Cheese, bullied

   Every single time she ate cheese, she suffered from stomach ache and the most awful and embarrassing case of gas that anyone could suffer. As many people with the same problem, Lila had learn to ask every time she ate in a restaurant if the meal she was about to ask for had any traces of cheese. Some people did the same with peanuts and others with other types of food, but her problem was with cheese. However, she did have to see cheese ever single day at home as everyone else was able to process it normally, so they ate it.

 She really didn’t like to be a nuisance, a problem of some kind. She knew it was very annoying for other people when she had to ask for traces of cheese. And when people didn’t want to understand what the problem was, it was extremely embarrassing to tell them what would happen if she ate just a small piece of cheese. She would go very red and her voice would tremble and every person would feel awkward because it seemed she was over sharing when she was just explaining how awful it was for her to eat something that could even kill her.

 Lila had discovered her condition in high school. It was one of the worst memories for her to remember. When she was a very little girl, she actually loved cheese and her mother would always put some string cheese on her lunchbox because she knew how much she adored it. Lila would eat it very slowly; enjoying every single piece as if it was some kind of delicacy that only a few people had access to. Her friends always thought it was something very weird but they never said anything about it, at least not back then.

 Years later, when she became a teenager, she still had much love for cheese. But it was one day in high school when they were presented with pasta for lunch and she decided to practically cover her plate with Parmesan cheese. Her friends laugh and she did it partially to be funny. When a teacher noticed what she was doing, he told her she had to eat that whole plate of food if she didn’t want to be taken to the principal’s office for wasting food and playing with it instead of eating like all the rest of the students.

 Lila accepted the challenge and ate the whole plate. The teacher watched her do it as well as her friends that applauded her once she was done. It was one of those really cool moments in school when teacher get served when they’re being impossible and just ridiculous. However, only five minutes after finishing or so, Lila began to feel really bad. She felt as if someone with a knife was cutting her stomach from the inside. It was awful. She tried to resist the pain for a while but she finally asked her teacher for permission to go to the nurse’s office.

 And just as she did so, she farted. It was loud and clear and charged with a foul smell that filled the rather small classroom. Every single person there complained and laughed and booed her. She had to run away, having the door behind her open. Her body had betrayed her in the most awful way possible and, to be honest, she didn’t even think about the nurse when she ran out of the room. She regretted leaving her backpack. What she really wanted to do was to go home and never come back to any of her classes for the rest of the year.

 However, that was not possible. She wandered around school until a teacher saw her. Then, she almost ran to the nurse’s office and told her what had happened. Nurse Holly obviously wanted to laugh but tried not to and instead told Lila to lay down in order to be properly examined. As it was obvious, her stomach was bloated. That and the foul gad indicated she had something to eat that wasn’t very well received by her stomach. The nurse asked her to remember what she had eaten so they could know what it was that caused it.

 Of course, the huge bowl of pasta came to her head fast. Nurse Holly said it could be either the cheese or the pasta because many people in the world weren’t able to eat either of them. So she gave the girl a pill for her ill stomach and told her to remain there for a while until it worked. Then, she could choose going back to class or going home. It was only an hour and a half to go to the end of the school day so there wasn’t much difference, she said. She clearly didn’t know how embarrassed Lila was about had just happened.

 Her mother came to pick her up and she wasn’t very happy about it as classes would finish in only an hour. She told her daughter she could’ve resisted a little bit more and just come on the school bus as every single day. She was obviously not very happy about having to pick her daughter in school because it disrupted her schedule. She was a realtor, selling properties in the area to people that wanted to live in one of the most well taken care of area of the city. She made a very nice living, so her daughter interrupting wasn’t the best thing to happen.

 When Lila arrived home, she quickly ran to her room and closed the door. Her mother didn’t understand how embarrassed and humiliated she felt after what happened. She had tried to explain but her mother was too busy with her things to actually hear her daughter speak for a couple of minutes. So Lila would rather just be alone in her room and suffer her stomachache there without anyone that would make her feel annoyed or underappreciated. After all she was teenager in her most difficult years.

 She didn’t really want to go to school the next day but her parents said that food poisoning was not an excuse to miss more than one day of school. And they were so strict that missing an hour was for them the same thing that missing a full day. So Lila had to hop in the school bus in the morning and from that point on she felt every single look on her. She could even hear the laughs and jokes but she tried hard not to care or, at least, not to be aware of everyone for the rest of the day. She just wanted every class to be fast so the day could finish soon.

 However, that rarely happens in high school. Her first subject was History and, for her, there wasn’t a more boring assignment. She normally wandered off in that class, drawing doodles on her notebook or passing little notes to her friends, normally talking about some boy or mocking the teacher. But this time, she wasn’t included in that activity. She noticed when one of the girls turned around, looked at her as if she was garbage and then passed the note to another girl sitting beside her. That felt even more humiliating that the fart.

 Her social life went in decline since that awful day. So much so than the following week, Lila didn’t have someone to sit with her at lunch. And then, the jokes got meaner and they weren’t whispered anymore but yelled in the hallways and everywhere a large crowd was inspired to laugh at her and imitate the sound of farts with hands and arms and mouths. It was very humiliating. Lila tried to talk with the principal but he dismissed her saying that she was imagining things, as people didn’t get bullied in his school. And then it became clear to her: she wasn’t the only one.

 Many others were bullied in school. Of course, not for the same things as her, but it did happen and more often than the school would admit. They teased a boy for being gay and a girl for not dressing “fashionable” enough. And of course, they teased people for being fat and others for being poor. So Lila decided to punch back and tried to talk with every single one of those who had been insulted, pushed around and called names. She wanted them all to be with her in order to do something that, she thought, would make things change.

 Her mother had sold a house to a very renowned news anchor and she had become friends with him. Lila convinced her mother to let her talk to him and her mother, seeing how insisting she was, accepted. The man thought it was a very important local subject and assigned someone to it. A week after, everyone in the city knew about how bullying was going rampant in schools for the stupidest reasons and how no one was doing anything to help. The report had serious consequences and all because of a plate full of cheese.

Change

   It’s very strange when everything is so familiar but, at the same time, it feels so strange, as if it wasn’t real. Of course everything is real. I haven’t stepped into another dimension or anything of the sort. I just stepped into a plane and, because of the time change, it seems like an eleven-hour flight was only about four hours. I suppose that means I gained some time but I do no feel very fortunate to have achieved that. Again, it feels like I’ve cheated somehow but that’s silly, as many people do it in a day and other lose hours, myself included.

 The body is the one that is the most confused. My mind, I think, can understand the issue but the body, as you know, has a process of adjustment that takes a bit more time. And it’s not only about the fact that time was involved in the process, it’s also the change in weather and surroundings. Things cannot be more different and, at the same time, they are exactly the same. I know: I don’t really make sense. And, to be honest, I won’t be trying to make sense for the next few lines because I think it’s not necessary. Everyone can understand this situation.

 One thing that struck me right as I stepped out of the plane was the cold. I mean, I have lived with this cold for a good time of my life, but I didn’t seem to remember how peculiar it is. It feels like something gently pressuring your body from every side, very gently. It’s certainly not as awful as full-blown winter weather but it had a particularity that I think most people ignore. Maybe it’s because it can go away pretty fast if the sun and the clouds help, not that it happens that often. Oh and the clouds! So many, many thick clouds.

 I forgot I wasn’t going to see much of the sky here. It rains constantly, making the city appear even darker than it is. The weather in some parts of the world really doesn’t help at all, not the people living there or the ones visiting. And it always leaves a lasting impression because it’s the subject people love to talk about. They remember the weather in one place better than many other things that could happen. It could seem as if it wasn’t that important but I do think it is crucial to what someone might think and how a place can be perceived.

 Oh, and I’m coughing. But it’s not the weather here that caused that. Instead, it was the dry cold air in the airplane, which has been really annoying to me in the recent days. Before this flight, I took other two less than two weeks ago so it makes sense why my nose cannot seem to get better at all and why I seem to be in the brink of the flu every day. I think I’ve been able to push it away for a while but it would be difficult to do that forever. At one given time, I will have to be sick again and I’m not looking forward to that at all.

 Another funny thing, or maybe not funny but just curious, is the fact that my bags felt very full but, in the end, they did not contain anything out of the ordinary. Just clothes, some souvenirs and a bunch of paper I like to collect in the form of tourist brochures, magazines, books and others. I don’t really have that many pieces of clothing or anything. In fact, I had to throw away a few things in order to be able to get it all in the bags without making them too “overweight” for the airline’s regulations.

 I will be able to put everything in its place in less than thirty minutes, maybe even counting all of that paper I told you I have. It gets a bit ridiculous when you’re able to put every single piece of your life in two bags and then move them from one continent to the other. It really makes you think about the print your putting into this world and how important it might really be. It makes you think about your life, your achievements, everything. It can certainly be kind of overwhelming, when you’re playing close attention.

 But I did it without paying attention and I think it was for the best. It’s not useful to confront everything in your life in one go. It is much better if you just deal with one thing at a time. That guarantees that you can achieve better conclusions, instead of suffering because of everything that you might “find out” about yourself. I guess it really depends on how much you know and accept yourself. It may be even possible that you don’t have to face any demons because you don’t have any. No one knows how fast people confront their fears and anxieties.

 Sorry, I feel I veered in the wrong direction with that last paragraph. I guess it’s because change is always so hard on people, no matter who you are. Change takes a toll in the heart and the soul but not always in a bad way. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with and I’ve done it before so I know what I’m talking about. It can be very challenging to get from point A to point B, sometimes even impossible for some. But for others, like me in this very moment, it is not a matter of wanting but rather a matter of having to.

 There are clothes on the floor and objects beneath the bed. The bags are there, gently asking to be liberated from all my things and even my cellphone is asking to work in an environment different to the one he was in. Even inanimate objects seem to realize that things have changed. Or maybe that’s just me, imagining things to make everything a little bit easier. Who knows? Or… who cares, to be honest? I think I’m allowed to think and care about many different things right now, especially as I get used to the altitude, which can take a while.

 Page three and I think I have nothing more to say. It feels weird that even my fingers seem to weigh more here. My body in general feels heavier for some reason. Is that even normal? I hope it is because it’s certainly no fun at all. I expect my head to hurt a little bit in the next few days and my eyes to adjust to the light, because even that it’s slightly different. People never think about things like that and the fact is that they really affect your life without you even noticing.

 I have some reordering to do, some things to throw away and some others to fit in their new spots. I think that may happen in the next week or two because everything will feel strange for a while now, even people’s accent, as well as their way of doing things. I now it sounds silly but people are only equal before the law. In all other cases people are extremely different in ways that most people never even think about. I like that but at the same time I know how difficult it can be to adjust. Time will tell I guess. Isn’t that funny?

 I forget to say that I feel different anyways. I mean, I’m no exactly the same person that left a year ago. It may seem like I am, and probably not that many things have changed, but I do feel I have made important changes in how I perceive the world around me. It has been in my best interest and I frankly don’t think all those changes will be annulled being in here. If anything, they will all be but to the test again and that’s what life is all about so I don’t fear any of that. Challenge is a natural process and I, for one welcome it.

 I will have to make adjustments, of course. Pretending nothing has changed is a stupid way to face life. The best thing is to find out what’s the best new way to do the things you have and like to do and then it all becomes clearer and life just transforms into a good path to walk on. And that’s what I really want to happen. I want a path to follow; I want my steps to be safe and not to stumble down from one side to the other. I want to have security and also I want to be certain that life can find it’s way to me and me to it. Does that make sense?

 Probably not. I think that many of the things I wrote here, this morning, don’t make any sense at all. But that doesn’t really matter. I can blame the cold or the bed or maybe even my body. Hell, I can even blame my brain for being robbed of many hours! The truth is change has happened and it would be, at the very least, interesting to know what happens next. So many things are lurking around in life, waiting to be found or to jump on top of you. Let’s just breathe a little bit and take it slowly, trying to avoid pain and just having the best time possible.

Physical

   The first thing was to remove my clothes. I had no problem with that except that the area destined to that wasn’t at all empty. One of the men that served as janitor in the premises was taking a very long time emptying each one of the trashcans in the area and then two other clients stepped in. But as fast as I could, I used my towel wrapped around my waist first and then I removed the underwear. When I was ready, a woman was expecting me at the door. I thought she might not be very happy about me taking so long to get undressed but the truth was she didn’t seem to mind.

 I followed her through the maze like first floor of the building and then we stopped in front of an elevator. She told me, as if she was telling me something she had learned by heart, that there were no rooms available on the first floor so someone was waiting for me in the fifth floor. I just nodded, as if accepting that would change anything. I was already there, I had paid up front, so nothing I could do would make the slightest different whatsoever. Waiting there for a while was not the most comfortable thing though.

 I always thought they gave you some kind of robe to cover your whole body but that was not the case there. Everyone one I saw, including myself, was wearing just a towel around the waist and that was it. If someone wanted to cover more they had to use their arms or probably ask for a second towel although I had no idea how that would happen, as the workers in that place tended to disappear in the places you needed them the most, like in the dressing room that was filled with other people so it would have been the same if one of them was there.

 In front of the elevator, other clients started stopping by. I was surprised to see a woman but then realized she probably had an urge to do it too so it made sense if you thought about it. A man with his back covered in hair also parked himself in front of the elevator. He was very tall and all his furriness was very distracting. It was like looking at a very large bear or something of the sort. Each one of us was accompanied by someone form the place, which was kind of weird. In any other place, we would have been very easy to pick out from a crowd.

 The elevator finally opened and we all, the six of us, got in. I felt a sudden wave of heat when the doors closed and I realized I had my face only centimeters away from the hairy back of the tall guy. The woman was on a corner, not even faking she was not liking it so much. She wasn’t alone as I had the sudden thought of staying in that elevator once it got back down. There was no way in hell I would be staying in such a place. I had committed a mistake and needed to save myself from it as fast as I could. My mind was racing.

The door finally opened and we all got out at the same time. It was as if we had been liberated from jail or something. Each one of the assistants from the place took each one of us in a different direction and I think we all thanked them for it. I walk by a large quantity of door and then the woman that was leading the way told me to wait inside one of the rooms. She opened the door and revealed a really nice office with something I hadn’t seen in a while: a big window overlooking the city.

 As I stepped in the room, the woman slammed the door behind me leaving me completely alone in a space I had never been in before. I saw the table, the classic one, right there in the middle. There were also some chairs all around and a sofa, although I had no idea why that was there. Was someone staying overnight to sleep in that office? Or did they have an audience each time they were with a client? The seating capacity was unusually high for what I would have expected in such a place. The view though, was the best part of it all.

 I got close to the window and looked in front of me: the city appeared to be all at my feet. The tallest building was not that tall and all the people and cars looked like ants under my feet. As I was barefoot, the sensation was even more powerful and funny. I decided that if I ever won the lottery or if my job gave me the possibilities, I would try to live in that area in order to get that same view from my bedroom and even my bathroom. Imagining that made me smile like an idiot and ignore that the door had been opened moments ago.

 My towel almost fell to the floor the moment a person coughed, obviously trying to get my attention. I thought they would knock first or something but no, that wasn’t a thing in that place. When I turned around to see the person I would be involved with for the next hour, I realized there was something wrong. Well, not wrong but it wasn’t like I was expecting it. The person who had coughed was a man. Granted, he was a very handsome man who was probably very good at his job but I wasn’t expecting a male on my first time there.

 He noticed my hesitation to get near him and it was him who walked towards me and extended his hand for me to shake it. We did that and it was very amazing to feel that the man was very calm and had one of those smiles that make you very mellow in a second. He told me that the person assigned to me wasn’t going to make it so they had decided to send him instead. He apologized for that and hoped I didn’t mind him being assigned to me. I was so relaxed by only watching his face that I didn’t answer with words but only by shaking my head affirmatively, with a silly smile.

 Out of the blue, he grabbed one of my hands and I thought I was about to burst into happiness. Why did it felt so right, so perfect? I had no idea back then and I couldn’t find the reason why many days afterwards. His touch was a very special thing, that was for sure. He took me to the table in the center and told me to lay down there for him. Again, I nodded and smiled like an idiot, unable to actually talk like any human would normally do. There was something about him that made me act like that and I didn’t care what it was at the moment.

 I laid down on the table for him, still smiling. I looked at the ceiling as I smiled and I was so distracted by my strange behavior that I didn’t notice he had already started. His hands were a little bit warmer than before. They glided down my skin with grace. My body started feeling every single touch as if it was the first contact with anyone in my life. It was such a strange feeling to have but I certainly like it and I think I got him to know that a couple of times.

 He started on my arms and then on my neck area and then my chest. It was a really nice experience. People had told me that it sometimes hurt but I realized they had all been wrong or had visited awful places because that guy was making me feel as if he was taking layers and layers of unnecessary stuff from me. He was taking away all the things my body didn’t need anymore and I truly began to feel lighter, to feel as if I could float away and wander around the room if he wasn’t there to hold my body. It was a very nice feeling.

When he moved on the legs, I have to say the magic went away for a second. I have always been ashamed of my legs so having someone touch them was not a very easy thing for me. But he did his jobs in such a way; I just didn’t care about my problems anymore. As he did my legs, he asked me to turn around in order to do the rest. I complied almost without hesitation, turned around in an instant. In that moment, I didn’t want such an amazing experience to end. I felt so much better than when I had entered the building.

 He finished with my legs and then did my back and neck in order to finish. When I felt his hands off me, I felt a bit sad. So sad in fact, that I laid there way too long. When I turned around to ask for his name, he was gone. The woman that had brought me there was waiting at the door, again. We took the elevator down; I dressed in the locker room and left feeling much better than I had ever felt before. But I was also wondering about him, I could still feel his hands all over my body. Who thought a day in the spa would be so rewarding?

Who Dunnit?

   There was a little bit of cold chicken in a bag and some old bread around the second big bin. The trick was to clean it all real good, being careful none of the filth of the rest of the thing inside the containers could harm the good things that were waiting for anyone to grab. Viv had been doing I for five years and now she knew how to look for the best in the best parts of town. Of course, she had to go at night, but not loo late or the guys of the garbage trucks would throw it all away.

 One day, she was even lucky enough to find half a pizza. And I was very good, made out of a lot of vegetables. The only bad thing was that it was cold but to that she was already used to and she didn’t care at all. In other places it was very hard to get any of that but that neighborhood, called Spring Heights, had the best meals for any person that happened to live on the streets. The problem was the security crews and the police who loved to fuck anyone who entered those communities.

 Every time Viv was caught there, she reminded the police that she wasn’t doing anything wrong and that no one could get harmed by her feeding herself with things no one even wanted anymore. It wasn’t like she grabbed clothes or real expensive things from he garbage. She could’ve but people in that area seemed to be very careful not to throw away things that were very valuable, except when it was about food. Then they didn’t care at all about the treasures that they gave away.

 One day she was even able to eat three sushi rolls. Viv was scared about that food because she knew it was raw fish and that, if old, she may have been in for some serious stomachache, but nothing happened and she realized how overrated that kind of food was.

 But her moment happened the day she found something very different in the garbage. She had managed to avoid the private security, again, and was checking on some boxes by a big house on the hill, when she was almost paralyzed with fear. When she took out a plastic bag filled with lots of crap, there was something in there she knew wasn’t very common to see in the trash: it was a human ear.

 It was the first time Viv ran to the police. At first, they didn’t want to talk to her because they knew her really well but after some serious consideration, they heard what she had to say. The consideration was basically when she three the bag with the ear on the chief of police’s desk and was almost tackled to the ground by two male officers. Her move had been very bold but effective, as the police sent several of their own to check the rest of the boxes she had been going through.

 They found the other ear and also a couple of fingers. When they rang the bell at the mansion the bins belonged to, they didn’t get any answer. The cops seriously had no interest in talking to anyone in that house but it was a formality that they had to proceed with. The house was better known as Montecarlo, the preferred mansion in the city of one of the richest men alive. Or maybe it was fairer to say he was barely alive, as he neared ninety years old. That and his unlimited power were the reasons cops didn’t really want to bother him.

 But in any case, no one answered the door. They tried multiple times for months and no one answered. Even when contacted through the main offices of the conglomerate the man was president of, no one would say a thing. It was very uncommon and mysterious but also predictable as no well known person would even think about being caught in a scandal such as that one that not only involved body parts found in the trash, but also a homeless woman and the police.

 The ears were sent to a laboratory for exams and the results were very interesting: apparently, they had been removed fairly recently, not even a month ago. The studies also said the owner of those ears was probably younger than forty years old but older than twenty-five years old, according to the cartilage and general shape of them. They also concluded that the ears had been sawed from the body they had been attached to, which indicated the police that they may have been dealing with the case in the wrong way.

 Those techniques to remove body parts were primarily used by men in the mob or in any other organizations that dedicated themselves to using violent methods. The cops went through every single mobster they had arrested recently in order to get a confession that they had done it but none of them seemed to understand what he was talking about. They were even so bold to say they hadn’t done that in a while.

 But how to believe a mobster when he was arrested for reckless driving and attempted murder of their own wife? Others had even had their closest enemies killed and had no problem at all talking about it. But they’d rather be damned than accept they had cut off those ears. They didn’t insisted on the subject but most of them were consistently positive they had nothing to do with it.

 That was not good news for the police that had been investigating for more than six months and nothing had come up: the mobsters said they weren’t the ones, the owner of the bins was a no show and even Viv had stopped helping them because she thought the police was only good for taking her away of all the street’s great prizes.

  Almost a year would pass until another body part was found in a garbage bin; very close to the ones that Viv ad been going threw. The foot was from a male body and it wasn’t especially big. The scientists at the police were able to confirm with a high degree of certainty that the foot and the ears came from the same person. The police couldn’t ignore this anymore, so they ordered a sweep of every trashcan in the hill. Groups of people would go through every single garbage container in order to look for the rest of the body.

 The cops were smart enough to get Viv to help them, as she was the one that knew perfectly about every single spot to throw food and possibly body parts. They started on the bottom of the hill and worked their way up. They didn’t find anything near the first houses but as time passed, other parts were discovered: a nose, a finger, and a toe. They kept appearing as the police worked their way up to the top of the hill, where the wealthiest people lived.

 Of course, the whole thing was an epic scandal and many rich people thought the police should stop targeting their neighborhood as if they were the ones to blame for whatever had happened. They insisted no one from the hill would even think about killing, simply because they were all so rich they didn’t need to do it. Their reasoning was easy to understand but simply not good enough.

 After several weeks of research, they had collected enough body parts to do a proper examination and attempt to reconstruct the whole person or at least what was his or hers most likely appearance. When Viv found a penis by a fence, they knew it was a male. All the parts were dry some that’s why blood testing was impossible and only reconstruction of the whole body was the only real solution to the problem.

 Searches on the garbage bins ended soon and the police dedicated themselves for a week to reconstructing the body, part by part. There were still some large parts missing but most small pieces were there. It was one of the female cops that dropped her coffee when she entered the room to deliver a letter to the chief of the scientific staff. She knew whom the body had belonged to.

 This time, they didn’t ask to be invited in. The doors of the mansion were toppled down and every corner of the premises searched. The head was found on a pike, in the living room, by the fireplace. Someone really hated the richest man in the city, to the point of killing him in his own house and dividing his body all over the hill. Who had done it?