The Exquisite and Immaculate Grace of Carmen Espinoza (10 page)

An alarm went off in my body and I backed as far away from the tables as I could. That was it then. You stayed long enough in the offense and it sucked you in. I had even almost forgotten about the bile and waste all around me.
   

 
Behind the longest table, a blue curtain stirred. It looked strange, hanging in the middle of the space, the offenses did not seem to have walls, or corners, no borders that a curtain could hang against. I rounded the table, my shoes wading through the slimy filth at my feet, and tried to avoid brushing against the other gluttons and their gelatinous mounds of rolling flesh.
 

When I pushed the curtain aside, it was like looking into an entirely different space. A room within the offense, and every wall and ceiling was made of mirror. I let the curtain drop and looked around the hanging fabric from the outside, the room didn’t seem to exist in the space saturated in food and bile. I waved my hand behind the curtains, walked all the way around them—nothing. Opening them, I again saw the mirrored room, the curtains were like a portal into another space.
 

In the center of the room, a girl languished on the floor.
 

I hadn’t seen her before, or maybe she hadn’t been there before. Lying on her side, her brittle hair fanning out all around her, she suddenly opened her eyes and stared at me. Her eyes looked like big, black, empty pools—flat bottomless pits. “Quick,” she whispered. “Come in and shut the door.” Her skeletal hand moved to cover her nose and mouth. “I can’t tolerate the smell!” she screamed.
 

Startled, I entered the room and let the curtain fall closed behind me as her voice continued to ricochet off the glass all around us.

She breathed a sigh, “That’s better.” She pushed herself halfway up before the effort of it seemed to overwhelm her. When her elbows wobbled from the strain, she collapsed back towards the floor, her head resting on her outstretched arm. Her black saucer eyes stared at her own emaciated reflection and grimaced before looking away. “We have to be careful,” she said. “So very careful.”

“Of what?” I asked.

In the mirror, her eyes cut to me, like she had forgotten I was even in the room and only the sound of my voice reminded her. “You haven’t been here before.”

I shook my head.

“Why are you here?”

I looked over my shoulder at the curtain behind me, “The food…and the mess. The smell was too much.”

Her mouth gaped like a fish and her hands grasped handfuls of hair on either side of her head. “The smell!” she screamed again. Her body rolled from side to side. “They try to make me come out with the smell.” She clasped her hand over her nose and mouth and shook her head violently. “I won’t do it. I won’t give in.” She rolled onto her stomach and glared at me directly. “Did they send you? They sent you in here to trick me didn’t they!”

“No,” I shook my head. “No one sent me.”

She rolled onto her back, her hands sliding down her protruding ribs to her jutting hip bones. “They are jealous of me. Because I am so strong. Because of my will.” She flipped onto her side and stared again into her reflection. “Because I am beautiful.”

“Who?” I breathed.

She glared at me, her mouth an ugly snarl. “Those disgusting fat slobs of course. They have no will. They want me to come out and shovel food down my throat so that they’ll win. So that I won’t exist. So I’ll be just another writhing mound of jiggling waste.” She pushed her wild hair from her face. Her fingers trailed the sharp hallow beneath her cheekbone. “They are jealous.”
 

My eyes scanned the room, the confusing effect of our images reflected back and forth a million times in every direction. “I’m not sure they know you’re in here.”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “Of course they know!” she snapped. “How else could they be jealous? Why else” she sobbed. “Why else would they torture me with the smell?” her head wobbled in a sorrowful lament. “They are always trying to trick me.” She eyed me closely, like she was trying to figure something out. “You’re not as fat as they are.”

Reflexivity, I looked down at my body, “No,” I shook my head.

She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. “I could help you,” she nodded her head. “Help you to be strong—so long as you’re not here to trick me.” Her eyes grew wide with a sudden realization, “Did you bring food in here?” her voice rose. “Have you brought that filth into my sanctuary!” she screamed.

I held my hands up before me and shook my head, “No…nothing. I swear.”
 

“And your pockets?”

I reached into my jeans and tuned the pockets inside out to show her. “Nothing.”

Her shoulders dropped a few inches and her face returned to something close to serene. “Well, okay then.” She inspected her reflection, turning her head from side to side, jutting her chin then retracting it into a coy expression, “If you are going to stay in here with me, you will have to learn the rules.”

“Stay?” I asked.

“Of course,” she laid on her side and ran her hand over her sharp looking hip. “You couldn’t possibly want to live like that,” she pointed a bony finger at the curtains behind me.

“Actually, I’d like to leave this place altogether.”

On her back, she gazed up at the ceiling of mirrors above us, “You’d like to what?”

“Leave,” I repeated. “I’d like to leave this place.”

A confused expression wrinkled her brow. “Leave?”

“Yes,” I said. “Leave this offense. Do you know how. I’m trying to save my little brother.”
 

She closed her eyes and shook her head like she was trying to shake away my words. “You make no sense.”

“Don’t you want to leave here?”

“Leave where?”

“This place.”

“And go out there?” her voice cracked in the way that told me she was going to scream again. “Never!”

When the shrill echo subsided, I asked, “How long have you been here?”

Her face grew dark, “I have always been here, where else would I ever be?”

“You had a life. Before this, before The Between and getting trapped in this offense. You had a life before you—” my voice stopped.
 

“Before I what?”

I turned away from her, my mind spinning around the thought that had just occurred to me. “Before you died,” I whispered. She had died. The people in the other room had died as well. They were all trapped here and I suddenly knew why. I spun back and faced her and it was my turn to shout, “I know how you can leave here!”
 

She recoiled at the sound of my voice and covered her ears. “You don’t have to shout!” she shouted back, but when I threw back the curtain her screams cut through the air like a razor. “Stop! Close the door!”
 

I ignored her and headed straight for the nearest table filled with food. I scanned the table quickly until my eyes landed on a neat stack of clean white plates at the end of the table. The girl’s screams continued behind me. “The smell! The smell! The smell!” As I grabbed two plates, I could see that, in my hurry, I had left the curtain open. I felt bad, making her so upset—but it would only be for a moment because I knew how to save us both. Actually, I knew how to save every single person here.

“Everyone!” I announced. “Everyone listen to me! I know how you can leave here! I know how we can all leave!”

No one looked up. Transfixed by the piles of food everywhere, bloated hands continued to grab and shove food towards their faces. “Just stop. Wake up and stop. It’s too much and if you slow down, you’ll be able to leave here.” On each of the two plates, I places a couple slices of ham, a spoonful of potatoes, and a scoop of the green beans. I grabbed two rolls, and two brownies then shuffled past a pasty looking woman choking on something she had just tried to swallow. “Stop!” I said again as I grabbed silverware, napkins, and two cups I filled from the fountain flowing with water. “It’s only balance. That’s all you have to do is balance the food here.”
 

I shoved the napkins and silverware into my back pockets and centered the two plates over the two cups so that I could carry it all back to the mirrored room. When I looked up to head back to the starving, emaciated girl in the room, I could see that everyone around the tables continued to grab and shove until they made themselves sick. “Stop!” I shouted at them, but no one was listening.
 

“They can’t hear me.” I realized. The balloon of hope that had filled my chest began to deflate and left me wondering. The girl’s hysterical screams continued to echo out from her mirrored cage.
 

I had to try.

Walking up to the curtained entrance, I stepped over the threshold with the two plates filled with steaming food. One for me, one for her. The second she saw me, she recoiled, like a feral cat. Her eyes grew even wider, blacker, and the screams coming from her mouth stopped, the end of her last cry dying as it lost energy and faded into nothing.
 

“I know how to save us,” I whispered. Gently, with careful steps, I started to walk towards her. “You just have to eat a little bit. Just enough for balance.”
 

“You
are
here to trick me,” she proclaimed.
 

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m trying to help you,” I pleaded.

“You’re jealous. You’re trying to make me fat. You want me to look like those slobs.”

I took another step closer—she pressed her back against the mirror behind her, turned her head away. “Get away from me!” she screamed.
 

“You need to eat,” I said.

“Get away from me!”
 

“Please, just a little bit. Then we can both leave here.”

“Never! You’ll never make me.”

“You don’t have to be fat or starving!”
 

She clenched her eyes shut and grabbed handfuls of hair on either side of her head. “I’m perfect! You hate me because I’m perfect!”

I stopped, a deep sigh filled my lungs and left me. “I’m not,” I whispered to her. “I swear to you, I’m not jealous and you’re not perfect. You can leave this prison, but you have to eat a little.”

Suddenly, her hands flew to her sides in a defiant rage. “You can’t control me! You can’t force me! I won’t, not ever, and you can’t make me! I know my mother sent you! This is just like her, using my friends against me!”

She couldn’t hear me either. I bent down and placed the food for her on the floor in front of me. “I’ll leave this. In case you change your mind.” When I turned, her screams returned, shattering the air with their anguish.

“TAKE IT! Don’t leave that,” she sobbed. “Don’t leave it here. The smell! I can’t stand the smell!”
 

At the entrance, I closed the curtain behind me, her tortured sounds didn’t seem to even register with the people out here still filling themselves and getting sick. I closed my eyes, and lifted a piece of the sweet smelling ham to my lips. With small, careful bites, I ate the food on my plate until my stomach felt full. I took a drink of my water, arranged the silverware tidily on my plate, and placed my napkin on top.

When I lifted my eyes, I saw the space before me open up and Ray standing, smiling, waiting for me to come out.
 

I walked towards him with the girl’s tortured screams still raging on and filling my head.
 

I had done it. So why did I feel so defeated?
 

Ray smiled at me, “
That
was more like it. Much faster than the first one. What did I tell you? I knew you could do better.”

His confidence did nothing to lift my spirits. I stood in front of him and nodded, “Yes, I think I understand how it works now.”

He tilted his head and bent his knees so he could look into my face, “You don’t seem pleased.”

“I’m pleased,” I stood up straighter as if to prove it.

He stared into my eyes for several moments until the intensity of him made me look away. “Oh,” he said with a knowing tone. A small smirk pulled at his lips.

“What?”

He shook his head, “You’re disappointed that you couldn’t save them.”

I didn’t bother arguing with him. He was right. “They wouldn’t listen to me. Not a single one…not even her.” I looked up into his eyes. “The others, I mean, I suppose I understand. They never once acknowledged my existence. I don’t think they knew I was even there. But she was talking with me, looking at me. I wanted to help her.”

Ray stared up into the sky, a deep breath filled his chest and I could hear the air rush out of him. “You can’t help anyone here. In here, a person can only help themselves.”

“But you’re helping me.”

He leveled his eyes at me. His expression was flat, “Not really.”
 

“And I’m helping Daniel, or at least I will help him as soon as we reach The Great Balancer.”
 

He held my gaze a second longer then turned and began walking down the path again. “We need to get moving,” he called and pointed a finger at the sky. When I looked up, I could see that the moon had moved noticeably since the last time I’d looked. Ahead of me, Ray kept walking and his quick stride forced me to jog to catch up. He hadn’t responded to my statement about helping Daniel—but I didn’t know why.
 

“How many more offenses until we reach The Balancer?”

“One.”

Surprised, I stopped walking, “One?”

“That’s what I said—one.”
 

“Wait, and then that’s it? One more offense and then I can go to her and help explain what happened to Daniel?”

“Yes.”

I started walking again, turning this all over in my head. Something didn’t seem right and I remembered Ray had promised to tell me more about all that I still didn’t know.

“Ray?” the tone of my voice made him stop and turn around to face me. “Before, in the forest before the gate, you said The Balancer gets to keep the energy of the souls who get trapped here. Why does she want it?”

For a moment, Ray just starred into my eyes not saying anything and I got the impression that he wished I hadn’t asked. “I can’t say for sure,” he finally said.