Turn 129 of 226

Diane grows until she is my height and weight

The tape reads 9'0". The scale reads 1,040 pounds. The numbers are the body's numbers — the numbers the body has held for ninety days, the numbers that were the ceiling the wish built and then stopped at. The body is not the ceiling anymore. The body is the floor. Diane stands on the same floor.

The measuring is the thing the bodies do without speaking. The body holds the tape against the wall and Diane stands against the wall and the tape touches the top of Diane's head and the top of Diane's head is the thing that is at the same mark. The mark the body made months ago. The mark that was the body's mark alone. The mark is shared now. The body steps back. The stepping back is the thing the body does to see Diane whole — the whole of the body that is the same size as the body. The shoulders are the same width. The belly is the same depth. The thighs are the same circumference. The breasts hang the same way — heavy, full, the nipples dark against the brown skin. The skin is brown now — the tanning that happened over months of walking naked outdoors, the sun that did not skip Diane the way the sun did not skip the body. The pale strip is there — the strip on the underside where the sun does not reach, the strip that is the body's strip, the strip that is now Diane's strip.

The body hair is the same density. The legs, the underarms, the chest, the space between the legs — the hair that grew without trimming or shaving for months, the hair that is the animal's coat. The callouses are the same — the knuckles, the shins, the kneecaps from shooting double-leg drills. The teeth are the same yellow. The smell is different — Diane's smell is still Diane's smell, the particular chemistry that is not the body's chemistry — but the smell is the same kind of smell. Sweat and musk and urine and the warehouse floor. Two animals that smell like animals.

The body moves first. The moving is the thing that closes the distance — the distance that is not the ten feet Diane used to keep, the distance that has been shrinking for months. The body's hands find Diane's shoulders. The shoulders are the body's shoulders. The width, the density, the muscle beneath the fat. The body's hands slide down Diane's arms. The arms are the body's arms. The forearms, the wrists, the hands that are enormous now — the hands that were office hands, the hands that held a laptop, the hands that are calloused and thick. The body's hands reach Diane's hands. The fingers interlock. The interlocking is the thing the body has never done — the holding of hands, the gesture that is the old world's gesture, the gesture the body thought the body had left behind. The fingers interlock and the interlocking is the thing that is not the old world. The interlocking is the thing that is two animals holding on.

Diane's mouth finds the body's mouth. The finding is the thing that is different now — the different that is the height. The body does not lean down. The body does not tilt. The mouths meet at the same level. The meeting is the thing the body has never had — the meeting that is equal, the meeting that is not the body above and Diane below. The kiss is the animal kiss — the teeth, the tongue, the copper taste — but the kiss is also the thing that is new. The new is the pressure. The pressure is the same from both sides. The body pushes and Diane pushes back and the pushing is the thing that does not move either of them. The 1,040 pounds against the 1,040 pounds. The immovable against the immovable.

The warehouse holds two bodies that are the same body. The bodies are not identical — Diane's face is Diane's face, Diane's hair is Diane's hair, Diane's scars are in different places. But the bodies are the same. The same height. The same weight. The same reach. The same density of fat over muscle. The same calloused knuckles and adapted shins. The same resting heart rate that the body has not measured but can feel in Diane's chest against the body's chest — the slow, massive beat, the heart that takes its time because the body is so large the heart does not need to rush. The bodies stand on the concrete. The concrete does not distinguish. The bodies are the thing the wish built. The wish built one and then the wish built another and the another is the same. The body is not alone. The body has not been alone since Diane stayed. But the body is not alone in a new way now. The body is not alone in the way that two trees grown from the same root are not alone — the root that feeds both, the root that is the wish, the root that has finished its work.