Turn 112 of 226

Text Diane about the win before celebrating. Measure myself again afterwards. I am 8'6" and 950 pounds

The text to Diane is seven words. 'Won. 10,192 fighters. $200,000. Again.' The send button. The phone on the concrete. The response is faster this time — four minutes — and the four minutes is the thing that tells Lena the phone is in Diane's hand, not in Diane's pocket, and the in-the-hand is the thing that means Diane was waiting. 'Are you hurt?' Diane says. The question is new. The question is not 'be careful.' The question is the shift from warning to aftermath — the shift that means Diane is no longer anticipating the next tournament but absorbing the results of this one. Lena types. 'No. Two small weaknesses. Already fixing them.' The send button. The ellipsis appears on Diane's side — the three dots that mean typing and the typing is the thing that goes on for a long time. The dots disappear. The dots reappear. The dots disappear again. No message comes. The absence is the thing that fills the phone's screen and the absence is the thing Lena reads as the thing Diane cannot say and the cannot-say is the thing that lives between worry and love and the space between them is the thing the body does not navigate because the body does not navigate spaces between people. The body navigates concrete.

The celebration is the ritual. Ten restaurants. The delivery drivers who have stopped seeing. The bags carried in Lena's arms — the arms that are thicker than most people's waists, the arms that dropped Petrov with a temple kick three hours ago. The pile on the concrete. The body drops to its hands and knees and the dropping is the animal's posture and the posture is the thing the body does not question. The eating is the mass — the jaw working through brisket, ribs, chicken, rice, noodles, the hands scooping, the mouth not closing between bites. The arousal follows the fullness. The hands find the belly — the belly that is wider than it was three months ago, the belly that hangs lower when the body is on all fours, the belly that sways with the eating motion. The gripping is rough. The moaning fills the warehouse. The body comes. The body pisses through the food debris. The mess covers thirty square feet. The body rolls onto its back. The ceiling is the thing the body sees.

The ceiling is lower than it was. The ceiling is the thing the body has not measured against in weeks and the not-measuring is the thing the body has been avoiding because the avoiding is the instinct's recognition that the measuring will confirm what the ceiling is already saying. The warehouse ceiling is fourteen feet. The body is lying on the concrete and the distance between the body's chest and the ceiling is the thing the body's eyes calculate before the tape measure does. The distance is short. The distance is shorter than the last time the body looked up and the shorter is the thing the body cannot not-see now that the body is looking.

The measuring is the thing the body does next. The tape measure is on the steel shelf — the steel shelf the body built, the shelf that holds the laptop and the legal pad and the tape measure that has been there since the warehouse's first week. The body stands. The standing is the thing that takes the body's full height and the full height is the thing the tape measure reads against the wall. The mark on the wall. The last mark — the mark from the last measuring — is lower. The new mark is higher. The tape reads 8'6". The 8'6" is the thing the body stares at and the staring is the thing that takes ten seconds. Four inches since the last measurement. The body steps on the scale — the industrial scale Cal gave her after the first elite tournament, the scale that reads up to 1,000 pounds. The digital display climbs. 950. The 950 is the thing the body reads twice. Seventy pounds since the last tournament. The body is still growing. The body has always been growing. The growth is the wish's architecture and the architecture has no stop point and the no-stop is the thing the body does not fear because the body has never feared the wish. The body fears the ceiling. The ceiling has eighteen inches of clearance. The body is 8'6". The ceiling is fourteen feet. The math is the thing the body does on the legal pad — the legal pad pulled from the mess, the page turned to blank, the numbers written in the handwriting that has grown larger as the hands have grown. 168 inches minus 102 inches. Sixty-six inches of clearance standing. The last measurement had more. The next measurement will have less. The legal pad records the number. The body records the growth. The warehouse records the ceiling. The ceiling does not move.