Balance
by delicious
happy apocalypse
                                
Some people believe there's no justice in the world, that
nothing is done about the wrongs in the world.  Such a
belief is a kind of despair, and an insult to the gods that
maintain that world.  Those who complain the loudest are
usually victims of the judgments of these gods.  But these
gods are not enthroned in some high place, nor in some low
place, either.  They work through the laws of nature,
physics, biology.  Life itself, in all its forms, is divine in its
powers.  

                           * * * * * 
                                
"You're a creature with a powerful destiny... you will bring
down the great, and raise up the small."

Lee looked up, from her hand, into the eyes of the gray-
haired reader of palms.  "You see that?  You gotta be
kidding!"  Pulling her hand away, she rose to leave.  "That's
such a pile of crap, I need to wash my hands...."  Lee could
not be stopped, as she left the darkened room. 

The face of the fortune-teller was smiling calmly at the
retreating form.
"And she's years away from believing her own powers".

                           * * * * *
                                
She was born Libra Justicia, on the 22nd of September,
1977.  It had been a painfully short childhood for just plain
"Lee".  Her adopted mother had split from her abusive
father, and then died while Lee was not yet 16.  He had
been so big, so certain, so unpredictable.  Lee kept quiet,
trying to please everyone.  If only she could make people
happy.  A quiet hunger burned within her, growing hotter
every year.  She asked nothing for herself.  

Her life was service, hoping to find meaning in pleasing
others.  The restaurant where she had toiled first as a
dishwasher, then as an assistant to the cook, and finally, as
the cook, was her only solace.  In food was a kind of blissful
tranquility that reminded her of the time before she was old
enough to notice the pain in her life.  When she was small
she would sit in front of the TV with her mom, eating
cookies and ice cream, laughing.  At that time she would
rub her mom's shoulders, or get her a coffee.  Making her
mom comfortable was the most wonderful thing she could
do.  She remembered the contented little sighs that would
welcome the first sip.

Later, eating became impossible during the chemo...  Her
mother wasted away, unable to eat, and eventually, to live
at home.  And Lee hungered. 

                           * * * * *
                                
 Some people think there is a magic in numbers, that
probability has a force and a potency beyond our ability to
comprehend.  Hidden laws  govern the seemingly chance
movements of molecules and men.  Those laws govern our
destinies as surely as if they were the strings of the puppets
obeying those laws.  That we are unable to read those laws
does not make them any less true, nor any less compelling.

It was 101 days after Lee's 22nd birthday.  Lee had never
noticed anything about the number 11, because she had not
thought of her birthday in many years, as no one had
helped her celebrate since her mother's passing.  Lee did
not know that this day was sacred, and that her power was
bursting forth in the fruition of her hopes and desires that
day.  101 days after September 22nd was December 31st
1999, and 101 days after the 22nd birthday of one born on
the 22nd in 1977.   She had made so many wishes.

New Year's Eve was typically a busy night.   This was no
exception, particularly with a millenium's passing to
celebrate.  There were rumblings of the end of the world, or
the beginning of a thousand years of peace... or something. 
For Lee it meant work.  

At 2:00 am she had sent the kitchen staff home, staying with
only the waitress and the last table of die-hards.  She
watched from a distance as they kissed, toasted, tasted and
re-tasted the champagne, the desserts, the liqueurs... and
each other.  The wishes she was again making were the
same as always.

She watched the endless consumption, and wished she could
also indulge fearlessly: even though she was afraid to get
any bigger.  She wished she could eat without stopping, to
make the ache go away.  She watched the kissing, and
wondered what it was like to taste a man, and whether it
was like eating.  She savoured the power her growth gave
her--Lee was 5' 11"-- and 333 pounds, last time she
measured, and wished to grow, grow, grow.  
The cheque was paid, and the guests left, but Lee was
oblivious, in the holy-of-holies, examing what was left from
the night.  Having been unsure of what sort of crowd she'd
have, there were still pieces of cake, half a trifle, and a
torte.  There were ices and fruit salads, some sweets, and
even sweet drinks to wash them down.  The breasts of
chicken, pasta, and other defrosted nyummies that would
not survive until she re-opened on January 2nd were
doomed, because they had not been frozen, nor refrigerated
soon enough.  But Lee had somehow expected this.

She assembled her friends around her: the cold pesto, the
half tureen of chowder, the savoury items, the sauces
crying for the baguette--three whole baguettes left, that
would be garbage otherwise.  They seemed to smile upon
her as her face warmed with the radiance of her work.  Her
work was good, and she continued to re-test and sample
everything.  She was unaware of her 3 wishes: to eat, to
love and to grow, but they throbbed  in her belly as she
swished baguette in the tart bay sauce of the sauerbraten. 
She opened her mouth for the white flesh of the bread,
thinking of the white flesh of that man at that table, and
how that woman's mouth had opened to meet his white
throat as if it were succulent.

When all that was left were the desserts, Lee did not stop
for a moment, for this was a special day, somehow sacred. 
There was a throbbing inside her something like a choir or
the organ of a cathedral singing praises for the almighty
gods of nature, uncelebrated until this moment.  She was no
longer merely grazing, ruminating in tranquility.  Her
consumption was becoming more of an adventure with
every passing moment.  She began to eat standing up,
stretching herself to accommodate the food clamoring to get
into her, like commuters trying to board a rush-hour train. 
At a certain point her hands stopped grabbing, and seemed
to catch food that was voluntarily flying at her mouth,
estatically seeking the promised land of her mouth and
throat.  

She heard a truck come to the back door.  Strange.... why
would there be deliveries on New Year's Eve, much less at
such a late hour?  Lee went to the door.  She wondered.....
"wasn't I already standing when I ate?"  When she stood up,
she was disoriented.  The ceiling had somehow collapsed, or
something.... all this drinking and eating was making her
dizzy, she guessed, and the building is....

Lee crawled down the hall to the receiving door, where she
had heard the sound of a truck pull in.  She knocked the
door off its hinges when she mis-handled the doorknob. 
Crawling out the door, into the night, she heard distant
revellers, as well as the idling engine of the truck. 
Something was not quite right.  Sides of beef were rolling
off the truck, on dollies, alright, but no one was really
pushing them.  She grabbed one, and took a bite.  

"Cold", she thought.  The meat was ice-cold.  She crunched
her jaw onto the little morsel that was left, and proceeded
to the next one.  Lee was still on her hands and knees on
the loading dock.  She found that the little beef nuggets
passed themselves into her mouth, bite sized.  Bite sized
sides of beef.  The cold no longer bothered her, as she got
the hang of biting at the right angle to crunch those ribs. 
She was delighted in the sensation of bones giving way, and
all that soft white marbling on the meat as well.  The
slipperiness against the roof of her mouth helped it slide
down her throat.

She stood, but could not quite fit in the truck: a van? a car? 
Surely this thing had 18 wheels, because nothing came into
the dock under 5 tons.  She heard a moaning sound, as she
stood.  "Was that me?" she asked herself.  "I'm still hungry!"
She stood, hands on hips defiantly.  "I've fed everyone
else..... when do I get to eat?"  

She stepped back from the truck, which was clearly  the
source of that groaning-moaning sound.  The trailer had
ripped apart, because of the sudden weight of its load.  Lee
stepped off the trailer, too late.  The loading dock, too, was
moaning under her.  But there was at least something to
eat.  It was not as expected, however.

The back of the little restaurant was now the food terminal. 
New York's food supply was dispatched through a network
of truck bays and loading areas, stuffed with produce,
merchants and teamsters.  Only it was deserted, in the wee
small hours of New Year's Day, and the loads were coming
to her, in homage.  Trucks were standing on end, to send
their wares to her.  Kiosks turned over to feed her.  And
her nose was being teased by every sort of temptation.

Lee sat as rapt as a little child, legs spread, while the world
came to her to be eaten.  And she grew, in response.  But
the hunger did not leave, nor could it be assuaged, for it
was as bottomless as her pain, as endless as her grief.  The
city's food supply decided to come worship the goddess Lee. 
All good things were as offerings to her, drawn by her
energies.

The good things weren't limited to food.

Lee did not question as the food threw itself at her, as her
body grew.  She had two of her three amazing wishes.  Why
would she question when her third as well began to come
true?  Sitting there, with her legs spread wide, Lee was
growing at a furious rate.  As she ingested tons of produce,
meat, bread, dairy, sweets, or fruits, her body was being
remade, a fantastic riot of new, babysoft flesh.  Her
lubricity during the transformation was as  miraculous,
sending out a silent urgent bulletin to all the men in the
neighbourhood.  I cannot translate this bulletin, except to
say that the message made them weep, made them come
naked in midwinter to stand before her in rows, crying as if
at the shrine of the blessed Mary, mother of God.

They stood, shivering, weeping, pushing forward, some on
every side, rubbing their naked bodies against her perfect
baby softness.  Her thighs like piled up whipped cream, her
calves storm clouds, her feet, pink cotton candy, sweet to
taste.   And each one stepped forward, clamouring to touch
her, to kiss her, so far above these tiny men.  Her legs
spread out describing a vast plaza between the colossal
architecture of legs like skyscraper walls on either side. 
Her belly hung far above, while the portal in front,
beckoned, to all.  

But she did not take what did not belong to her.  We gave
ourselves to her.  At first she used her hands, scooping
hundreds at a time, between pudgy hands soft as
marshmallow, bringing  us to her gaping maw, slurping and
inhaling us like rice or macaroni.  There was a keening
sound in the air, of men coming in waves,  like a tiny
chorus.  Her teeth closed softly, like thighs urging orgasms,
and the cries peaked.  Each squeeze of her jaw brought
another squeal of pleasure.  

But LEE had another, better way to unify us.  The
congregation in the vast assembly square between her legs
was getting too crowded.  Men were milling around,
unhappy, moaning wth desire, and prevented from getting
closer to our goal.  Lee's beautiful face was wracked with
the grief of our separation from her.  She held out her
hands to us, and we felt the attraction, as if she were planet
size, and we fell to her, pulled by her gravitational
attraction.   I moaned at the thought, wishing her to be
sufficiently large to pull us all to her, falling into her.  As a
unit we all thought of unifying with her, joining to her, in
her.

Lee made the moment of our ecstasies perfect.  She opened
her mouth, and called out "come to me.... I want you.... you
are mine".   We all agreed, crying out as one "take us" or
"have us" and reached our arms upwards for her as if we
could fly up to her.  She was so inconceivably beautiful,
above us.  I could not perceive all of her, but only some of
her delicate thigh on one side, where surely some buildings
had stood....

We stood, hands up, crying for unification, when the light
seemed to fail.  Darkness suddenly covered the entire
square.  Her voice cried out in ecstasy, shattering the air,
booming, echoing, rebounding.  All she said was
"LOOK UP..... LOOK UP..... LOOK UP LOOK UP LOOK UP.....

We looked up of course, as one, but only saw darkness.   Or
was there something to be seen?  I looked up, and saw a
terribly perfect shape, so far above.  I recognized the
indentation between two of her sweet pink toes, looking for
all the world like two halves of the entire world.  The
delicate toes were far above, still, but so infinitely,
unfathomably huge.... where was the rest of this foot?  She
held it above us, a soft canopy, coming down, slowly. 
Looking around, no buildings were standing for hundreds
of yards..... as far as we could see.  Just men, looking up at
this soft roof.  The smell was there, oh yes.  The smell: and
it made me weep, knowing her and the joy of her presence,
so close.  

Suddenly she was there, right there, her toe on us.  One
moment we were standing up, reaching for it, the next, she
had knocked thousands down without realizing how
powerful she was.  And then she pressed, rubbing that soft
flesh on us, and I realized she would absorb us this way. 
Through her skin, she would squeeze us until we became
her footcreme, nourishing her through her pores.  She was
creaming us, squishing us, slowly, deliciously, under all her
soft, squishiness.  We'd be pressed until we would no longer
know where she ended and we began.  Her foot was so
obscenely soft already, that it would bend around us all,
rather than keep shape.  She was as soft as a balloon, a hot
inflated girl, hungry to touch us.  We were all dizzy for that
ecstasy of hers, that desire to push into us, and to be fed on
us.  Her pressure quickly became firm, as we were all flat
on the ground, breathing only her smell, and wondering
how swiftly she'd crush.  It occured to me that we might be
at a place where the pressure was less... not the heel or ball
of the foot, where surely her weight would push the
pavement down deep into the ground, maybe not all the way
to China, but as far as she wanted to press.  Surely anyone
under her heel would be just a bit of wetness, .... but I did
not understand the mystery, the magic.  

This was, of course, the end of the world, at least as we've
known it until now.  Life is not over, but exists in a totally
different form.  Many of the prophecies  concerning the
apocalypse have come true.  Lee has come, and she is a
judge, for her name itself means justice.  All life exists at
this moment for one reason, and one reason only: to sustain
her.  Some will be reborn, I understand.  But I do not claim
to understand this judgment day thing.  I am only glad I saw
her, and was able to run, enraptured to be absorbed into
her.  Perhaps she walks, and I am a cell in her foot;
perhaps she only sits, and then I wish to be in her ass,
pressed under miles of softness without ny hope of getting
out from under her...infinite softness, weight without scale
or measurement.  Weight no longer has meaning.  She has
broken all the scales, not by stepping on them and crushing
them under her mass, but by making us all undifferentiated,
parts of a shapeless mass, shapeless ourselves, and alive in
her body.  Our communion is not in eating the body of our
lord, but in being eaten, into the body of our lord.
She has ended all those old stupid institutions: diets, body-
image, vain love, replacing them with the perfect adoration
of her.  

 She has achieved her goals, and then some: she is God, and
the very form and figure of good in its purest incarnation. 
She is worshipped, and revered.  Mankind's history is over,
and so is civilization, crushed under her like an old pair of
shoes, and almost as lovable.  Actually, I far prefer her old
slippers to civilization.