Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

What does he need?

What do you need?

Nothing. Call me after class. I’m going out.

Are you alone?

I’m with Michele.

Getting drinks?

My coffee isn’t hot anymore. I pull a Red Bull out of my purse. I crack the can. It’s warm. I rub my face.

Probably. Does it matter?

I thought you weren’t drinking this week.

It’s fine. I’m with Michele.

This is what we do together.

It’s what we do together.

This is what we do together.

I call him later but can’t get him on the phone.

Charleston is a cluster of river veins flowing into the Atlantic.

We drive to the end of a thin peninsula and stare out over the estuaries. I wear a white cashmere sweater. John wears a red wool cardigan. We pass a bottle of Dewar’s back and forth as the sun sets over the ocean.

How are you feeling? I ask him.

How are you feeling?

Really happy to be here with you.

This is nice.

It is thought that a white dwarf with a low enough surface temperature could harbor a habitable zone.

It is also thought that a white dwarf’s cooling could draw planets in, completely consuming them.

It’s raining. The streetlight shines through the drops on my windshield. They make a pattern of constellations. Two of them merge and slide in a stream down the glass, and break up at the wipers.

I blow smoke into the cabin.

I am at the center of an immense system. I keep the planets in orbit around me. I keep everything in balance.

I am a perfect daughter, student, girlfriend, woman. I’m admired.

I have roles. I’m a social human. I follow the rules.

I easily follow rules.

Men want me. Right? They’ll want me more when I’m thinner.

I’ll be unstoppable.

Then, I will always be happy.

I open the door and step into the lot. Stop & Shop glows like a galaxy.

I’m a cosmic species.

There are no shadows in a supermarket. There is nowhere to hide. You shouldn’t be hiding things. I can only walk in circles. I walk around endlessly.

Every corner opens onto another aisle. Another curve. Another cluster of brands.

MorningStar. Capri Sun. Ocean Spray. Aunt Jemima. Quaker. Betty Crocker.

General Mills. Bisquick. Duncan Hines. Hungry Jack. Jiffy. Pepperidge Farm.

Mrs. Butterworth’s. Campbell’s. Kraft. Post. Hershey’s. Carnation. Best Foods. Kellogg’s.

Pillsbury. Nabisco. Heinz. Hellmann’s. Hunt’s. Frito-Lay. Keebler. Healthy Choice.

Kid Cuisine. Stouffer’s. Green Giant. Ore-Ida. Smart Ones. PowerBar. Hormel. Chef Boyardee.

Lipton. Uncle Ben’s. Rice-A-Roni. Pop Secret. Pringles. V8.

Ragú. Prego. Tombstone.

I pick up a pepper, I put it back. I pick up an apple, I put it back. I pick up a bag of grapes. They’re meaty inside. I find this disgusting, I put it back.

I read the labels closely. I calculate values. I bite my fingernails off. I touch my own skin. My hair. My lips are dry. I lick them. I calculate minute sums.

Everything is quantified.

I calculate time spent eating and not eating and what that will cost me in the end.

Is there a bathroom?

I stand before the meat. Blood pools in the edge of a pound of ribs. Bacon congeals in its own fat. Chicken feet cluster together under cellophane.

I walk through the frozen foods. I open a freezer and touch a box of Eggo; I touch a bag of Dole cherries.

The glass fogs. I stand in the center of the aisle. The space between the shelves and my body and the door yawns and is immense. I’m immense. I feel the cold of the air.

The fluorescent lights hum.

Go home now.

I pass the breads and come back and pass them again. Entenmann’s. Lender’s. Wonder Bread. Nature’s Pride.

I pass the peanut butter and jelly. Skippy. Jif. Smucker’s. Peter Pan.

There isn’t a question of stopping at the dairy.

Sugar free fudge. Hot peppers. Toilet paper.

I find the bathroom and leave my empty basket by the door and stand before the mirror.

I am a complete slob fat pig cunt who deserves to be alone.

The sink is the kind that stays on for a minute and then shuts off. I push it several times and wet my face.

It’s full of holes.

I find a pimple next to my nose and pop it. Pus on the mirror. I wipe it off with a paper towel and do this two more times for the pimples near my mouth and wet the towel and wet my face again.

My brow is dry and flaking.

My hands are shaking.

I start to cry.

I tear off two sheets of toilet paper and wet them and put them in my mouth. I chew and suck and continue to chew as I pick up my basket.

I walk back to the organic produce.

I throw away everything I’ve accreted.

I shed my outer layers.

I eat dark matter.

We don’t have plans for Charleston. We haven’t made plans all month. We drift from one side of each city to the other, in and out, leaving behind a trail of familiar signs: Chick fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Pizza Hut.

We find nothing authentic in the tour books, so we abandon them. They don’t tell us where the real cities are. We look online and find the same information. We don’t know what we’re doing.

We drive in circles.

We stop in hostels trying to find a more rugged experience. They’re just like motels.

How are you feeling, John?

I don’t know what I feel.

The palms that line the streets of Charleston look down as we pass. We drive back toward the freeway.

We check into a room in a motel advertising heat, but the room is wet and freezing. I lie on the cigarette-smelling comforter and pull up my shirt and look at my hipbones. Razors. I feel happy, then I notice that my ass spreads underneath me. I pull my shirt down. I curl into a ball and touch my cheeks.

John spends so much time in the bathroom that I think he’s trying to show me he’s angry. When he comes out, he’s calling his parents. I sit by the window. I smoke an Ultra Light. Not listening.

I stare at the palms that stand in a row at the edge of the lot. Skinny. Fronds bursting.

I take out a magazine. Ten Easy Tips to Grow Your Hair. Tricks to Make You Look Taller and Thinner. The Most Iconic Swimsuits Ever.

Look Your Best. Get Star Style.

Trends We Love. Trends We Hate. Perfect Pieces.

Secret to a Gorgeous Face: It’s the Eyebrows!

Your mother called my parents. Do you want to call her?

No, I’ll call her tomorrow.

When was the last time you talked?

A few weeks ago.

Do you not want to talk to her?

I just don’t have anything to say.

I’m going for a walk.

Should I come?

No, stay.

I sit in a room of shadows.

Each night, I find the center of my hunger in the center of the floor, in the center of the room. The walls breathe the space between them and I am the space, condensed and expanded and condensed. I pulse. I’ve burned myself to cinders.

I feel that I and the sun are the same, shining on a side of the world where no one can see us. I am made of the matter of the sun, but I’m no longer burning. I’ve shed. I have little time remaining.

I pulse and see my structure.

I cool, and as I cool, I crystallize.

There is work to be done but I am work. I have goals. I am driving through space to reach them.

My goal for the night: 95. I drink ice water. I urinate, fill, empty, fill, empty, fill, empty.

It is about personal purity. It has to be.

Someday I’ll be a perfect black body. I’ll be perfectly smooth and white. I’ll be obliterated.

Dark matter. Antimatter. Unseen, unfelt, unmatter. I unbind myself.