Allow me to share with you one of those moments that makes life almost unlivable:
I was in a grocery store in California, a Vons, I believe, talking to my girlfriend. Suddenly, a look of complete and utter horror was on her face. Being concerned with the sudden change in both her appearance and demeanor, I asked her what was wrong. She merely continued to stare. After a moment I figured out that she was staring over my shoulder.
And so I turned.
There stood one of the most singular horrifying things I've ever seen. I say 'thing' because, even to this day, my mind cannot comfortably put the label of 'human being' to it. It was more akin to something from a Lovecraft novel and less like something from a human womb.
In bare feet should must have stood nearly 6'2" tall. Initially I thought that she must have weighed half a ton. Realistically, she probably weighed around four hundred, perhaps four hundred and fifty, pounds. This alone was mind-boggling, or at least, stomach churning.
After a few moments I was able to take in details. Never I have wished so fervently to have been born blind or suffered some fate that would have rendered me so. As it was, I instantly considered gouging out my own eyes. Whatever I might have done, the point was moot. I was transfixed, much akin to rabbit that just spotted the snake that was its demise, I could not move.
I first took in the fact that she had not a single chin, but a row of chins. The end result was that she did so much as have a neck, but a head-stump. Just in case someone may have been denied the pleasure of counting those numerous chins, she had been thoughtful enough to put her hair back into a bun. All the better to view her head-stump.
Slowly, and with seemingly of no violation of my own, my head stared its horrific decent.
As my vision came upon the sloping ridges that were her shoulders, I identified the straps of a spaghetti string top. And yet I couldn't stop the horrible, horrible descent of my view. So composed of fat was she, that it gathered in roll upon roll on chest, insomuch that anything built like a redwood tree has a chest. It appeared that she had two, perhaps three, rows of breasts on her. In any lurid sciencfiction or fantasy novel, this would have elicited a great wave of pleasure. But no. To have, what should have been a dream come true, turned into so horrific a moment almost resulted in the psychological destruction of all that was me. It was like finding out that not only did Santa not exist, but that his greatest past-time was poking puppies in the eyes with needles.
My senses were slowly returning and I contemplated running for life. Who knew how hungry she might be. Then I realized how futile that would have been. For on each of her arms was a wing composed of pliable flesh. I knew that if I attempted to run, her eating instincts would take hold and she would leap to the wing and hunt me down. It was far safer to stand still.
Down, down crept my vision. I followed the fabric of her top and without warning the fabric ended yet the flesh went on. It's like driving across a bridge and realizing, too late, that the bridge had come to an end but has not reached the other side. Your life is coming to an end.
But yet I lived.
My eyes traversed the open expanse of her midriff. The very fact that it was exposed indicated that a some point in the past the sun should have shone upon it. Yet it had the same coloration as a cave fish. Perhaps the sun could not grace the entire surface of something so inhumanly large.
Onward, onward...
Once my gaze fell upon the skirt that she wore, I took comfort. That same comfort that one takes when the police cover up the body that you have just identified. Then, in a moment that only the most sadistic person could construct, that cover was whisked away to display that same body months later. I come to one mind-searing fact: she wore a mini-skirt. A very short mini-skirt.
And beneath it lie the entire road map of California. Or at least, that was what my tortured mind has constructed as a self-defense. Yes, she must have covered up what lay beyond. She had covered it up with a road map of California. The 'roads' slowly came into focus. With a mind numbing realization, I concluded that they were not the cleanly drawn lines of Rand McNally publication, but the highways and byways of her varicose veins. My mind nearly became as fractured as her legs appeared to be.
Long did my eyes wander those blood-clotted roads. It made the wandering of the Jews seem like a pleasant afternood stroll.
I realized that my journey of pain was near to ending. I beheld her shoes. Black, laced, stiletto shoes. From between those strips of cloth buldged the cellulite essesse of her. Atop of narrow heals did she stand. It was an affront to everthing that Sir Issac Newton had postulated. How could such flimsy string hold back such a torrent of flesh? How could she stand upon such pointed heals and not drive them into the Earth? I stood there as my belief in the universe was stripped from me.
Finally, mercifully, my gaze reach the linoleum floor. I stood for a time that I cannot remember. Until at last I regained my senses and dared to look up. It had gone and I was alive. It was physically gone, but the mental image, that which my mind can fathom, remains burned into my counsiousness.
I shall never be free.