Flour #Wattys2016

CHAPTER 3 - FLOUR

The shutters in her room were closed keeping the room cool and fresh. She slowly undressed leaving just her bra and underwear on and laid on the bed which groaned underneath the weight. Her swollen legs ached. They were fiery red and burned. She rolled over on to her side, closed her eyes and let sleep cradle her.

She woke up an hour later, sweating. She rolled into a position that made getting up off the bed possible without causing major damage to the bed or herself. She slipped on a house dress, walked over to the window, two glass panes that seemed to reach the heavens, opened them and then the shutters. It was late afternoon but the sun was still high and the heat hung to the city like a tic sucking the blood from it's host. She closed the window.

Turning she caught her reflection in the tall mirror that leaned against the wall. There she was... in all her glory, she stepped closer. Yes, she was a big girl....huge. Last time she stepped on a scale was....she couldn't remember. There were no scales in her home now. There were no scales that could bear her weight. She would need to use the public scale found in Piazza Carbonara that was used to weigh cut wood. She could just picture it....... standing on the wobbly scale floor as Giuseppe the operator yelled out the weight from inside his command post. No way was that ever going to happen.
She hated herself.

She examined her face. Not bad if it weren't for the fact that it was buried in fat. Her cheeks seem to overtake everything. Her mouth with its full lips seemed smushed between two balls of grease making them seem small and insignificant. Her nose, wide and plump, took up more space on her face than it should have, disrupting the entire balance. Her eyes dark like her mother's, deep pools of blackness, were just two black dots on a round fat canvas. Everything seemed to be swallowed up in blubber.

She stepped back. Pulled the house dress over her head, almost suffocated as it got caught in her massive hair. Finally off, she stared at the mass in front of her..it's hugeness.
How did she get like this? What happened on the road to growing up?

Her belly hung in front of her, so big and heavy that she couldn't see her thighs. Where did her belly button go? Her breast were no better. Large spheres that gravity pulled downward, rested on the top of her stomach. No bra could lift the mass, just like no scale could bear her weight. The bra was used more for pro forma than anything else.

She turned to one side..mamma mia!! The mirror couldn't contain her and her reflection spilled out of it's frame. She had tortured herself enough for today. Why had she even look in the mirror. Did she think that maybe in the hour of sleep some miracle would have taken place and wham! she would wake up skinny? Nothing was going to happen. Nothing was going to change.

She burped....tasted Gorgonzola...she was hungry again. Just not possible!! She pulled the house dress back on, crammed her feet into slippers and walked out of the room.

She found her mother napping in her armchair. Radio Zeta was playing one of Mina's old songs. Her head was tilted to one side,hands folded resting on her stomach, she looked so peaceful, so content. Antonella tiptoed into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water hoping that it would calm the need for food. Sure....It was to early to think about what to eat. She stepped out onto the balcony.

Of the eight apartments in the building only four had balconies. The two ground floor apartments and the first floor apartments didn't have this luxury. They were closed boxes with grated windows.

She thought of the families on the first two floors. On the ground floor both had kids and one of the families even had a dog. She would hear it bark at times when she entered the building. Poor dog. Cooped in that box. Only leaving to pee and poop...what maybe three times a day if it was lucky. Both families could have used a balcony without a doubt....not to mention the dog.