Practicing to Walk Like a Heron

The End of the Fat Lady

101 The End of the Fat Lady Come on down in a little closer and let me tell you about some of the strange people we have on the inside. —Traditional sideshow bark She lies back, spreads her arms and legs, and makes an angel in the snow, her smile unfolding into the falling flakes, her eyes opening into the gray day’s sky. She holds her place on this wintered earth, wonders if the snow, cold and soft against her thighs, could ever deepen enough to bury her. Would she die before a thaw? Years ago she sat in the swelter of summer absorbed in the daily empty gazes at her anonymous fat. She never spoke as they walked by. No one paused. Some glanced back, caught her eye, and she would stare into all she knew they thought: Poor thing. How does she move? What makes someone gain all that weight? If she smiled, they would turn away, head on to gawk at Seal Boy and The Half Girl. She wanted to tell them, “No. Down deep I am not the same as you. Down deep there is just 102 more fat. And a barge, a team of tired horses, and a dozen books I’ve read a hundred times. Nothing else.” Then the morning after the sideshow closed for good, there was only the sky. In winter, summer, every day, the sky. ...