My ancient history

(I wrote that story about 20 years ago. Soon I am turning 40 and I thought it's a good time to return to my-ancient-history, so I translated it from the original Greek to share it with you, my only-English-speaking dear future historian and contemporary reader.) 

20 Years Untitled

She stopped eating when she felt that loneliness weighed as much as her body. It was a conclusion she had come to after much thought, self-observation and deep contemplation. In the beginning, it was just a feeling; it was somehow related with this unbearable burden she had every time she was alone—like if even the need for oxygen was too much trouble over nothing. But no, it wasn’t the oxygen’s fault; she was the problem. She was too heavy to carry herself and she was already so tired that she could not even drag herself about. Maybe that's why people need each other, she thought, because each other's loneliness always loses its weight by definition when you carry it for someone else. She really liked this quote when she thought about it and so wrote it down on a piece of coloured cardboard and stuck it to the bathroom mirror. The next morning, however, when she read it again while brushing her teeth, it seemed silly, like a poem in a cheap inspirational book of quotes, and she threw it in the toilet—which immediately became clogged. When she concluded that the lighter she became, the less lonely she felt, she was 60 kg.

 

She already felt better. And, for the first time she did not mind that she had no one to share her new discovery with. After all, she knew that it sounded crazy and that no one would understand.

‘What do they know anyway,’ she said loudly, so loudly that even the little fish she had in a bowl on a shelf in the bathroom, which she had bought on another impulsive flash of energy to solve her loneliness problem, swam a little faster out of fear.

‘After all, if they knew, they would have found a real solution, they would have taken the copyright and have become rich, or even a little happier.’ This thought gave her another idea, which she pretended to overcome, though in fact she simply put it in a your-call-is-being-forwarded file, because she was aware that her new solution still had some gaps. But, it was exactly the unreasonable-danger element of it that attracted her most to that persisted new thought.

‘I'm crazy,’ she concluded. ‘Like everyone else,’ she added in a hurry to reassure herself.

Later that day, she decided to start smoking because she had heard that cigarettes cut your appetite, and already by morning she knew that she would need help in this area. It was something she had not thought about the previous night in the excitement of inspiration, but she did not let this discourage her.  She was determined to try the theory out.

She went to the local mini-market, said good morning and... left. She had no appetite to apologize for her new bad habit. Therefore, she went to the next shop. She got stuck for a while because she had not given any thought to what brand to get. She wanted her first experience to be as good as it could be. She remembered that years ago she had been sent to get cigarettes. ‘A camel, please.’ She was ashamed to ask how much it was, left 10 euros note, and then pretended to look at the Yu-Gi-Oh cards, which she also had no idea what they were exactly; it was just the first thing that caught her eye, until she received her change—which she didn’t even count before throwing the coins in her pocket. In her haste, she dropped under a car a 20 cents coin.

She returned home with a strange feeling, like a naughty child, which revived her. ‘It seems this was a good idea,’ she said to no one.

She opened the pack of Camels and took one out, with some difficulty. The first one always falls, but she did not know it then and so she felt a little like she ‘couldn’t even get that right.’ Once again, she was glad that no one was with her. Then, she discovered that she had no lighter so she went back to the second shop again, with a little more confidence this time.  She then returned and went out on her balcony. There she lit her first cigarette, looking at the sea through a small opening between the apartment buildings in front. The smoke slid down her virgin throat, scratching it along its path. The smoke felt heavier than oxygen. But, each puff made her feel a gram and a half lighter. Before she finished, she ended up vomiting on a flowerpot—but even that did not discourage her. In fact, she considered it as another benefit of her new hobby, since she did not forget her goal which was weight loss. She was only upset that she had not anticipated it, because then she would have eaten something. Afterall, why not add a bit of bulimia to the picture?

Of course, maybe it was OK if she ate just once, she thought again one night while watching a chocolate commercial. At first, she thought to order takeaway, but she found no money in any of her purses. Then, she went to the fridge which was as empty as her wallet. She had a long time to invest in it.  The cupboard was in the same condition.

 

When she reached 55 kg she had started to become bored with that experiment. But, when she came to the conclusion that she had seen no difference to her loneliness levels and she was determined to eat until she burst, others began to ‘ring the alarm bell’ for her anorexia, which made her postpone the bite because, for some stupid reason, she felt an incomprehensibly pleasant shiver by doing the opposite of what she was told. This reminded her to light up a cigarette, which also made her feel the same.

 

At 53 kg she decided to stop. She was completely disappointed with the lack of results, but she did not regret this experience. She maintained as a principle not to regret her well-intentioned choices and, additionally from this whole story, she was left with a thin body and, a new friend—her Camels.

Therefore, her quest to make her life not so unbearable had to start all over again.

Here, I must make it clear to the reader that our heroine had no shortage of friends. She had invested many years in them, and her efforts had paid off, with some certainty of course. And, when she talked of friendship, she meant Friendship, in its holiest form.

Still, her nights were lonely, and precisely because she had tasted the real kind of communication, she always snubbed superficial company, which were, as she often put it, ‘just to spend your time, with meaningless conversations, annoying misunderstandings and the rest of the package.’  She always had an unequivocal refusal to compromise with anything less than perfect, which made her very proud of herself and also impossible to please.

In fact though, she would do anything for a pointless conversation and any stupid company. But every time she was given such an opportunity, she ‘got stupid,’ as she called her antisocial behaviour, and could not hide the offspring of meeting the God Inferiority-Complex and the goddess Supiriority-Complex who had occupied her brain, with the well-known consequences of this occupation.

 

Her next brilliant idea was perhaps even worse than the previous ones. Or maybe not. This mostly depends on how you spend your Sunday mornings.

Of course, she was still carrying the remnants of previous ‘panic flares.’ The TV in her house was still on, and had been so for the past decade. She still had the self-abusive marks on her hands and legs from the gothic phase that she had gone through at some point at the end of her adolescence. The phone bill was yet another constant nightmare; her fridge was not full yet, and of course she was still smoking. Plus, there was the depression she was left with, after 6 months in a missionary school in India.

Also, she was finding it increasingly difficult to remember why the first time she had thought it would probably be better "to leave this vain world as a sign of protest" she did not act upon this thought. But, for that maybe the increasingly frequent habit of burning brain cells must have been to blame—which helped her to postpone the Great Journey to the After Life.

Boredom was lethal though. So, her next stop in the quest? Sex.

Does it have to be with men?