—I WANT THE SUN TO SHINE ALL THE TIME, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?­

 

 

Liars Everywhere

 

The mirror had a mind of its own and its favorite pastime was lying. Sophie knew as much, but still she stared at the glass with a surgeon’s intensity, her body a bloated life raft, her arms two useless oars.

Within seconds, her reflection began to undulate, as if the raft-that-was-her-body had been swept out to sea on a rock-a-bye current. Her stomach flab became a pair of enormous, grotesque lips smacking in time with the current. Both her chins waddled. Her thighs looked fence post-thick.

She could not remember the last time she’d eaten. The days had become a blur of strife, surrender and combat. Only while sleeping, was she near to peace, and even then, nightmares interspersed her slumber.

Now, images flicked by rapid fire-fast, each one about her weight, her appalling heft, and how others reacted to Sophie’s size—classmates, her mother, cousin, grandmother, neighbors, her father again and again, jeering and taunting. Remember when you used to be Daddy’s girl, before you became as large as three of you in one?

Sophie turned away and tried shaking the nerves from her hands as a boxer might before a bout, then stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

The scale scorned up at her from the floor, its moon face mocking beneath a plastic shell, numbers fanned out in an arch. 

With eyes closed, Sophie brought one foot on, then the next. The metal rattled under her weight like a drawer jarred free, the sound as familiar as rain on leaves.

When she opened her eyes, Sophie saw that the mirror and the scale had been talking behind her back, in cahoots, because the red needle pierced the space between 75 and 80 pounds. Liars. Liars everywhere.

Sophie bounced up and down several times to budge and coax the truth free, but when the needle settled, it landed again in the same place.

Anyone else would be ecstatic. Sophie’s goal had been 90 pounds, and now here the scale was telling her she’d crushed that target. She’d more than achieved her objective.

Yet Sophie knew the truth.  She’d grown accustomed to constant deceit. Perhaps this was a ruse. Maybe her father was playing another cruel prank, jerry-rigging the scale. 

Sophie held her breath, listening for voices, laughter and derision outside the door.

Seventy-seven pounds. Impossible. It was a hoax and Sophie knew it.

She picked up the scale, opened the door, and flung the deceit into the mirror. Shards of glass shattered free and pinged like blown dandelion seeds. Several hit Sophie’s bare belly and chest, stuck in her flesh. She watched her skin weep crimson tendrils down her waist, oozing into her pubic mound.

She wanted to bleed out. How much more weight would she lose then? But the wounds were minor, superficial. The real damage festered in misplaced corners somewhere that Sophie would never find unless she finally asked for help.