On my fourteenth birthday, My Hunger stepped out of my body and sat beside me at my party. She looked me up and down before wrapping both hands around my red velvet cake and whispered

 “Well, I heard they get the colour from dead beetles anyway.”

Mother denied this, as mothers do. She looked right through My Hunger as though she were never there.

“Eat girl, it’s yuh birthday!”

 She surveyed dirt in the cracks of my knees, evidence of my search for beetle corpses in the garden.

I wedged the cake in my pocket and followed the sound of my aunts cackling into the kitchen. Halal feathers charred betwixt a waltz of orange flames. Fowl skin blistered translucent and membrane isolated from flesh. My aunts flanked the cast iron cauldron, a coven of witches sprucing up their potion. A sprig of thyme here, pimento seed there. I considered the pathetic pendulous chicken, dagger to throat, and wondered if the butcher’s prayer brought comfort whilst the cold blade sliced through the jugular.

“Why do we buy halal if we’re not Muslim?”

Mother handed me a knife and an onion, my pungent initiation into their sorority.

“Because it’s cleaner, mi cyan stan di sight ah blood. Di Muslim dem ah drain it!”

My Hunger observed the women, bellies and breasts grand and grotesque, each skillful in the laceration of bones, no shard sharp enough to puncture a palate, no knuckle tough enough to crack a tooth. For each woman, this was a simple pleasure, to suckle on marrow, and confer the benefits of collagen in the gristle. 

The witches are round, soft with no edges, save the point of their canines. Men refer to them as thick. They refer to themselves as thick. Their wardrobes and thighs erupt in lycra and polyester, stretch materials they heave their haunches into with ease. On Fridays, they peacock their monumental mass at the dancehall.

“Mi nyam di chicken regardless!” Aunty Rose enveloped me in her warm sticky bulk. A rogue dreadlock tendril escaped her bun and a guttural laugh escaped her belly. She pinched the dough rolls hanging from my own. I wanted to carve them into slices, to put each one in the toaster, to burn them to ash.

“Why yuh nuh touch yuh birthday dinner babygirl?” She seized a chicken leg from her plate, hovered it under my nose.

My Hunger looked me dead in the eye. “Feed it to the dog. He’s starving.”

I thought about the heat from the scotch bonnet but I did it anyway.

Mother found my rotten cake a week later. My pockets stained crimson on account of the beetle’s blood.

At night My Hunger lay beside me in bed and caressed my hair. My hollow stomach beat loud as it always did, the sound of the timpani in an orchestra. Tissues in my mouth sufficed to mute the blows. I cannot say I often remember my dreams after waking, but my subconscious awareness of my appetite presented me an exquisite banquet on unfamiliar terrain. Strawberry gateaux towering skyward, pillows of vanilla cream puffs and an impressive gathering of fruits with an unnatural sheen. 

I gorged on a whole ham shot with peppercorn bullets, golden buttery ackee and salt cured fish, sun yellow plantains, fried and honey sweet chicken, white yam and grilled breadfruit. Here, I was liberated. 

I stuffed my face. I vomited. 

I stuffed it again.

With the morning came blood. A singular isolated incident I suspect, the cause of my dream, my dream the cause of my blood. 

“Now look what you’ve done! Skip breakfast. You had breakfast yesterday. That’ll be two days in a row.”

 My Hunger rubbed the chill from my feet. Cold toast joined the putrid victual remains under the bed. I made a mental note to throw them away, along with the beetle burrowed in a decayed banana. I crushed it with my palm to see if it would bleed.

My Hunger was prudent. My Jamaican mother more so. Once she noticed my regular mealtime absence, she tore My Hunger by her ankles from under my bed. I was acclimatised to the stench until the sting of her belt regulated my senses.

“This ends now!” 

She threw open the windows. The dog crept in for scraps.

                                                              +++

Stay at the clinic is by invitation only. Mother provided photographic evidence of my affliction, with urine and stool samples to check my proteins. Of course I brought My Hunger with me. She doesn’t often leave the house and diligent as she is, her eavesdropping paid dividends. Sticking my own fingers down my throat is difficult. She sat in the front of the car to prevent travel sickness.

According to clinical paraphernalia, I had a condition, with a name. Reflex Departure. The clinic specialised in returning the departed reflexes to the body, preventing them from future escape. No documentation cited secondary cases in patients healed at the facility. Success in outside cases remained unknown.

I shared a room with one patient, rather than the usual four. Alice opened the door before I had a chance to knock. A despondent nod her acknowledgment for my animated, stupid ‘Hello!’

Alice lived alone in the dorm I suspected, due to her questionable hygiene. I was unaware of the cuticles ability to grow like moss over the nailbed, and bewildered at the numerous post-it notes on various surfaces around the room. I did not need reminders to brush my teeth or hair, to wipe my bottom, or to clean the toilet when emptying my bowels. In fact, My Hunger and I kept a sparkling toilet, and although we were separated on arrival, a sparkling toilet carried a sense of pride and non- disclosure, one I intended to continue. 

Other than missing her Vanity, Alice seemed nice enough. She was kind, and funny, and her previous roommate left for a larger dorm. I am not sure I could share a room with girls missing their laughter, even if they did bathe. Here, we slept with the windows open as respite from the malador. This also served as an escape route for Alice. Once she bathed and her nurse left, she climbed out to rummage through the dustbins naked. I covered my nose on her return.

During breakfast, I was asked to introduce myself, to include an interesting fact,

I took the opportunity to make my life seem extraordinary. I’m not sure why I said the woman next door had been strangled. I also said I was unable to answer any questions as the case was still open. I felt interesting and exotic and I was proud of myself for lying with such ease. I didn’t consider methods of research available to the patients at the clinic and figured no one would be trawling through old newspapers in the library, but I lied about my address just in case. 

I had not garnered the reaction for which I hoped and instead, silent judgement was served alongside the bread. Later, I discovered my story contained no element of surprise, only Schadenfreude. I was reminded of the first day at school, and that day, as I did before, I scoped out the competition. I sat with Alice, conscious of other girls mistaking her body odour for my own. However, the closer I sat to her whilst eating, the easier it was for me to vomit afterwards.

Bigger girls hustled for seconds, sometimes thirds. Their primal greed allowed my meal avoidance to go unnoticed by the dining staff whom in turn, report what they see, whenever they see it, to senior matrons. My Hunger stayed in a dedicated Reflex Departure Wing. Sometimes, I spied her ambling through the grounds. It was during these times I found our separation the most difficult, and I know she felt the same.

Mirrors were forbidden. Checking my reflection in the window was a measure of how many visible inches I lost. I’m not sure how much time I spent pinching the fat on my thighs and I’m not sure how much time Alice spent tugging her hair from the roots, but I found tendrils everywhere, like dust. One day, I pulled a long strand from the back of my throat. This, I suspect, had become embedded in the bristles of my toothbrush. I hoped the rest of her hair fell out quickly and despite this, I was glad for the company. Before I arrived at the clinic, I expected to plunge into a kind of purgatory; instead, I found solace in simple daily walks, and pleasure in learning.  Fine arts and culinary skills were particular favourites, and soon, the description of great works became second nature. To the sightless girls, I spoke of subtle nuances, of great scenes and illustrious warlords, of Monet and Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Pupil loss was a rare side effect of Envy. Envy had not departed from these girls, rather, Envy had consumed them. In place of eyes, were small cavernous hollows. I admit at first I was scared, but became used to them over time. Though these girls were unable to appreciate the art, we were able to appreciate their cooking, for their sense of taste and smell was heightened. Sufferers were able to identify an impressive number of herbs, and use an accurate measure of ingredients. I savoured their meals before flushing the vile evidence down the toilet.

Before our separation, My Hunger and I developed trusted strategies to continue our progress. Nature walks gave me the opportunity to fill my pockets with small, yet weighty stones. It was uncomfortable to stuff my knickers with these before my daily weigh in, but it was reward enough to watch the numbers on the scale rise, and the nurse mutter ‘mm hmm’ whilst ticking boxes in my medical notes.

All girls understood the potential consequences of Reflex Reconciliation. Reflexes themselves were prone to separation anxiety, so under no circumstances were we to reconnect with them unsupervised. Rumours were rife, Reflexes taking shelter in cupboards, under beds and even moving freely with their girls after dark, of course the clinic warned of harsh punishment, if and when they were found. We had not been told details of the punishment, I suspect, to put the fear of God into us, because somehow, not knowing is worse. Fireside lore of former patients disappearing was enough to scare us all into almost decent behavior. 

Our treatment plan and schedule was of course, subject to change. I came to realise, that some patients entered the clinic as girls, and left as women. Some past the age of the change, childless and alone.

Alice was in her twenty-second year. She confided this to me one evening, along with her fear of leaving the clinic, her home. Alice’s comical appearance was one I never quite got used to, but recently, she started changing her outfits three times a week, a major milestone. Her wardrobe was a veritable jukebox, one day she played Starman Bowie, the next she was Dorothy Gale, off to see the wizard.

One night, a tap at the window I assumed to be Alice returning from her dustbin escapade was in fact, My Hunger. I drew back the curtain to a tale of Alice’s previous life as a child actress, one whom now used an alias, and had significant small screen success, until puberty ended her career overnight. My Hunger regaled these tidbits with glee in the bathroom, my head cradled in her hands like old times. At first, I laughed at Alice’s plight, her desperation to be seen as young again, before I realised she was slowly recovering from her affliction. In our recent art classes, she had taken an interest in the Renaissance period and the abundance of beauty. She was yet to grasp the basics of personal hygiene, and perhaps she could argue that during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, hygiene was of lesser importance. Quite simply, she was a girl who lost her way, now, an adult trying to find it.

As she was leaving, My Hunger gestured for me to join her, and for a fleeting moment, I considered my own escape. I packed a small bag in haste before taking a second to pause, a second to breathe. These coping mechanisms taught in therapy seared their way into my subconscious. I was unsure if I feared the unknown disciplinary from the doctors, or in fact, I feared leaving Alice alone, like her roommate before me, and the one before that. Abandonment was the root cause of Alice’s disease, and at that moment, I felt responsible, and proud of the small progress she made since I joined her here. As I drew back the curtain, I caught a glimpse of the scar above my eyebrow, a reminder of the Caribbean punishment of the belt or slippers. Sometimes both.

I kissed My Hunger goodbye at the window and instead, welcomed her into my sleep, like an old friend.

In my dreams, we are both on our knees in the garden, crushing black beetles with our palms.