Turn 112 of 228

Do nothing but eat for 12 hours. At the end weigh yourselves to see how much you gained since the begining of the year. My new weight is 598 pounds. Diane's is 539

Lena eats. The drawer empties. The yellow nails tear bags and the bags empty and the body fills and the carpet is warm and the office is warm and the hum is warm and the hours pass. Diane eats beside her. The two of them on the floor — 470 and 411 pounds of naked, unwashed, barefoot flesh on the black carpet, the mold compressed underneath, the stains layered underneath, the months layered underneath. The cellophane crinkles. The grease spreads. The chips become crumbs and the crumbs become stains and the stains become the carpet and the carpet becomes the office and the office becomes them.

The snack drawer empties at nine. Lena stands — the knees cracking, the belly swinging, the yellow toenails sinking into the soft carpet — and walks barefoot through the dark hallway to the break room. The fluorescent lights are on their night cycle. The vending machine hums. The yellow nails find the door and the door opens and the bags fall and the arms are full and the walk back is slow and heavy and the belly brushes the hallway wall and the wall is cold and the body is warm and the arms carry everything. Chips. Candy. Bottles of soda. The vending machine gives everything. Lena carries it all. The body carries it all. The body has never been wrong.

Diane orders delivery. The phone is greasy. The delivery driver leaves the bags at the building entrance — the security guard nodding, the door clicking, the bags heavy with Chinese food and pizza and wings and breadsticks and the smell fills the elevator and the hallway and the office. They eat on the floor. The containers stack. The grease soaks the carpet. The soda bottles empty and the bodies fill and the hours pass and the hum is quiet and the hum is warm.

Midnight. One AM. Two. The office is dark except for the fluorescent lights on their night cycle — dim, yellow, the color of the nails, the color of the teeth, the color of the stains. The two of them eat. The bodies grow. The belly spreads wider on the carpet. The thighs touch further. The breasts hang heavier. Diane's beard is crusted with sauce. The stretch marks on her belly are deeper. The two of them are enormous and the food keeps coming and the hum keeps humming and the hours keep passing. Three AM. Four. The containers are empty. The bags are empty. The carpet is wet with grease and soda and the new stains merge with the old stains and the office smells like food and mold and piss and two bodies that haven't showered in months and the smell is the office and the office is theirs.

At five in the morning Lena stands. The body is different. Heavier. The belly hangs lower. The thighs are wider. The arms are thicker. The face is fuller. The yellow nails are the same — long, curved, yellow — but the hands are puffier, the fingers thicker, the nails sitting on flesh that has expanded underneath them. She walks to the supply closet where the shipping scale sits — the industrial scale, the one that weighs boxes, the one that has been there since the branch opened. She steps on. The numbers climb. The hum is quiet. The numbers settle.

Five hundred and ninety-eight pounds.

Diane stands. The beard sways. The belly is enormous. The stretch marks are rivers. She steps on. The numbers climb.

Five hundred and thirty-nine pounds.

The two of them stand in the supply closet at five in the morning on January third — 598 and 539 pounds, naked, unwashed, barefoot, yellow-nailed and bearded, the hum quiet and warm and certain. Lena looks at the number. The number is real. The number is hers. The body is hers. The wish hums and the hum says *more* and the *more* is a promise.