The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams

Author:Sean Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

21.

Without the schedule presented to us beforehand, the week becomes a terror. Each day, we meet in my office. Each day, we proceed from there to another corner of the third floor, where, either privately or as a group, we go through a series of health checks. Each day, I worry that not only will the agenda call for a weigh-in, but that it will be done with all of us together in the same room. When the day’s session finally reaches its end just before the lunch hour, I stalk up to the kitchen on the sixth floor, gather my provisions, and bring them to my quarters, where I eat, nibbling lightly at first, as if I might trick a scale with just a few days of willpower. Ultimately, I realize the futility of this and eat the rest of my meal with a ravenousness achievable only through self-loathing.

It’s not just the potential presence of the others witnessing my embarrassment. It’s the end of my freedom from the mathematical exactitude of my body being assigned a number. The last time I stepped on a scale was before our arrival here. I cannot remember exactly what it said, and even if I could, it wouldn’t matter. That was a different time, another life. I was free of that number as soon as we stepped from the helicopter. Our way of life at the Institute changed many aspects of me: the way I must act as a supervisor, the way I must dress to combat the cold, the way I sleep, the way I eat, the amount I move in a given day. I know my body is different than it was when I arrived, and that is all I need to know, not if it’s bigger or smaller or more muscular or any of that. So what I fear most is a number, as a number will lock me into the me that exists here.

The only benefit of the looming weigh-in is that my concerns about it insulate me from other concerns. As we move through a series of calisthenics, for example, and I am the only one who cannot touch my toes while sitting with my feet straight out in front of me—a stretch that has haunted me my entire life, and whose function I cannot understand, given that humans have evolved to possess a hinge known as the knee at their leg’s center—I do not feel shame, so great is my dread of the potential for greater shame in the near future. Likewise, Gibbs’s temporary usurpation of my role, which would usually fill me with ire, leaves me numb, and, if I’m completely honest, thankful; were I required to remain the group’s leader in the face of such a threat to my ego as a public weighing, I doubt I could make it through the days at all.

Furthermore, said usurpation comes with a nice side effect: her outright refusal to discuss or look at (or let anyone else discuss or look at) the thing in the snow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.