Game Over
Location
Let’s play a game.
Place your feet firmly on the starting line while you inspect your competition.
They look back at you with sunken eyes and starved faces, but they still use up their energies to stay standing on chopstick calves.
Let’s begin.
Juggle the dice between your fingertips until they twist out of your grasp
Five.
You eagerly run five spaces and see you’ve landed on the +4 space.
A scream of excitement escapes you while you run, but laughter stops you.
The other contestants are sneering at you, watching you with vicious glints in their eyes.
You look down at the space to see if you’ve landed on a trick spot, but you can’t even see the ground.
Your stomach begins to balloon, your rib cage no longer visible under your clothes.
+4 pounds.
A scream freezes in your throat as the next player rolls the dice.
Six.
A skeletal girl limps to her space while everyone watches her heart race against her paper skin.
Her space reads -2.
Slowly, joints and cartilage push against her skin; fat slowly leaving her body.
You watch on in horror as the others clap and cheer for the girl dying from starvation when it hits you.
The key to winning this game is to lose.
Out of fear, you race back to the start tripping over the supposed winner of the game.
“She’s dead!” You cry out as her glazed over eyes bare down on you.
The others stay with their feet firmly on the starting point.
“She’s won the game, we must start over.” They coo reaching scarred arms out to you.
You stand shakily, looking down at your ballooned stomach.
You don’t want to play this game anymore, but you know you won’t be able to leave the board.
Let’s play a game.
Wake up in the morning and roll the dice; let’s see how many calories you’re allowed to eat today.
Feel the fat burn off your bones and record food into your counter.
You’ve reached 800 today.
That’s repulsive; people would say you need to eat more.
That’s repulsive; people would say you need to purge right away.
You’ve reached 800 today.
In your mind that means one thing,
Game over.