New Suns

by Nisi Shawl

  BACK HOME, CINNAMON swept the grounds for spy-bots. Exhausted, she stumbled through the greenhouse into the dumb house. Klaus and Marie had left their prayer to Eshu behind:

  I say:

  Wrong road lead you to nowhere

  Wrong road take your name, your face

  Turn you downside up and outside in

  Wrong road leave you heartless

  I don’t say

  Which RoadWrong Road

  You the one know who you mean to be

  One Easy Trick

  Hiromi Goto

  MARNIE MORI HAD packed a couple of onigiri and a piece of chicken for her day trip so she didn’t need to buy lunch or snacks, but she felt bad about just using the convenience store’s washroom. And it was nice and clean, too. She was grateful. She exited the bathroom and walked down the aisle, pausing in front of the magazine rack. Maybe she would buy one… The glossy covers of women with their polished teeth, their svelte bodies, their chests, their long legs— gossip rags, fashion, housekeeping, bikinis, the whole shebang. There were men’s magazines too: hunting, bodybuilding, fishing. But most of the publications were directed toward women and with the same old perennial message, shouting from every cover, for all the women to see.

  More than Ten Ways to Lose Your Belly Fat! In fact, there were at least twenty effective tips on how to reduce belly fat. For those with less time and attention, there was always One Easy Trick.

  Che! Marnie clicked her tongue. In gas stations, in the doctor’s office, at the grocery store checkout, pop-up ads blooming on her screen when she clicked links on Twitter, looked up stuff on Google and listened to 70s songs on YouTube, the information, doctrine, religion, incantation, spell seemed to follow Marnie Mori wherever she went. The tall, lean white women with pony tails and rolled-up yoga mats who lived in her neighborhood did not help one bit. In time she grew numb to the refrain; she began to unhear and unsee it. If Marnie had never grown to love her belly fat, she had accepted it. They’d been part of each for so long, even longer than her marriage with her ex-husband and her previous committed long-term relationship with Cassandra, combined. Essentially, the past thirty years. And now she was alone, again. But belly fat was still with her.

  Huffing with indignation, Marnie moved away from the magazines. She wasn’t fucking buying one of them, that was for sure. She nodded at the middle-aged white woman who was working the till. Marnie squinted at her name tag—

  June, maybe, or Jane. They were probably near the same age, but Marnie wasn’t exactly sure. June had a really wrinkled face, from either too much sun, or smoking, or probably both.

  “Mornin’. Almost good afternoon,” June/Jane said. The country gas station was empty. Business was slow.

  Marnie reached out and grabbed an overpriced tube of Pringles and set it on the counter. She was finally close enough to read the cashier’s name tag.

  “Those chips are tasty inside a sandwich,” June said.

  “Whoa!” Marnie said. “That sounds good! I’ll try that next time.” She wasn’t faking being nice. It really sounded like it’d be pretty damn tasty.

  June smiled wide. There was a Harlequin Romance novel next to the till, with the page marked with a stick of gum wrapped in silver foil.

  Marnie grinned back. June looked like the kind of woman who’d be fun drinking beers with, while barbequing some steaks. It was a damn shame Marnie didn’t drink anymore. She paid up, got her change. Tucked the stuff into her backpack.

  “Thanks, come again,” June said.

  Smiling, Marnie turned toward the door. Caught herself in the glass.

  Her eyes moved from her own smiling reflection, downward, to her belly fat.

  She knew fat activists like her sister, Joan, would call her fatphobic for thinking her belly unattractive. Marnie resented that was she was supposed to feel ashamed of her own dislike, making it her bad exponentially. She had nothing to hide; she was a feminist and she wasn’t ashamed of herself. She just didn’t love her belly fat. And that was no one’s business but her own.

  Fuck those magazines.

  The door jangled as she strode out the gas station store.

  BELLY FAT HAD never stopped her from doing the things she loved. An hour later she was in her favorite Pacific Northwest forest, among the spicy sweet-smelling Douglas fir, pine, and cedar. Smiling, she picked her way through the land, breathing deeply, eyes scanning the ground, hearing the intermittent jangle of the bear bell hanging off of her backpack. There was a quality to being alone in the woods that felt safe and dangerous at the same time. Kinda like how the sound of the bell warned bears of humans in the vicinity, so it was meant to protect her, but it also reminded her of the possibility of the danger of bears… The overlay of these emotions vibrated inside her. Making her aware, alert, and grounded. It was good to be out of the city, and on land that wasn’t mediated by concrete.

  The thick soft moss buoyed her, even as decaying logs and broken branches obstructed easy passage. Marnie zig-zagged through the forest, scrambling over the smaller of the fallen trees, going around the larger trunks too big to straddle, the jangle of the bear bell a constant reminder. She placed her feet carefully; a sprained ankle in this terrain could happen as easy as one misstep on a damp log. There was no cell phone reception this far north of major cities, and she’d have to make it to the car if she got injured. She slowed down her pace.

  Breath left her mouth in small puffs, sweat trickling from her armpits, moist heat spreading beneath the straps of the small backpack and her bra. She never sweated in the city. Walking through wild lands was the best kind of medicine. There was very little bird song. Now and then flocks of bushtits made their squeeze-toy noise, but otherwise the only sounds were what she created on her own. When she stopped moving, the quiet stilled around her like water in a pond.

  Marnie scanned the moss, looking for hints of pale yellow flesh. Her vision wasn’t what it used to be. The mostly coniferous trees were spaced widely enough apart for the light to reach the forest floor, but the day was slightly overcast and now that Marnie was fifty years old, autumn leaves, a discarded bit of decaying plastic bag, and a golden chanterelle looked pretty much the same from ten feet away. She supposed it was time to get prescription glasses. Blinking hard Marnie worked her way through the woods. She’d never taken orienteering courses, but she always knew in which direction she’d left the car. Her zigzag path ran parallel to the gravel road. She wouldn’t go any deeper into the forest on her own.

  When she’d been a child, about ten years old, her oto-san had taken her and her sister to look for precious matsutake, pine mushrooms. Her father had taught her how to identify them and she’d never forgotten. Huh, she thought. They could have traipsed past a thousand chanterelles without knowing. All her father knew was matsutake. It had been enough, back then.

  In that first forest, how sweet the air. Sweet and spicy, wet and earthy. How thrilling, to be on an adventure with her father. How rare and special a thing it was. Her heart thumped with excitement and joy. Her sister, Joanie, less confident and younger, stuck close to their oto-san, but Marnie was a long-time tomboy and considered the forest her second home. As the afternoon skimmed over the tops of the trees they began walking at different paces.

  Marnie raised her head and tilted it to one side. Had she heard something?

  …a whisper

  Marnie’s eyes widened. She held her breath. Listened with her entire being. The hushhhh of air between the branches of enormous trees, the long hair strands of grey lichen wafting back and forth.

  Come in… a little further…

  Forest… Forest was speaking to her. Marnie nodded, and picked her way deeper among the trees.

  Just a little more, Forest whispered. Soon, very soon, you’ll find the matsutake…

  Yes. She was certain. If she looked a little more, the matsutake would be there, and how happy her mother would be. Her father so proud.

  Come in deeper, and you will find what you
are seeking.

  On and on she followed the voice, the pathless path, wending between tree trunks wider than her father’s arms could span. The soft moss beneath her sneakers felt rich, thicker than the carpet at her friend’s house, pretty Julia, whose father was a lawyer.

  A small branch snapped beneath her foot. The sound spread out, across the deep stillness, like rings of water expanding on a dark deep pond. Her ears rang. Marnie slowly raised her head and looked all around. Trees, tall, and dark and moss. Pale grey-green lichen hanging from crooked branches. She was alone. And she had no idea which way was out…

  Marnie grinned, and shook her head as she peered at the moss. Joan never developed a liking for the forest, the mountains. And her oto-san never had the time to take her out picking wild mushrooms again. So as an adult she’d begun going back alone. She didn’t hear the forest’s voice like she did that first time. Marnie didn’t know if she was glad. Or sad. Maybe both. And maybe it hadn’t even been the forest’s voice—maybe it’d been her own…

  Marnie stopped, placed her hands on her hips and arched her back a little bit. Her spine cracked into place and she groaned with relief. She rolled her shoulders and stood up straight to take a deep breath of the sweet air.

  Her jeans fell to her ankles.

  “Uh!” Marnie grunted, even though no one was there to hear her. She giggled. How embarrassing! Standing among the trees, with her middle-aged pantie-ass showing! She reached down to draw her jeans back up to her waist. Had the button popped off and the zipper fail—

  Her waist…

  The jeans fell from her nerveless fingers. The faded blue denim slumped back to the ground. Her eyes grew round as she stared at her front, her mouth dropping open.

  Her belly fat was gone.

  Pouchy and soft, her belly had been big enough to fold over, thick enough to grab with two hands. Nani? What! Nanda!

  The elastic waistband of her underwear had enough tension to keep them up around her diminished middle but with no belly there to fill it out, the cotton material now hung loose and empty. She smacked her hands over the new flat plane again and again, as if she would find the answers in the motion.

  Nothing to grab. No fleshly jiggle. What! Should she scream? Laugh?

  A sob burst out.

  She scanned about her, but she couldn’t see it. She crouched to draw up her jeans and she held them up with her fingers scrunched into fists at her sides. Marnie’s eyes leapt and darted as she spun around and started backtracking along the path she’d taken. She fought the urge to cry out for her belly, as if she were calling a wayward dog…

  She had lost her belly fat somewhere along the way, and hadn’t even noticed. It couldn’t have been so long ago, because wouldn’t her jeans have fallen down sooner? It must be somewhere, nearby, in the forest, not back at the last gas station bathroom…

  What’s wrong with you! Another part of her brain demanded. It fell off! Don’t go looking for it! Are you hurt? No! Are you wounded? No!

  She hadn’t realized she’d been gasping until she came to a stop. Sweat trickled from her hairline and the bead of moisture followed a downward wrinkle that funneled to her lips. The salt spread inside her mouth like a kiss.

  She slid both thumbs past the waistband of her jeans and underwear and held the material out in front of her, like the photos of the before and after women who’d lost hundreds of pounds and were now on magazine covers.

  Her belly was smooth. The most pleasantly smooth outward curve, but without the voluminous belly roll she’d carried with her the most of her entire life. There was no ragged torn skin, no blood. Just like the Japanese folk tale of the old man and his wen… the oni had plucked it off the old man’s face and it had come away as easy as a clump of mochi. Without rent nerves, blood, injury. And how pleased the old man had been, with his new smooth face. How grateful to the ogres.

  Marnie pivoted forty-five degrees. She stuck her forefingers in the two front belt loops to hold up her pants as she strode the shortest distance through the woods to reach the logging road. In her haste she did not even notice a large patch of golden chanterelles growing in the moss.

  SHE DROVE BACK to Vancouver like she was being chased by demons. The highway along the coast swerved and curved as she raced the setting sun. She arrived at her home just as dusk bloomed indigo from the horizon. Marnie ran upstairs, shucked her clothes off in the middle of her bedroom floor, donned a shin-length nightshirt, and threw herself in bed.

  Belatedly, her teeth chattered. She shivered and shook as darkness filled the room. She ought to take a bath, but the thought of staring down at her missing front made her teeth chatter even harder. She pulled the blankets over her head. Every rattle of the lids of the garbage in the back alley made her twitch like she’d be electrocuted. The slam of someone’s door. A dog baying. The smack-clack as the lid of the garbage wheelie was dropped back down.

  What was that noise! Had her belly come back? Could it find its way back home? Would it be mad?

  “I never loved you!” Marnie cried out. Guilt spread inside of her like bad blood. She whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  When she grew too exhausted she fell into nightmares. Of bears eating vanilla pudding. Of someone locked in her bathroom, rattling the doorknob all night to be let out—she woke, heart so loud and fast she could hear her blood whooshing inside her ears. A metallic taste inside her mouth. Her palms pressed flat against her non-existent belly. She yanked her hands away.

  No, Marnie thought. No, I don’t want to fall back asleep. She wished she still smoked. A thick housecoat and a cigarette on the balcony would cure what ailed her. Along with a triple dirty gin martini.

  But she’d given up smoking and she’d given up booze. And what did she have left, now, except movies and hamburgers?

  You have sweet chestnuts and mushrooms in the fall, and berries in the summer, her heart reminded her.

  Marnie rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. She nudged her toes around until they found her slippers. The open gaps. She sluffed across the wooden floors in the dark. She didn’t turn on the lights, just in case sleepiness might return to her. But it was probably a lost cause.

  She stared at her charged cell phone on the kitchen table. She pressed the indented button and the small screen lit up. It was too late to call or text anyone. She and Cassandra remained friends, after the break up a year ago, but she had recently started seeing someone new. It wouldn’t do to text her in the middle of the night… Besides—who could really give her advice in a situation like this?

  Marnie found herself at her laptop and opening a new document. She started typing a letter to her dead mum.

  Dear Mum,

  Sorry I haven’t written in a long time. I still really miss you… And I’m sorry I only write you when I have a problem. Next time I’ll write when something good happens. Balance is important, you always said. And I believe that too.

  Mum—something weird happened to me and I don’t know what to do. I’m not hurt or anything, but it changed me. I can’t say it was something I willfully actioned. But who knows? Maybe I did, subconsciously? I feel all mixed up and strange. Like I’m not myself.

  What are you supposed to do when you lose part of your body?

  Marnie’s fingers stilled. Rested gently atop the keys. She never printed the letters she wrote to her mum. But writing them made her feel a little closer to her, and sometimes she could hear her mother’s voice inside her head. Not her actual voice, but she could imagine what her mum would say and the echo of her voice as she remembered it would rise up inside her… And even the times when she didn’t hear her mother’s voice, the act of writing down what was troubling made things clearer. Letters to her mum made more sense to her than writing a journal.

  Marnie closed the laptop and went back to bed. She read from an overdue library book she hadn’t yet finished. It was a little boring, and exactly what she needed to help her fall asleep…

  When she woke properly later th
e next morning, she moved from groggy unease to heart-pounding horrified recollection within three seconds. With a terrible hope, she’d rolled off her bed to stand up. Pressed both palms to her stomach.

  Her belly was really gone. It wasn’t all a dream. The extremes of emotions made her feel sick and woozy. Marnie didn’t know what she thought her sister would do or say that could possibly help her make sense of what had happened. But Joan was the only family she had left. Marnie wanted to talk to someone who knew what it is to be a fat woman in this world. Marnie’s friends from work were not fat.

  “HOW COULD YOU!” Joan said.

  “Wha—”

  “We said we’d never get cosmetic surgery. We promised each other!” Joan’s face was so red Marnie feared something inside her would pop.

  “Let me expl—”

  “How could you afford this! Did you get an all-inclusive at a clinic in Mexico?”

  “What? I don’t even kno—”

  “Just shut up! Take off your pants and underwear. I want to see what you’ve done to yourself!”

  “No,” Marnie said. “I’m not putting on a show for you.”

  “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. You know what? I actually can!”

  Joan didn’t slam the door shut—she left it open and the sound of her sobs were like punches to Marnie’s gut. Down the hallway, the elevator tinged, followed by the low mechanical roar of its descent.

  Marnie sank onto her soft couch. She wondered if she was supposed to chase after her sister. Marnie’d done nothing wrong! Anyway, what could she possibly say to her—that her belly fat fell off in the forest? Joan would think that Marnie was out of her mind, or else she was making fun of her. It was better that Joan thought Marnie’d gotten surgery done: Marnie hadn’t even known such things were possible, for god’s sake.