Turn 127 · Growing Into Herself

Turn 127 of 226

My growth stops until Diane matches my height and weight. While Diane is growing, she fights in the lower tier tournaments until she reaches mine

The body stops growing. The stopping is not a decision the body makes — the stopping is the thing the wish does, the wish that has been building the body for months, the wish that has reached the number it was reaching for. The scale reads 1,040 pounds on the morning after the tournament and the scale reads 1,040 pounds the next morning and the next. The tape measure reads 9'0". The numbers do not change. The body stands in front of the wall with the marks and the marks are the thing that have stopped climbing and the stopping is the thing the body does not expect. The body has been growing for so long that the not-growing is the thing that takes three days to accept.

The acceptance is not loss. The acceptance is the thing the body feels when the body looks at Diane and the looking is the thing that shows the body why. Diane is 5'11" and 230 pounds. The distance between 5'11" and 9'0" is the distance the wish is working on now. The wish is not finished — the wish has shifted. The wish is the river that found a new channel and the new channel is Diane's body. The body feels the warmth when the body touches Diane and the warmth is the thing that is not the body's growth anymore. The warmth is the thing that flows through the body into Diane. The body is the source. The source does not grow. The source feeds.

Diane's first tournament is on day thirty. The body registers Diane on the burner phone — Cal's operation, the lower tier, the bracket that is 2,048 fighters. The body drives Diane to the warehouse in the industrial district. The body cannot fit in a car. The body cannot walk beside Diane to the entrance without drawing the kind of attention that shuts operations down. The body stands in the shadows across the street and watches Diane walk in alone — naked, barefoot, 5'11" and 230 pounds, the body that is the beginning of the thing the body is. The watching is the thing the body does for four hours. The four hours are the rounds. The body counts the rounds in the sounds that carry through the warehouse walls — the impacts, the cheers, the silence between.

Diane walks out. The walking is the thing the body reads before the words come — the gait is steady, the arms are at the sides, the hands are not trembling. 'Four fights,' Diane says. The saying is flat. The flat is not the professional flat. The flat is the fighter's flat — the voice that has been in the ring and has come out and the voice that does not dramatize because the dramatizing is the thing civilians do. 'Three by TKO. One decision.' The decision is the thing the body's record does not have. The body's record is all finishes. The body does not say this. The body nods. The nod is the thing Marcus gave and the body passes forward.

The tournaments come every two weeks. The body stands in the shadows and watches. Diane grows between each one — the growth that is accelerating, the inches that are coming faster now. 6'1" after the second tournament. 6'3" after the third. The weight climbs with the height — 265, 290, 315. The body that walks into the warehouse each time is bigger than the body that walked out. The power climbs with the weight. The TKOs come faster. The decision does not repeat. By the fourth tournament Diane is 6'5" and 340 pounds and the four fights are all finishes — two in the first round, one in the second, one in the third. The body watches from the shadows and the watching is the thing that produces the sound from the body's throat — the low sound, the animal sound, the sound of the animal watching the companion become.

The training between tournaments is the thing the bodies share fully now. The sparring is no longer light contact — Diane's frame can take the impact, Diane's guard can hold under the body's combinations. The body does not hold back the way the body held back at 190 pounds. The body throws at seventy percent. Diane takes the shots. Diane's shin is adapted now — the bone densified through hundreds of impacts, the kicks landing with the crack the body's kicks make. Diane's combinations are five-hit chains. Diane's ground game has progressed — the hip escape, the upa bridge, the side control, the knee-on-belly. The body teaches the mounted position and the elbows from mount and the armbar from mount. Diane learns the way the body learned — the body doing the thing, the body correcting the thing, the body doing the thing again.

The body measures Diane on day sixty. The tape reads 6'9". The scale reads 420 pounds. The number is the thing the body holds in its chest. The number is more than halfway. The body is 9'0" and 1,040 pounds and the body has not changed in sixty days. The body is the thing that waits. The waiting is not passive. The waiting is the thing the animal does — the animal that trains, the animal that eats, the animal that fights, the animal that holds the companion at night on the concrete. The companion is growing. The companion is 6'9" and 420 pounds and the companion's record is 16-0 with one decision that has not repeated. The body is the source. The source feeds. The source waits for the thing it feeds to match it.