My body changed during the season when everything started to turn green again. I could not articulate where in particular it changed, but something was surely different. The feeling and sensation of an itch were hidden beneath my skin and there was no way for me to scratch it. It was the worst feeling in the world, is it not?

I got skinnier, the silhouette of my ribs poking its way revealing its shape. Porkchops, those were the first things that came to me as I looked in the mirror. But no one desires meatless pork chops. What would they consume? But then I remembered those fried pork chops I ate before I got sick and realized how the invention of fried goods made everything tasteful. The crispy texture inside my mouth, between my teeth, my ribcage…

I had to force myself to stop now.

I begged God to be kind as He always is and let me cease this nonsense thinking. Please forgive me for praying while lying down, but the night is too quiet and this skeleton could not support me to sit up alone. Very much like the skeletons in biology classrooms and high school laboratories.

Dear God, please let me stop all thinking.

After a fortunate night of seven hours of sleep, Mom thought I should breathe some fresh air, and thus a walk was scheduled. I walked Lloyd beneath the setting sun, who was a good dog and never let out a single noise louder than his usual whimpering.

Mom said he might be a mute, and I looked at her in astonishment.

“What? You gotta allow animals other than humans to be mistaken by their vocal cords.”

She was right, but he barked that day.

Ten o’clock, a complete opposite kid, me-wise. Her deep-violet shirt was completely filled by her torso, about to explode; no gap between her thighs, and instead a ring of redness on each, the result of the shorts constraining her body. Her whole body along with the excessive fat shook like Jell-O each time she pushed forward the scooter which she stood on. Around fifteen meters away from us, she diligently practiced riding the scooter. I must admit: she was light as a feather and radiating confidence on her scooter, lighter than me on a windy day—literally.

Lloyd’s ears pointed up sharply, and his all-black eyes stared at her without moving for half a minute. Something rotten, sticky, and dusty was building up deep down his throat. That goo eventually shot out of his snout as a bark.

I kneeled beside him, “What’s wrong, Lloyd?”

But he would not budge, still pinning his eyes to the scooter kid, so I slowly moved right in front of him and blocked his view. I asked again.

Perhaps he had a problem with overweight females—even though this particular overweight female was the same age as his owner and displayed no visible signs of harm; in fact, she waved to us with a wide smile before she started riding the scooter—like everyone else on the Internet. Till this point, I wondered if he ever became intelligent enough to engage in the randomly-criticize-women affairs online, but I hated this thought and would rather believe that I, even as his owner, was too close to him. Indeed, animals needed their space, even around familiar humans.

As my thoughts roamed on, a burning sensation woke me to reality. To be precise, something burned its way from the inside of my face to the outer layer of skin tissue. My face melted. Half of my skull vanished. But no, it was only a cold, hard object that clenched onto my left eye socket, and continued its movement deeper. Then, pop! A rather bouncy stress ball dropped to the ground, bounced two times, and unfortunately landed on a sharp piece of stone, putting an end to its individuality. The aqueous humor—indeed a humorous and jargon term that I learned in biology class—splattered all over my hand.

I panicked for the first time in months. No kind Doctor Lowe and Nurse Daisy beside my snow-white bed, no, and no more soft plastic tubes sticking out of my stomach and reuniting in a bucket down beside my snow-white bed.

The scooter kid covered her mouth but still ran as fast as she could toward me.

“You need to go to the hospital! Dear Lord...... Let's get you to a hospital, I’ll call right now.”

Lloyd continued its low growl, making a protective stance over me, showing his teeth.

“I'd keep my distance from him if I were you,” I said as I propped up my crutches and moved to the front door of the house.

Unfortunately, the first explanation for such bizarre behavior on Lloyd's part is the correct one. All skin and bones versus too much weight? Our meatless pork chop wins it all, of course!

I stopped pulling out my keys and resumed my rambling thoughts.

At this point, I could have yelled and screamed, my arms flapping around unattended and dramatically on either side of my torso as my body darted around like a rabid puppy, or I could have tripped over a stone on the ground and broken a rib or two, and had to scooch forward little by little in a substandard way of doing planks with only my skeletal arms, taking a cue from earthworms in the rainy, sunny weather, dreaming about dragging myself for another centimeter would put us back into the moist and then everything will return to its original state.

When I came back to my senses again to pray to God, I was on the ground. My back didn't feel quite right, and I twisted my head to see the white rib bones piercing through the diaphragm, the skin, and bloomed poppies on white paper.

No need for an ambulance, I thought to myself, I will be saved.