A Thing of Beauty

“A Thing Of Beauty Is Joy Forever”- John Keats

As she bent down to pick the book up that the girl beside her had dropped, she read this quote written on the cover page. Then it struck her. She had almost forgotten about the extra pounds she gained over the week. Those jeans did not fit her the way they used to. She looked at her thighs. She hated the sight of those bulbous blocks of bricks. She quickly got up and handed the book over but her head remained bent down. She was humiliated by the sight of her morbidly obese body. But years of crash diets never helped.
“My thighs must be the size of her waist!”
She constantly dwelled into the shame of having to walk around with this bloated body. Especially when she saw girls with wafer-thin waists wearing pretty dresses that she too wanted to wear. And she knew why she felt that way.

“Tell me, Tina. Why do you want to take ballet lessons? To break the floor when you go en Pointe? You’ll have to pay for the damages, you know!”
Sounds of laughter reverberated. Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.
Tina wanted to do ballet. To wear the tiara, the pretty pink shoes. She wanted all of it, like any other 7 year old girl. But her “friends” seemed to think otherwise.

She turned back and started walking away in haste. Her ears were burning red; eyes began to pour out streams of tears. She could still hear the insults the girls were flinging away at her in the background. She hurried her pace wanting to hide under her pillow. She knew she did not look like the other girls. It was the first time her weight weighed her down.

Tina snapped back into the present. A sudden stream of tear rolled down her pink cheeks. She quickly wiped them away, asserting herself to stop getting overwhelmed. Not in a library. But not everyone had to wake up with a trampled self-esteem. Not everyone was stuck in this gigantic body. Not everyone had to struggle with their outward appearance the way she did. At least not the girl to whom she handed over the book.

















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Karen did not understand why she picked a book consisting of quotations on beauty. Maybe because it was a stark contrast to how she felt every day.
“How can beauty possibly be in the eye of the beholder when people everywhere have set standards of what should be considered ‘beautiful’?”
Karen cringed but the sudden thump of the fallen book from her hand severed this thought from her mind. Before she could bend down, the girl beside her reached for it.

“Oh, thanks. Butter fingers, I guess!”
The girl, however, did not respond and walked right past her. Karen found it rather insolent.
“An obnoxious stranger is all I needed to feel all the more down!”

Karen did not perceive herself as beautiful by any means. This was an issue that she was battling for quite some time. She detested looking at the face that stared back at her in the mirror. She detested her body. She detested everything about her!
Karen was bulimic.

Four years ago, Karen was like any other 18 year old. Until she was brought down by THAT guy. Karen remembered the horribly daunting experience. Jake Young, she could never forget that name. He was the person whose rejection turned her into the weakest version of herself.
She had never thought of herself the way she thinks now. She started disparaging herself in every possible way. The next thing she knew- she was bulimic.

The binge-eating, self-induced vomiting and finally purging it all out was the routine of which she soon became habitual.

Karen looked down at those scars at the back of her hands. Her doctor’s appointment was due at 5 O’clock and all she could think about was the downgrade humiliation of everything she would have to confess then.

“I wonder if the doc can me feel better about myself…”
Deep within, it was all she ever wanted.















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“So how are we feeling today?”

He was too occupied with his thoughts to reply.

He had been battling terminal cancer for over four years- the jolting reality of his life.
He remembered the first time when he was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. His life had transformed immensely. He remembered how he had to change cities for his treatment. He remembered how none of those treatments worked. He would still die, no matter what.
But that wasn’t what he was contemplating. He was thinking about the most beautiful girl he had ever known. How things could have turned out differently…

He wished he had acquired the courage to talk to her BEFORE he had acquired cancer!

“You’re a really cool girl. But I don’t think if I can see us going down that road. You get it, right?”

He struggled to come off as nonchalant.

“Yeah, I get it. Whatever.”
She was transparent when she tried to camouflage her emotions. He wasn’t.

But he couldn’t prolong this façade any longer.

Someone shouted his name in the background. “Jake, come here fast!”
“COMING! Have to go, Karen. Take care.”

He walked away swiftly. This was the hardest walk of his life.

To Jake, Karen was amazingly beautiful. Not just superficially. Her beauty comprised of the little things that accompanied her. Like her honesty. How her nose twitched when she exultantly talked about something. Her ability to talk for hours without giving anyone the chance to speak and how she lacked guile.

“Jake, are you listening?”

Jake pushed aside his thoughts.

“Yes, Dr. Schmidt, umm…what?”

“Your sister has arrived. I’m calling her in.”

His wandering mind still helplessly wondered how things would have turned out had he told Karen everything. If only he wasn’t ashamed of his cancer.

“Maybe she would have been here, with me…”













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