There was something wrong with her. There was nothing wrong. The sign said “Free Soup”. It was being dispatched in unmatched ceramic mugs by one of those clubs at uni. The Christian group, it looked like. She hesitated. Screw it. She wanted soup. Against her better judgement she slouched into the line.
She managed to receive her mug with minimal eye contact and stood off the side, spooning it in as slowly as she could and wishing she were someone else. She successfully made it two thirds down before she saw the girl who’d served her approaching. She tensed.
“You know, God loves you. He really does.”
Whatever. She knew she was supposed to be grateful, talk to her, or whatever. That first session of uni she’d found pretty much every gratis item and activity on offer (in the interests of being resourceful. Truly), but they were right. There really was no such thing as a free lunch. You had to give something – time, attention, precious mental real estate… and she was paying for the privilege of being here. Or rather, the government and her parents were. Her stomach lurched. She was just a moocher. Suddenly she was swamped by the panicked reminder that she needed to study. Then it was deadened again by the cravings. The do-gooder was wasting her breath; she was a waste of space.
“Ok. Thanks.” Now get out of my face so I can finish this and get back to hating life.
She didn’t need their churchy help. She was beyond it anyway. She muttered her way through the smalltalk that followed. The soup was not enough—she knew it wouldn’t be. There were too many people around, anyway. She needed to be alone, with the food and something to blank out her mind so that she could stop being aware of how shit she was, and how the only way she could escape that was to become even more shit by eating everything that wasn’t nailed down.
No, that wasn’t the way. She knew she should stop, and could stop. But then what? Then she had to be an adult. She would just have to quietly suffer the endless barrage of assignments, the supercilious housemate, the long walks to uni since the theft of her bicycle. She would need to accept that she would never get enough sleep, and instead of listening to her inner victim whine constantly about her stupid first world problems, just buck the fuck up and get on with it.
She succeeded a few times. There were periods of a few days, even almost a week once when she didn’t give in, white-knuckled through interminable hours, thought after thought that she was wrong, that she couldn’t do this, that she would never get anywhere, with or without this degree that she didn’t deserve, that she should just walk out of the lecture and give in to the head-pounding cold-sweating need to disappear into the nothingness of something sweet or salty or anything really, just anything on her tongue. She dragged herself through the fog and managed to take in miniscule amounts of information, allow herself engage again with what she was supposed to be learning. She was still getting high distinctions, but felt that she knew nothing. And then, while she was going so well, she’d find herself letting that voice convince her to just have one thing. Just something small, just a small binge. Or it would happen seemingly while her mind was in another part of the room, browsing psychology books on the second floor of the library one minute, passing out in a sugar coma under her doona and textbooks the next.
The worst thing was the feeling of betrayal. She was actually really interested in this stuff. She loved learning about taxonomy. Looking down microscopes was an adventure into a wondrous universe where she could have happily escaped for hours…And then the cravings came back. She thought about how her dad had taken out some of his super to pay for her course, so she didn’t have a debt. About how peoples’ taxes were funding her education and she was pissing it away, wanting to escape. She volunteered at the co-op so that the world had fewer plastic bags to choke ignorant animals and bleed petrochemicals into the sea, and the cravings came back, and she spent countless afternoons going back and forth between the distraction of the carob drum and her lonely seat at the till, swearing and swallowing as the float refused to balance. She would wake from the daze, afterwards in furious or despairing shame, or in the aching streetlit hours of the early morning, burning with the knowledge that she was selling herself out for a momentary hit that she knew could not cure her grief.
Inexplicably, either before or after the soup mug incident—she doesn’t remember—one morning she went to church with the two nice Sri Lankan sisters from the unit next door. Contrary to her prior Catholic experiences in a cold, booming cathedral, this took place in a renovated theatre whose light-studded entrance fronted the main street.
At some point they asked if anyone needed prayer. Her throat closed over and she put her hand up in the darkened amphitheatre that reminded her of the entertainment centre back home where she’d sung in eisteddfods as a kid. Other people did too, and they came around and prayed for them. She sat back down, waiting. They passed the bucket around and she dropped in a few coins, but then before the last round of songs they passed it around again. That was it. She snapped awake again. This was one of those cult churches that sucked people in for their cash. The televangelist ones, the theatrical ones with the ‘faith’ healings that happened only in poor ignorant peoples’ minds. The ones that come around to your door uninvited, or stand on street corners, trying to sell religion. The ones her parents had warned her about.
Afterwards everyone milled in the air-conditioned foyer. They invited her to sit on the red leather couches. Morning tea muffins were offered. When was it that she’d joked with someone about this? Don’t eat the food, it’s probably drugged. That’s why people are so smiley and keep going back. She refused flatly.
“Do you want to leave your number with us?” they asked expectantly. “We’ll see you again next week?”
“Probably not,” she said. They looked confused at her sudden about-face and she couldn’t help but enjoy it. She had returned to her usual rational, cynical self. Whatever they wanted from her, they weren’t getting it. And whatever it was she needed, it wasn’t something that these or any other people could help her with. Clearly.
Metanoia 