Turn 125 of 226

Diane stops wearing clothes entirely. She joins you in fighting training. She also starts getting taller as well

The t-shirt is the last barrier. The t-shirt is the thing Diane wears on the seventh morning and the wearing is the thing the body watches — the fabric stretched across the breasts, the belly fully exposed beneath, the t-shirt that is not clothes anymore but the memory of clothes. Diane is doing morning push-ups on the concrete. The twentieth push-up is clean. The arms are thicker than they were a week ago — the triceps visible beneath a layer of soft fat, the shoulders rounder, the back broader. Diane's body is changing the way the body changed — the fat and the muscle arriving together, the softness and the density layered like the body's own architecture. Diane stands after the set. The standing is the thing that catches the t-shirt on the belly and the catching is the thing that pulls the fabric up. Diane looks down. The looking is the thing that lasts three seconds.

Diane pulls the t-shirt off. The pulling is not dramatic. The pulling is the thing a person does when the thing they are wearing is not the thing they are anymore. The t-shirt drops on the concrete beside the jeans and the underwear and the bra and the shoes that are already there — the pile of the old world's architecture, the pile that is growing. Diane is naked. The nakedness is the thing the body sees and the seeing is the thing that takes the full picture — the body that is not the body Diane brought to the warehouse. The belly is round and soft. The breasts hang heavy. The legs are thick and hairy. The underarms are full. The body hair is dark between the legs. Diane's skin is pale where the clothes covered it and the pale is the thing that will darken because the body walks outside naked every day and the sun does not skip anyone.

'Fight me,' Diane says. The saying is the thing the body does not expect. The saying is not a request. The saying is the thing that comes from a person who has been watching combinations for weeks and doing push-ups and squats and ground drills and the watching has become the wanting. The body looks at Diane. Diane is 5'7" and maybe 190 pounds — the weight that is not nothing, the weight that is the wish's work, the weight that is growing. The body is 9'0" and 1,040 pounds. The disparity is the thing the body reads and the reading is the thing that produces the hesitation — the first hesitation the body has felt since the wish took the voice that says stop.

'You're not ready for full contact,' Lena says. The saying is not dismissal. The saying is the thing Marcus said to the body months ago — the assessment, the truth, the thing that protects. Diane's jaw tightens. The tightening is the thing the body recognizes — the frustration of a body that wants more than the body can do. 'Pad work first. Technique. Then we spar light. Then we build.' The instruction is the thing the body gives and the giving is the thing the body has never given — the teaching that is not correction but foundation. Diane nods. The nod is the thing the body gave Marcus and the nod is the thing that passes forward again.

The pad work begins. The body holds the focus mitts — the mitts that are small in the body's enormous hands, the mitts that Diane strikes with fists that are getting harder. The jab is the thing Diane throws first. The jab is not the jab from two weeks ago — not the arm-punch, not the stiff-wristed push. The jab is the thing the body taught — the hip rotation, the shoulder roll, the snap at the end. The mitt pops. The pop is clean. The body feels the impact through the padding and the impact is the thing that is not nothing. 'Again.' The jab again. The cross. The hook. The combinations building — the one-two, the one-two-hook, the one-two-hook-cross. Diane's hands are faster than they were. Diane's hands are the wish's hands.

The kicks come in the second week. The roundhouse is the thing the body teaches — the hip swing, the shin rotation, the pivot on the support foot. Diane's shin is not adapted. The shin is the thing that will need hundreds of impacts before the bone densifies. The body knows this. The body teaches the technique without the power — the form first, the speed later, the power last. Diane throws the kick. The kick is the thing that lands on the pad with a slap and the slap is not the body's crack. But the slap is clean. The form is right. The body nods. The nod is the thing that means the foundation is laid.

The height comes on day twelve. The body is eating on the concrete — the evening meal, the containers spread, the mess. Diane is standing at the water container. The standing is the thing the body's eyes catch and the catching is the thing that registers wrong. The water container is the thing Diane fills by reaching down. Diane is not reaching down. Diane is reaching across. The container is at a different height relative to Diane's body. The body sets the food down. The body stands. The body walks to the wall — the wall with the marks. The body holds the tape measure. 'Come here.' Diane comes. The body places the tape against the wall. The tape reads 5'9". Two inches. Diane has grown two inches in two weeks. The body stares at the number. The number is the thing the body knows — the number that was the body's first number, the number that was 5'4" becoming 5'6" becoming 5'7". The wish is not just making Diane fatter and stronger. The wish is making Diane bigger.

Diane looks at the tape. Diane looks at the body. The looking is the thing that holds the question and the question is not spoken because the question does not need to be spoken. The body's hand finds Diane's head. The hand is the thing that rests on Diane's hair — the unwashed hair, the hair that smells like the warehouse. The hand is gentle. The gentleness is the thing the body does not do — the thing the body has not done since the wish, the thing the animal does not do. But the animal does it now. The animal does it because the animal has the thing the word points at and the thing is the companion and the companion is growing and the growing is the wish's work on a second body and the second body is the thing the body has been waiting for since the bathroom mirror.