Blanche Hollins (IP)

Never mind a bad day, or even a really bad day – this was turning into a catastrophic one for Blanche Hollins. She should have known – it really shouldn’t have come as such a shock to her, but she was quite stubborn and hadn’t believed others when they’d said things. She’d though they were being over dramatic, but this morning she was forced to admit that there was quite probably something wrong after all.

It had really hit home when she’d bent to clean the litter tray first thing in the morning. She stood up quickly, in a rush to take the little bag to the bin; she had only walked a couple of steps when she stopped for a minute. Something wasn’t right – her ears had a rushing sound in them, her face felt very hot, and she couldn’t see properly; then her legs gave way and clutching at the door on the way down, she felt herself landing awkwardly on the floor.

The cool tiles came as a welcome relief under her bare legs and she stayed there for a while, her pets looking on in mild surprise. After a few minutes she tried getting up – she felt a bit strange but the rushing sound had gone. She looked in the mirrored doors of her fridge and she could see her face was chalk white. She didn’t look very well at all.

She was also surprised to see how thin she had become. The big velvet kimono was massive on her – she suddenly noticed how small her waist was now. She’d been so busy lately she hadn’t bothered to look at herself – now she stared in astonishment. After a few seconds, she shook her head to make the thought disappear. Coffee. Coffee made everything better. She’d make some and then go and have a bath. When she next had to walk past the fridge she made a point of looking away.

Later on in the bathroom she made herself look again. She couldn’t just see her ribs sticking out anymore, she could see the bones sticking out everywhere. Shit. How could that have happened? The doctor ages ago – months now – he had clearly been a complete wanker so she hadn’t paid attention when he’d told her she was losing too much weight - she knew what she was doing for goodness sake.

In all the chaos if her life lately, it had been so pleasant to have this one small thing she could control – there was so very little else that she could do much about. Still, to be on the safe side, after that she’d weighed herself once a week and she knew she was still ten pounds heavier than she’d been when she was very young – so everything must be ok surely.
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It struck her again when she got dressed – she hardly had anything to wear anymore – it was all much too big. Now even the size zeros she’d bought a few months back were actually too big. That was ridiculous. Size zero was stupid enough – size zero falling off her hips was just bizarre. She absolutely wasn’t anorexic – she couldn’t be – she was just small. People her age didn’t get like that. Then it uncomfortably came back into her head - the thing she’d been trying to push to the back of it every morning for the past few weeks – how odd it had felt in the bath lately – when she’d rested her back against the smooth side, her spine had hurt.

She was panicking a little now, not sure what to do. Half of her wanted to shrug it off and carry on as normal, as she’d done before. She was busy – there were a million things to do – no time to stop and worry about stuff like this. The other half knew she’d have to do something – but what? No way would she go to her GP – they were no good for anything there, and the idea of counselling made her shudder – talking to people was not her strong point.

She shook her head, as if dismissing the idea. Then she looked at the clock – shit was that the time? God, everything would be late if she carried on being so self-obsessed. She began threading the big belt through the jeans to hold them up, then she threw on a baggy cashmere jumper – it was so cold these days, and went back downstairs to start the day.