Their pale faces were tilted skyward. Each pair of eyes brimmed with hope. In the moonlight, their skin seemed luminous; a battle of bright flesh against the surrounding darkness. Their mouths were slightly open, as if expecting to receive holy communion. They stood in a circle on the mossy ground, hand in hand. Their open throats drooled blood down their young chests.
Under my bare feet, the moss felt so comforting. So inviting. With the children standing guard, I would curl up on the ground and fall asleep.
I’ve gone all over the world to find the best food. Six continents, thousands of regions, countless dishes; all in search of the perfect meal. For a while, I thought it may never happen. There was always something a little off; salt, freshness, temperature – tiny, niggling complaints that, to anyone else, would be meaningless. To me, though, they were the difference between perfection and mundanity. My quest went on.
During my travels, I’d learned about an “underground supper club” in Moscow which met once a year. While “underground supper club” sounds mysterious and illicit, it’s just a place that operates casually, aka: without a food license. Chefs all over do it all the time for their friends. I’ve been to many.
This one was supposed to be different. They had the best caviar.
Caviar is a luxury item, but even in luxury-obsessed Russia, it’s started to fall out of favor because of sustainability issues. It’s still widely available, but the good stuff is getting harder and harder to find. The “best stuff” is nearly impossible to get a hold of. It’s locked down by the oligarchs and heads of state; if you’re not one of them or in close company, you’re out of luck. So when I heard that supper club would be serving the best of the best, I knew I had to get in there.
I didn’t understand. I had those floaty things. My teacher said everyone did. An artifact of our eyes developing, or something like that. I guess he’d been told the same thing, but it did him little good. His parents were concerned, of course, and they brought him to ophthalmologists who were all in agreement: his eyes were fine. When he denied the experts’ claims and doubled down on his insistence that something was wrong, his worried parents got him into therapy.
I guess the therapist helped him a little bit. Malcolm’s paranoia seemed to diminish somewhat and his anxious habits like twitching and blinking weren’t as pronounced. That was good – a lot of kids made fun of the way he blinked. He told me it helped push the things out of sight for a couple seconds.
This city is on no one’s map. If it had ever been, those people have long since died. As have their children. And grandchildren. And great grandchildren. And great-great grandchildren. And so on.
Nonetheless, here the city stands. My source was right. My money was well spent. These ancient structures are black tombs. We’ve set up our camp on the outskirts. The city is far too cold.
September 10th, 2016
Charles kept watch while I slept. He claimed to see no signs of life, but sounds kept him constantly alert. Soft sounds. Soft, wet, and unimposing. Sounds which drifted in and out at the limits of audibility, as if they were whispers, but windblown and damp – redolent of dying breaths and last words.
I heard nothing. My sleep was as black as the structures ahead of us. No sounds penetrated the dreamless morass. For a brief moment upon waking, I believed to have been dead.
When I was a kid, I used to play games like “The Floor is Lava” with my brother, Greg. I didn’t like it too much. Greg was far more athletic than I. Older, too. He’d do all these graceful steps and great, balletic leaps that were way beyond anything my pudgy body could do. When I’d fall and lose the game, he’d gloat for a while and then we’d go off and play something else.
My neighbor, Mr. Clayton, would always watch us from the other side of the fence that separated our backyards. Mom said to stay away from him, but she couldn’t stop the guy from watching us play. He seemed harmless, if not a little weird. We didn’t pay him much attention. All afternoon, he’d watch us run races or throw the football around, only leaving his place behind the fence if he wanted to refresh his drink. Every so often, Greg would say, “hi Mr. Clayton” and give a big, exaggerated wave. Mr. Clayton just smiled awkwardly and looked down at the ground. To be honest, I felt a little bad for the man.
On an afternoon in late June, right after we’d gotten out of school and the day after Greg’s 15th birthday, he and I were roughhousing outside. We did that often. Even though he was older and taller, because of my extra heft, we were roughly the same weight. He was still much stronger and more agile, though, so he always got the better of me and pinned me down. After another win by Greg, he had me helpless on the ground while he crowed over me. While I waited for him to get off, I glanced over to the side. I could see Mr. Clayton watching us with rapt attention. His right shoulder was moving back and forth. Even though I was 11, I had a pretty good idea what he was doing.
When you work in an Alzheimer’s ward, it’s difficult to determine whether or not a patient is telling the truth. Obviously there’s no malice intended if they’re lying; it’s likely they believe what they’re saying to be true. It’s the unfortunate nature of the disease.
A few nights ago, Madge Daniels started to complain about abdominal discomfort. We believed her. There’d been a nasty stomach virus going around for the last couple weeks. Madge’s overall lucidity was pretty good, too, so we did our best to make her comfortable and ensure she was getting a lot of fluids and adequate rest.
The next morning, Lou Franks, Ray Davis, Melinda Renz, and Veronica Auster-Coates were complaining about their own stomach pain. We gave them a once-over. They seemed fine. We figured they’d heard about Madge’s problem and believed they were experiencing it, too.
The best part of starving to death is the knowledge that, right before I die, the person I see in the mirror will be the most beautiful person I can possibly be. No extraneous fat; no extraneous skin; no extraneous me. Just a pure distillation of my soul before it’s freed from the body that imprisons it. It’s what I look forward to more than anything in the world. But I can’t celebrate yet. There’s still too much of me. I have a lot of work to do.
Elaine was my ana buddy. We both knew I was better at it than she was. She told me how much I inspired her, and I believed it. It felt good to help my friend. That’s how it had been for the last couple years. When she started ranting and raving about this amazing girl Aida she met online who’s the most inspirational person she’d ever met, though, I felt a twinge of betrayal. Who was this girl and what was she telling my friend?
Elaine said Aida was a new member on our pro-ana message board. She likes to hang around in the “Every Step Makes You Smaller” fitness section. A runner, apparently. I’d never needed to visit that section of the site, so I never noticed her. When Elaine started running, I only found out a week later when she arrived at my place unannounced. I was surprised. I live 30 miles from her. She didn’t have a car and would refuse to take public transportation for some reason, so when she told me she ran, I believed her. Plus she was covered in sweat and panting like she was about to keel over.
You have to realize something: I’m better than Elaine. I’m lighter and more dedicated. I run on my treadmill three times a day until I make sure I burn every single calorie I’ve eaten, plus another hundred. But never 30 miles. And Elaine was huge compared to me. Over 100lbs. She’d just burned 2300 calories in one run. That’s more than I eat in four or five days. She couldn’t tell how jealous and angry I was through her exhaustion, which was good, because I needed to find out how she managed to do that.
This was the point Elaine mentioned Aida. She said Aida not only gave her amazing advice about how to run, but told her how to make a supplement that gave her so much energy and made each step feel like an amazing accomplishment. Like I said, I didn’t know who Aida was, but when I heard this, I hated her. I hate shortcuts. I don’t take supplements. Every pound I’ve lost was through sheer determination and willpower. Shortcuts make you soft. I’m not soft. I’m not.
I am soft. If I’m going to be honest, I’ll admit to one shortcut. Mia. There are days I can’t control myself and I’ll eat a whole bag of gummi bears or two yogurts. Both fat free, but still too much. I could feel the space between my ribs filling in like canyons during a flash flood. There’s no worse feeling in the world than becoming more when all you dream about is being less.
My index and middle fingers would manipulate the dime-sized, scarred spot on the back of my throat. It took so, so long. I’d have to push hard and claw at the spot with my fingernails for ten straight minutes. It felt like I was reaching in and pulling the food up and out of me. Elaine was the only one who knew about it. She’d been doing that long enough to notice my Russell’s sign and even though she hadn’t said anything to me or asked for tips, I was fairly certain she took some comfort in the fact she wasn’t alone with mia.
That’s something I hated about her. I bet it sounds like I was a bad friend, doesn’t it? But I can’t help it. Elaine thought she was like me when she wasn’t. I’m pure. My successes are through restriction. Through the abnegation of pleasure. I’m an ascetic. Strong. Pure. Holy.
Elaine… Elaine was a disaster. She was corporeal and weak; she couldn’t control her urges. After she stuffed herself, if her fingers weren’t down her throat trying to tickle the food out of her belly, a handful of laxatives were splashing in so she can shit everything out. Her teeth were brown and her cheeks were swollen with fluids. She thought we were the same. I am better.
And then she ran to my house. 30 miles. When the doorbell rang, I was washing multicolored jellybean vomit from my hand and wrist and forearm. 30 miles. I’d scratched the surface off my scar so the back of my throat was bleeding and the cut was coated with stinging stomach acid. 30 miles and 2300 calories. I hadn’t shit in 13 days and my disgusting, fat belly was distended like I was pregnant even though it’d been two years since my last period. 30 miles, 2300 calories, and more excited than exhausted.
Elaine was winning. I had to let her tell me all about Aida and the supplements.
Aida was very private and didn’t post progress pics. To me, I assumed that meant she was fat. That alone made me skeptical of any advice she’d have to give. But 30 miles. Elaine and I browsed through Aida’s post history and I learned a few things like how to run to minimize impact so you could run farther without injury. More running meant more calories burned. I made a mental note to incorporate that change into my running style. I also learned about sugar. I’d been puking up all the extra sugar I’d eat, but Aida said to run it off. If I made the changes to my running style and ran off the extra sugar rather than throwing it up, I’d burn off what I’d eaten, plus extra that would have just stayed as fat if I’d thrown it up instead.
There were a few other, small tweaks. But the supplement was what I wanted to hear about. The shortcut. And I hated myself for it. But 30 miles. The supplement was pretty simple. It was a certain kind of mushroom mixed with caffeine powder and ephedra. Aida provided a link where we could get the chemicals online. We’d have to find the mushroom for ourselves. Elaine, however, already had all the stuff.
Elaine was beaming with pride and self-satisfaction. I knew she was delighted to finally be the one to provide inspiration. She’d followed me for so long. But now she was in the lead. Even though she was 100lbs to my 85, she was winning. Even though her cheeks were bouncy and fat while mine were streamlined and gaunt, she was winning. I asked if we could go back to her place so I could try the supplement. She grinned and said yes. We got into my car and headed over.
Elaine’s apartment was a disaster; food containers everywhere, photos of models and singers stapled to the walls, dishes piled on the counter next to the full sink, and the unmistakable, cloying scent of old vomit. I didn’t care. My focus was on the supplement. I sat on her couch and waited while she went in the kitchen.
She emerged with two spoons perched on a plate. Inside each spoon was a paste of the mixture Aida had taught Elaine how to make. Mushrooms, caffeine, and ephedra. I asked her if she was going to run with me. She nodded. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Elaine was going to do more than 30 miles and I had no idea how far I’d go. I hoped I’d be able to outrun her.
We swallowed the awful-tasting concoction and Elaine let me borrow some running clothes. They were extremely baggy. It wasn’t long before I felt the effect of the supplement. It was not altogether unpleasant, but it was speedy. Like I’d had too much coffee.
Once she felt it kick in, we headed out. We ran at a brisk pace, keeping up with one another and not talking as we went. The effect of the supplement grew stronger. The speedy feeling remained, but another started to come in alongside it: satisfaction. Every step felt like it was making a huge, positive difference in my life. It reinforced my drive to take more and more steps. The sensation was wonderful.
My knee, which had been bothering me for the last few months, was perfectly fine after I’d adjusted my stride to fit Aida’s recommendation. Elaine chugged along next to me, staring straight ahead, with a trace of a smile on her lips.
We’d planned to run all the way back to my place. I figured if we couldn’t make it, I’d take the subway or a bus to Elaine’s to get my car and then I’d pick her up. But I could tell, after the first three or four miles, we wouldn’t be needing a car.
Our feet slapped against the pavement and we picked up speed as we went. It was a powerful stride just like I’d been capable of back when I ran track in high school. Before I realized I had to get smaller. Before I realized how much space I took up. But now, as the wind whistled by my ears, I knew this was how it would all end for me. This was the key to the success that had eluded me as I hovered pathetically between 83 and 86 pounds.
I was all energy. I could feel my flesh clinging to my ribs and hips and collarbones and drawing ever inward; each protrusive bone an indication of my hard work and dedication. I was lost in my head for countless miles. I imagined running forever as my skin melted away and left a trail of useless waste behind me. I’d be a perfect girl if I ran far enough – a creature of bone and momentum. Perfect, perfect me. And once I couldn’t run anymore – once my body had given everything it had and I’d traversed the world and shown every living person the power of my will – the last fragments of bone would splinter away and my soul would finally rise. I would be free.
A hand on my arm brought me back into reality. Elaine had grabbed me. We were in front of my apartment. I looked down at myself. My body was still there. Hatred and disappointment danced in a peristaltic wave through the sweating meat that trapped me. I plodded up the steps, took my key from around my neck, and we went inside.
Elaine stayed with me that night. As the days went by, we would run a lot together. When our feet ached and our shins felt as if they’d crumble from the relentless pressure of our motion, we’d consult Aida, who was always there. Always online, as if she’d been waiting for us.
Over time, the word got out to other ana girls in our city who used the forum. Sometimes there would be six or seven of us running together, all clattering bones and grim determination. All rushing toward our goal of zero.
When Elaine and I weren’t collecting our disability checks, we were running. Every day, we would meet up and run together. My disdain for her began to evaporate as I watched her working as hard as I was. We inspired one another to go farther and farther, harder and harder. I was 74lbs. Elaine was still 100. The knuckles on her right hand were always freshly scabbed.
Today, the morning my scale hit 70 for the first time since I was 11 years old, I drove to Elaine’s. She didn’t answer the door when I knocked. When I called her cell phone, she didn’t answer. I let myself in using the key she kept hidden. I found what I’d long anticipated.
Elaine’s gray face was hanging onto the toilet by her chin. The rest of her was curled in a loose ball. Vomit and dark blood covered the toilet and the floor around her. Textbook gastric rupture.
I felt very little while I looked at her corpse. She wasn’t wearing clothes, and I found myself inspecting the curvature of her ribs and hips and comparing them to my own. Mine were more angular and obvious. She’d lost.
I headed over to Elaine’s computer. The pro-ana forum was onscreen. I clicked over to “Every Step Makes You Smaller” and found Aida there messaging with some young teens about how to run really far without their parents getting worried. When I interjected the news of Elaine’s death into the chat thread, the subject predictably changed to her. The teens made a big show of it, the older users said they’d pray or send positive vibes; all the obvious stuff.
Aida, though, sent me a private message. All it said was, “don’t call the police yet – watch what happens.” So I did.
I went for a run. 45 miles. When I came back a few hours later, Elaine was different. Her skin was deeply porous and thin, wiry stalks pushed themselves from the center of each hole. Stringy, white stuff was growing out of her mouth and butt in thick clumps; one clump dangling in the bloody toilet water, the other pushing out across the floor.
I messaged Aida. The reply was instantaneous. “Cut off the stalks and eat them. Don’t worry, there are no real cals. Then you can go for a run. I promise, by the time you’re done, you’ll be the person you want to be.”
The last sentence was the most beautiful thing I’d ever read. I cut the clumps, which I discovered were mushrooms, out of Elaine. I washed them, sliced them up, and ate them. I did my best to believe Aida that they didn’t have calories.
Now I’m going to do the next part. I wrote to the people on the forum and told them what I was going to do. They told me good luck and be safe; the default reply of the jealous people there who haven’t reached the point they dream about. I’d given that reply before many times. All the while, though, I knew I’d get there eventually. And now I’m here.
I feel more energy than I’ve ever felt in my life. My skin is different; it’s sticky and delicate. It’s almost like it wants to come off. And that’s what I’ve worked so hard for. A girl of bones who runs away from the skin that traps her. By the time you read this – by the time I’ve gone the hundreds or maybe even thousands of miles I know I’ll be able to go – I’ll be who I’ve always wanted to be: no one at all. Perfect, weightless zero.
