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LONDON - You're stone cold when you're dead.
And once you're down under, and the flesh has rotted away, it won't matter whether there were three inches of flab wobbling over your hips or nothing but jutting bone - those bare bones that now expose all your efforts to be thin as futile. All those sacrifices and manipulative lies and selfishness. Mine is the voice of neutrality, which speaks from the depths of death where all bodies and all souls are equal. The only difference is how many people you hurt on the way down.
Yeah, it looks good on me, doesn't it? And look, I can nearly get that bracelet right up to my shoulder now! Kate Moss eat your heart out.
Wow. I can only just get mine past my elbow. How did you do it?
I've been telling my Mum I was eating at your house for the last few weeks. It's easy to skip a meal - you don't even notice. We can do a pact if you want - you say you're eating at my house and I'll race you to the shoulder.
My Mum never gets back before midnight anyway. I bet she wouldn't care if I ate or not.
Course she would. She's your Mum isn't she? Look, I've got to run, I'm seeing Daniel tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow in maths.
The girl hoisted her bracelet up as far as it would go and ran out of school, past a group of girls who stared in horror and then huddled up, turning her into a scandal, building up an icon, spreading the disease to any girl who had eyes and felt not as clever, less controlled, not so noticed and generally fatter.
That was how the equation went. If you could pull it off. It took dedication, guile and self-sacrifice. You had to be quite a character to show them you could - not just the other girls but your parents, who never let you make any decisions for yourself.
You don't know what I'm like. You never listen to me. You think I'm still a baby.
So tell me. Speak to me. Talk to me.
I won't! She stormed upstairs, leaving her food untouched, and threw herself onto her bed, sobbing. How could anyone understand?
And Sara, grinning with her bracelet around her neck. Her head was shrinking, and the bracelet slipped right off and rolled on the floor. Her cheeks and hair shrivelled up and all that was left was the grin, the gloat, like no-one else could ever be that smart.
And then her own body, getting bigger. First her thighs, then bum and hips and then her breasts, getting heavier and heavier until she could hardly stand. She stumbled and fell onto hands and knees, crawling across the floor, calling out for help: stop!
But her hands were turning red and she saw she was lying in a pool of blood. Women's blood, mothers' blood, with the screams of the dead children floating in it.
She slept surrounded by the images, until her mind came up with a scheme that would stunt her growth, stop her periods, cut her curves down to skin and bone and rid her of the maturity that confronted her.
She awoke with a cold sense of purpose, ignored her mother's anxious questions and went to school without breakfast. She bought some fags, started lying and became hell to live with, but cool enough to die.
And your weak skeleton won't be lying down with a fag in its mouth. Oh no, the only people to remember you in that "stylish" pose are your family, and they will weep over it.
The DYING TO BE COOL -2 Issue: In/Out
LONDON CALLING! FLISS USSHER provides a seering, intimate portrait of young "birds" Dying To Be Cool!
G21 WORDSOur BOB POWERS extends his critique to film this week with a review of the new Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan film, "CITY OF ANGELS."
DON'T READ ME FIRST! our Editor and Publisher continues from the cover.
G21 REPRISE: Advice for Cool Chicks
G21 REPRISE: The First COOL GUYS HANDBOOK.
THE HANDBOOK, Volume 2
The FASHION(s) Issue
FLISS USSHER delivers a Fashion Statement: LONDON CALLING! The Fashion of the English Queue.
POLICY MATTERS: ADAM SMITH, Associate Director of the Beltway's Drug Reform Coordination Network on Czech President Vaclav Havel.
TRIO: THOMAS HART castigates "WEB FASHIONS."
G21 ASIA RAOUL TESLA with more insights from Manila, the Philippines.
BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH thinks Paula Jones is the Ultimate Fashion - Victim.
POWERSBOOKS has our literary critic looking at the most FASHIONable books by JOE QUIRK, PETER HAMILTON, & CHRIS BUNCH.
TRIO: RADIO RAHEEM on SMAPPIES (Stagnant, Single Middle-Aged Professionals)
JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences!
ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in THE HOUSE OF CARDS!
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The girls smoked hard in the pubs, drawing in the boys with their flirtatious chat. Don't stop smoking now or you'll put on weight. Don't get fat or they won't think you're funny. Get thin or you'll be one of those podgy women whose white bums stick out behind the curtains of the dressing room cubicles. Do you remember that one we saw in Top Shop who thought she could get away with the slinky red dress you bought? She took it off pretty quickly once she saw you in it.
Lose the fat and all the rest of it would be reversed.
Drifting through her mind came images of her mother, looking so pathetically concerned.
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