I laid on the asphalt with my eyes on the sky.

My hands were flattened: palms pressing toward the ground and picking up the intricacies of my driveway, forming tributary imprints on my skin.

My legs were sprawled and my feet angled pointedly outward.

A piece of pink chalk, quickly waning in size, tethered me to this position.

Elena, my closest childhood friend, had taken it upon herself to outline my body from head to toe. She had been on my left leg when the chalk brushed up against my left calf ever so slightly,

and I flinched.

That prompted a scolding that wasn’t the first and surely wouldn’t be the last.

“Hold still!”

I squirmed at every close encounter. Suddenly every inch of my body had an itch calling for a scratch, my chin-length, dark hair trailing on my cheek was begging to be brushed away. I wrinkled my nose at the dust drifting in the air that was emanating from her tedious tracing.

I sneezed.

Elena jumped back, causing the chalk line to veer violently off the course of my figure’s frame.

She rolled her eyes and huffed and told me it was finished anyway.

I peeled myself off the ground, inspecting my hands and brushing pebbles off my shorts.
I slowly tip-toed out of the rugged lines that had corralled my body.

The creature of contour before us resembled a puffy figure closer to the Michelin Man than my smaller-than-average seven-year-old frame.

My fingers were ballooned and bumpy; my legs curved as if boneless.

Elena and I exchanged a look of dissatisfaction.

“It doesn’t really look like me,” I replied frankly.