Fast

Patricia Ace

I've been fasting for six days now. The day dawns dark, wet and windy. I stay in bed a long time, drifting and dozing and having weird dreams. I don't want to get up and the longer I stay in bed the less time I am aware, conscious of not eating, of all I am missing.

I am feeling the cold. Perhaps because I have less flesh to provide insulation, perhaps because I am less energetic and active, perhaps because the first real winter weather is setting in. My hands and feet are especially cold. I wear two pairs of trousers, two jumpers and a thermal vest and I still feel cold. I feel tired too. Bowel movements have been reduced to greenish-black watery splats, like duck poo. I have adjusted to the increase in fluids so I am not peeing all the time as I was on the first two days of the fast. Then the wee in the toilet bowl was dark and woody, as toxins worked their way out to every surface of my body; my mouth dry and fusty, my tongue grey and furry, as if a fungus had taken hold; my underarms clammy all the time. Two days ago my daughter said my breath smelt like the breath of her grandparents.

Today there are little bumps on my forehead but my skin looks taut and clear. My eyeballs are bright and shiny as hard boiled eggs. My tongue is yellowy-brown but the awful taste and smell has gone. I have lost nine pounds in weight since I started the fast. Now I notice my watch swivel on my wrist, loose; my wedding ring relaxes its snug grip on my finger. My knickers sag from my bottom, puckered and baggy. I think about girls who starve themselves. I think what if I just kept going? I think about a layer of soft fur covering the body, the end of periods, the skeleton becoming obvious. I can't think about people who are really starving, in Africa. Because I am doing this by choice. I can't put myself in the same category as the genuinely starving.

I go downstairs and make up the mixture which has been my breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last week. Measure out the syrup carefully and then squeeze three and a half lemons into it. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper. Add two litres of water. Shake it up. Pour. Taste. Luckily I like the taste of it, lemony and spicy from the cayenne.

As I drink I look out to the garden. It is October and nature is shedding. From the window I watch as the chocolate tree by the drive drops leaf after leaf in the wind and the rain. I am counting down the leaves left on the thin branches. Seventeen, nine, four; I want to be present when the last leaf falls. I want to watch its fluttering descent, dropping onto the bark chippings in the flowerbed below like a gold coin sinking to the bottom of a fountain. I also want to shed. I want to lose things. I want to find things too. But I don't know what they are yet.

After 'breakfast' I do my yoga and pranayama, breathing exercises. I am strengthening apana vayu , strengthening elimination. Breathing in for eight counts, holding the breath for four, breathing out for sixteen counts, holding out for four. After, I feel warm and peaceful and like I am melting.

My partner prepares lunch. It is one of my favourite meals, a vegetarian roast dinner, and it is hard to resist. A crumb of feta cheese lies on the unit. I think about its creamy, salty zing as I imagine smearing it across my teeth. My attitude towards food is undergoing revision. I am still shopping for food and preparing food for I am a mother and that is my vocation. I feel like I am cooking better for not eating, giving food preparation more time, paying more attention; but I am fantasizing madly about the flavours and textures of what I am cooking. I imagine the watery seediness of a tomato running over my tongue; the salted crunch of a crisp, the tang of marmite on toast, the fluffy inside of a roast potato. I believe I will never take food for granted again. I gulp down some more syrup mixture to keep the pangs away. It is effective in filling me up but nothing can compare to the feeling of food in the mouth. How do anorexics do it?

After lunch I take my daughter to Buchanty Spout to see the salmon. We pick our way across mossy rocks, holding hands. The water bubbles and froths beneath us like a boiling cauldron. We have to raise our voices to be heard above the thunderous roar. We wait a minute, peering down into the wild river. And then, out of nowhere, a fish flies through the air, hangs suspended in space for a second - so high from the water, so close, I can almost stretch out my hand and scoop it up - and then hits the rocks with a loud slap. It bounces down off the rocks and back into the boiling bowl of water. More fish follow, the silvery-pink scales of their undersides flashing in the low sun. Their dark-backed bodies taut and tensile, springing from the swirling cascade, pushing onwards, driven by every cell, every instinct, to travel back to the spawning grounds from which they came. Tails quivering like arrows launched from the bow; black heads set forward, determined; pushing on upstream. Spontaneous whoops of joy fly from our mouths with each attempt. I squeeze my daughter's hand. I explain to her about the drive for life, the reproductive incentive; how the fish use every ounce of their dwindling energy to arrive back where they started, how they will overcome any obstacle.

We walk back along the path before it gets dark.