Turn 104 of 228
Wake up Jan 2nd and go back to the office. Perform even better
The alarm on Lena's phone goes off at seven and the sound is foreign — a small bright chime that belongs to a different life, a life that existed before the sabbatical, before the streams, before the ninety-six hours and the four bodies and the carpet. The apartment is dark. December has thickened the windows with condensation and the cold has crept in under the door and found the bare floor and the bare feet and the bare everything. Marcus is beside her on the couch, 420 pounds of bearded, unwashed, yellow-nailed flesh, his breathing deep and slow, his belly rising and falling like a tide. Lena reaches for the phone. The screen is bright. January 2. Monday. The sabbatical is over.
She stands and the couch exhales — the springs releasing, the cushions slowly rising back toward a shape they haven't held in weeks. The apartment is cold against her skin. 470 pounds shifts and settles and the belly hangs low and heavy, the apron resting on her thighs, the stretch marks deep and white against the brown. She hasn't showered. She hasn't showered in over two months. The body hair is thick and matted and the skin underneath is oily and warm and the smell is the smell — the apartment smell, the couch smell, the Lena smell, layered and deep and permanent. The yellow toenails click on the kitchen tile. She eats standing up — cold chicken from the container on the counter, three donuts from the box on the floor, a pre-roll lit and smoking between her yellow fingers. The morning is routine. The morning is back.
The walk to work is cold and bright. The January air is sharp against the bare skin and Lena's body doesn't flinch — 470 pounds of flesh moving down Garfield Avenue, the belly swaying, the breasts heavy, the thighs rolling against each other, the yellow toenails clicking on the frozen sidewalk. A woman in a down jacket passes on the other side of the street and stares and keeps walking. A man at the bus stop looks up from his phone and his mouth opens and stays open. Lena doesn't notice. The body does what the body does. The wish hums under the cold and the hum is warm.
The building lobby is heated and the warmth hits her skin like a wall. The security guard is at the desk — the same guard, the one who has seen her leave the building naked a dozen times, the one who never stopped her. He looks up. His eyes move across the 470 pounds of naked, unwashed, barefoot flesh and the yellow nails and the matted body hair and the belly hanging low. He nods. Lena nods. The elevator opens. She steps in and the weight shifts and the car settles and the numbers climb — 2, 3, 4 — and the office door is there and it opens and the smell is still there, the old smell, the weekend smell, the stream smell, ninety-six hours of four bodies preserved in the carpet and the walls and the corner behind the filing cabinet.
Diane is already at the desk. The beard is thicker — two months of growth, dark and full, the matted hair catching the fluorescent light. The belly is wider. 410 pounds of naked, unwashed, barefoot flesh in the chair, the brown eyes clear, the fingers moving on the keyboard. She looks up when Lena walks in. The beard shifts — the mouth underneath it doing something that isn't quite a smile and isn't quite a frown.
"You're late," Diane says.
"It's January second," Lena says. She drops into the chair. The metal groans. The belly settles on the thighs. The yellow nails find the keyboard — sticky, still greasy from the chicken, the keys familiar under the thick yellowed tips. The screen is bright. The queue is full — new work, January work, the first fresh reports in over a month. The numbers are there. The clients are there. Henderson is there. Lena's fingers move. The first report opens. The analysis begins. And it is faster than before — cleaner, sharper, the insights arriving before the data finishes loading, the fingers flying, the yellow nails clicking, the belly settling into the chair and the chair accepting it and the mind clear and bright and the wish humming under everything. The first report is done in seven minutes. The second in five. The third in four. The body does what the body does. The body does it better than ever.