Time, An Other, from ARE YOU EVER GOING TO BE THIN (and other stories):

by Jennifer Semple Siegel


I first became aware of my fat when I was two. Yes, that awareness came first, that moment when fat jiggled into memory, unblocking Jungian canals of prehistory.

Nanoseconds after fat-consciousness, I became aware of I as one. Springing from nothing to a wiggling amoeba to a sudden human being sitting on a horse on a merry-go-round.

My breath catching me by surprise, almost as if someone had frightened me into existence.

Now, what?

Colors, sounds, smells, touch, and taste flooding my body. Feelingswild and random and terrifying, a sea of voices screaming in tongues, pushing me under.

I cant breathe!

Then, somethingsomeone?moving through the canals of my brainorganizing, filing, and deleting.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....AIR! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...!

I wasnt dizzy as the merry-go-round spun around, my horse pumping up and down, like a wave ebbing and flowing and ebbing and flowing....Carrousel music! David Roses The Stripper. Yes, the Da-Da-Dah, DAH, Dah, Da, da! I couldnt have known then. But the memory knows what it knows.

Around and around and around. An other, with red hair and jiggling chinsa pink amoebalaughed, leaped onto the carrousel, latched onto a pole, and hopped side-saddle onto a horned horse. The platform sagged and groaned, still whirling around and around. The new presence singing from the gut, its words grooving into memory, You cant love me, Im big and fat, to the carrousel music.

The amoeba climbed off the horse, and leaped from the platform, disappearing beyond.

Where are you?

The merry-go-round stationary, the rest of the world spinning out of control. Spiraling outward, a spin-art mnage of people, tents, balloons, vivid colors curving around and around, enfolding me.

More color! Yet that blur was confusing, my world was here, and I was not yet ready for the beyond. Someday, I would find it, my amoeba.
I barely had language, but one word was all I needed:

Why?

The awe of touching my cheek and feeling something elastic, something soft and warm, gently giving way to my fingers, mirroring my touch.

What is it?

My leg. A warm, elastic surface; at my touch, a white circle appeared, for a split instant, as the pink gave way to my finger. A fold, just below the thigh. A curiosity, a place to poke, a place where the skin held the tip of my finger captive. I liked this place, it felt real, somewhere I could hold onto without pinching and hurting, for the flat places of my new self pinched when I tried holding onto them. Comfort.

Another surface, unlike the pink one: my sunsuit, yellow with brown and purple dots, ballooning at the belly. I patted this surface. Different. Indifferent. This place rough, flimsy, cool, not mirroring my touchno me on me. Yet, a part of me, it too having folds like the ones in my leg.

Very puzzling.

The horse rocked beneath me.

Is this me?

What was me, anyway? Touching the creases in its head, I recoiled: it was inelastic, cool, uncomfortable.

Not me.

Otherness.

An inkling: when I touched some surfaces, they did not feel back, that some surfaces existed independentlyI was afraid. Something familiar sitting in a sidecar next to my horse, its hands in its lap, my mother? Black smock, her blunt-cut platinum hair blowing stiffly in the wind.

My eyes bore on her.

One other in an ocean of otherness.

My other, an other who could stand up and walk away. I cried. She cooed; I felt better, but not entirely. A vague fear she might leave me on the horse; I couldnt remember getting on the merry-go-round; I didnt know how to get off.

Mama!
More soothing sounds. Relief. My other wasnt going to leave me. I still longed to know about this other otherness, to know why I was.

I spun around and around and around and around, fat-consciousness coursing through prehistorical tributaries.

Time flows, sparkling diamond specks, hurtling through a time-space continuum...

My other now a certainty.

The last certainty I would ever know.