last player and had nearly connected with the ball when he felt a stabbing pain across the back of both knees. He went down heavily, clutching his legs, not caring where he fell. The referee’s whistle blew and the offending player was sent off as Andy’s team mates gathered around.

‘You alright, mate?’

Andy twisted his face in pain. ‘How much blood is there?’

‘Blood? What? There is none.’

Andy winced as he moved his legs slightly. ‘It feels like it’s gushing out – are you sure there’s none?’

‘You’re a bloody wuss, mate. Open your eyes and look for yourself.’

Andy cracked one eye open and looked at the back of his legs. They’d turned a strange pinkish colour and a purple bruise had already started welling up behind his knees. After being abused by his team mates for another minute he slowly got to his feet and hobbled off to the bench. A couple of minutes later he felt better than ever, which was strange considering the colour of his legs, but he tested them, gave them a bit of a stretch, then subbed back onto the court for the rest of the game. Sure, it strengthened his friends’ belief that he had been overreacting but he’d never felt so alive! Andy scored three more goals before the game’s end and didn’t feel a shred of pain; somewhat of a concern for his girlfriend on the sideline since the area behind his knees had turned a greenish shade of black.

‘You should probably get those looked at, Andy,’ his girlfriend, Sophie, said.

‘Screw that, I’m fine. It’s just a bruise. I feel great.’
‘You’re probably in shock.’

Andy’s friends mocked Sophie behind her back, screwing up their faces and making talking motions with their hands. He ignored both them and Sophie, picked up his bag and walked to the car. He felt light, and walking seemed effortless. He felt... better, somehow.

Andy bounded out of bed the next morning as soon as the alarm sounded, energy coursing through his body. He’d never felt so good in his life. As he pulled on his jeans he noticed himself in the mirror and examined the previous night’s injury. The area behind his knees had regressed to a deep purple colour, but the black-green tinge had almost completely disappeared except for a few tendrils which extended up and down both legs. ‘Shock, my arse,’ he muttered as he pulled on his socks. ‘Something’s different’. He jogged downstairs, effortlessly jumping the last five steps, landing with the grace of a cat. Sophie called out from the kitchen, ‘Are you alright?’ but it fell on deaf ears as Andy was already out the door and running down the street, enjoying every second of what he considered to be his ‘new legs’. He was racing a taxi when he heard a cry for help from somewhere to his left. He changed course and spotted a baby in a shopping trolley careening down a hill towards a river, its desperate mother frantically chasing after it. Andy accelerated his enhanced legs and dashed past the distraught mother, making it to the trolley just before it plunged into the frigid water. The baby started crying as the tearful mother arrived. ‘Thank you so much for saving my baby!’

‘It was no problem at all, I’m happy I could help,’ said Andy with a grin.

‘You... you ran so fast. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Call me crazy, but it’s as if you’re some kind of superhero.’ The woman laughed off the comment, but something in it resonated in Andy’s head.

Yeah, he thought, I AM like a superhero. I can run faster than a car, I can rescue the helpless! Getting kicked at soccer was just like Spiderman getting bitten by that radioactive spider! I’m a real-life Peter Parker!

As the woman consoled the crying toddler Andy straightened his posture and adjusted his shirt, his future clearly laid out before him.

‘I will use my powers for good, not evil,’ he pledged to himself under his breath. ‘I will save people in distress and aid the less fortunate. I won’t fight crime though, because that sounds quite dangerous.’ When the woman turned around to thank Andy again, he was already a speck in the distance – a running, jumping, slightly cowardly speck.

A duck quacking excitedly gave Andy sufficient reason to cease long-jumping alongside the river. Quacking could hardly be considered unusual behaviour for a duck, but it was the pitch of the quack that piqued the newly-branded hero’s interest. Oh wow, he thought. I can understand ducks! He crouched down next to the duck, which had started flapping its wings, violently fanning dust and blades of grass into Andy’s face. ‘What’s up, fella?’ he asked.

‘Quack,’ said the duck.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. “What’s up, ma’am?”’

‘Quack quack quack.’

Andy stared across the river as the duck explored the ground for worms. On the far side of the river was a solitary duck with a group of ducklings, all madly quacking at one another. ‘Oh! You’ve been separated from your family! Let me help!’ The duck struggled furiously and quacked rapidly as Andy picked it up. ‘It’s ok, it’s ok, I’m trying to help,’ said Andy.

He took a few steps back before running forward and leaping over the river, the duck quacking madly as it soared through the air. Upon landing, the duck pecked at Andy’s hands until he dropped it. Content in the knowledge that he’d saved another living creature, Andy leapt back across the river and went on his way, alert for the distress of his fellow citizens and their pets.

Sophie was watching television when Andy got home.

‘I have had the most amazing day, Sophe!’

‘How are your legs?’ she asked as she muted the television.

Andy hopped from foot to foot. ‘They’re amazing, they’re incredible, they’re better than ever! You would never believe what I am capable of now! I can run faster than a Maserati, I can leap over rivers, I can save ducks. Ducks, Sophe. Ducks!’

Sophie frowned and looked Andy up and down. ‘Are you feeling alright?’

Andy kept bouncing. ‘I feel better than alright, I feel amazing!’

‘And your legs aren’t sore from last night? You took a pretty big hit.’

‘I can’t feel a thing! Isn’t that weird? You’d think I would be in agony, but I’m not.’

Sophie got out of her chair and walked slowly over to her excited boyfriend. ‘Can I have a look at your legs? I want to see if the bruising has gone down.’

Andy stopped bouncing and undid his belt. ‘Sure. I want to see it for myself!’

Sophie pulled his pants down, took one look at his legs and threw up all over the carpet.

‘Jesus, Sophie! What the hell? What could possibly…’ Andy looked down. ‘Oh that’s just…’ he managed before throwing up on the coffee table. Both of his legs had swollen to twice their normal size and were a strange black colour – the veins radiating out from the dark masses were just thin dark green lines. Sophie wiped her mouth on her sleeve. ‘How could you not know your legs were like that? I’m surprised you can even walk!’ She poked his enlarged calf muscle. ‘Can you feel that?’

Andy shook his head. ‘How about that?’ she asked, poking his knee.

‘I can’t feel a damn thing.’ Andy’s face was pale now, his mouth flecked with bits of his lunch.

‘And you weren’t worried that you couldn’t feel your legs?’

Andy stayed silent.

‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

‘But I could talk to ducks…’

The ambulance took Sophie and Andy to the hospital where he was rushed into a surgeon’s office. The surgeon had been grumpy and wanted to go home, but the second Andy stepped into his office his mind was immediately clear and ready to tackle the challenge.

‘Hello…’ the doctor checked his chart, ‘…Andy. My name is Dr Sturgeon. Yes, I am aware that that makes me ‘Sturgeon the Surgeon’, but we have more important issues to deal with than my name.’

‘My legs don’t hurt, doctor,’ said Andy meekly.

Sturgeon frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Sophie led Andy over to the examination table. ‘You’d better take a look for yourself.’

Andy pulled down his pants, and it was all the doctor could do to not throw up like Andy and Sophie.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ said Sturgeon, completely forgetting all pretense of professionalism. ‘Your legs look like eggplant! Disgusting, disgusting eggplant.’

Andy just closed his eyes, trying to shut it all out.

‘He took a hit across the back of his legs at soccer last night, but woke up feeling fine this morning. In fact he says he spent the whole day running around,’ said Sophie.

‘I’m amazed he can walk!’ said Sturgeon. ‘Just like a massive, hideous eggplant. Incredible.’

‘I was so fast today,’ said Andy. ‘I was running and jumping faster and higher than I’d ever done before. I could talk to ducks.’

Sturgeon glanced at Sophie who just shrugged her shoulders. ‘He seems to think that the kick he took to the legs at soccer gave him superpowers.’

The nauseated doctor laughed and prodded Andy’s legs. ‘Superpowers? Like Spiderman? Ridiculous!’

‘I… yeah,’ said Andy.

‘You think you’re some real-life Peter Parker just because you got kicked in the legs and lost all feeling? If the world worked like that Christopher Reeve would have actually been Superman. His injuries just riddled him with “superpowers”.’

Sophie, already tired of the doctor’s manner crossed her arms and said, ‘Look, we’re scared ok? He can’t feel his legs and they’ve turned black. These little rivers of black are running up and down his legs, and that can’t be healthy!’

Sturgeon lifted Andy’s shirt and saw that the black tendrils had worked their way up towards his chest. ‘I’ll do some tests.’

Sturgeon the Surgeon returned an hour later with a sour look on his face and a serious clipboard in his hands. He took a deep breath. ‘Andy, I have the results here, and they’re not good for you. For me they’re excellent; a patient like you only comes along every so often. I’m going to write a paper about this and become famous.’

Andy cringed and Sophie started grinding her teeth, but the irreverent doctor continued.

‘It seems that kick you took to your knees catalysed a reaction in the stem cells which reside here,’ he said as he effortlessly and accidentally poked a pen through the back of Andy’s festering knee. ‘Oops. Anyway, the reaction meant that the stem cells metabolised at a vastly accelerated rate, building and repairing muscles like nobody’s business, which would explain your new turn of speed and ability to, what was it? Ah right, to “leap rivers in a single bound”.’

Andy propped himself up on his elbows. ‘What about being able to talk ducks?’

‘No one can talk to ducks. Going from these results I’m guessing that the infection which is now crippling your system caused a hallucination. Trust me, I’m a doctor.’

Andy sank back on the bed and Sophie’s eyes welled with tears. ‘What do you mean “crippling”?’

‘Exactly what it sounds like. It seems that septicaemia set in rather rapidly and that the stem cell reaction also increased the rate at which gangrene developed.’

‘So I’m going to lose my legs?’

‘Oh heavens no!’ exclaimed Sturgeon. ‘What ever gave you that idea?’

Andy breathed a sigh of relief.

‘You’re going to lose your life, probably within the next two weeks. This is a terminal case and a rather aggressive one at that.’

Sophie burst into tears and Andy went pale. ‘This is the worst superpower in the history of anything,’ he whispered.

‘Would you PLEASE stop using that term?’ said Sturgeon. ‘Every time someone suffers intense nerve damage they think they’re Superman. Which is sort of funny considering that Superman actually DID end up suffering intense nerve damage.’

He paused.

‘ Huh. Fancy that.’