top of page

"GET RID OF FAT FAST NOT A FAD DIET" by Achi Mishra


CW: Self-harm


They bought tickets for India over the summer and the first thing she did was weigh herself. She looked at the number on the scale and didn’t write it down anywhere. She didn’t tell her family. Didn’t tell her friends. Didn’t even tell herself.

But she did the quick math. She needed to lose a trillion point two pounds. Fast. Within three months.

She poked at her belly fat, but it didn’t recoil in shame like it used to. It glared back at her like a disheveled bulbous creature from the deepest depths of the ocean.

“Try me you bitch,” it said.

So, she did. She really did. She went on the Mediterranean diet she was supposed to go on three years ago. She joined CrossFit and immediately quit. She tried rock-climbing but forgot she was afraid of heights. A fit judgey stranger had to help her down. She even tried intermittent fasting, but her belly dragged her out of bed at 3am and forced ice cream down her throat at gunpoint.

Then that gave her the shits.

And so, she found herself, a week before the flight to India, having lost only 2 pounds. Which still left her at around a trillion pounds to lose.

She poked at her belly, and it puffed itself out further.

“I win you lose,” it told her.

It wasn’t until the day before the flight that she found the GET RID OF FAT FAST NOT A FAD DIET on the far corners of the Internet. And she decided to give it a whirl. It promised fast results.

She grabbed the largest knife in the kitchen and started working away at her body. She cut the arm flabs first. Then the thighs. And her ass. She thought about holding on to the boobs, but they were useless, so she let them go too.

She saved belly for last. She wanted it to watch the others. Its friends. Rivers of thick blood flowed freely over it as it looked at her in shock and awe.

“WHAT THE FUCK! THESE AREN’T THE RULES!” it told her.

And then she cackled and sliced belly right off. Except it kept dangling because of her intestines. And those were slippery. So, she just chopped herself in half. And wriggled her top half on the scale.

But the number still wasn’t quite right. So, she chopped off her left hand. Popped out an eyeball. Sliced off her chipmunk cheeks.

Almost there. Almost there. As a last-ditch effort, she cracked open her skull with the back end of the knife. Scooped out her brain and placed it on the scale.

0 pounds. 0 pounds. 0 pounds. The scale blinked.



Achi Mishra currently lives in San Diego and is obsessed with writing and reading anything odd.

留言


bottom of page