Short Stories

Should I Change?

As I was doing my usual morning routine- trying to get out of bed, comb my bird’s nest, and head downstairs to NOT eat breakfast (I don’t need the extra weight) and head out for my jog- I decided to take my old jogging route. My old jogging route that cuts into- no I can’t say.

Maybe if I go there once again, things won’t seem as cruel now, after all the help I have had. I know I can’t avoid it forever. I already drive past it on my way to work at the old rundown care center. As I drive by, even though I try to stare straight ahead and ignore it, I can still see it out of my peripheral vision.

As I got closer to the billboard, I started to think that this was a bad idea. Why would I go back to the place that broke me? I mean, a retired soldier never goes back to war after getting both his legs shot off.

It was already too late. The model was right in front of me. Not her exactly, but her billboard. As I looked closer, bad memories came flooding back. The same bright sea green eyes stared back, boring into me, as though she was teasing me with her beauty. Her silky blonde curls fell perfectly on her shoulders. Her posture was perfect (unlike my scrunched shoulders) and her smile was gleamingly white, almost blinding.

Pure hate filled me to the brim and I slipped back into a memory I did not want to have.

~ It was a beautiful spring morning, and the blue birds were tweeting. I could smell the flowers in bloom around me. I was three years younger, 21 years of age. Thinking of spring caused me think of my name, May. The irony of being named after such a beautiful month, made me laugh. It was as if my parents named me, just so they hoped I would be beautiful. In no way was I as beautiful as the month May. And these models around me were living proof that I am right.

When I looked up at the model advertising shampoo on the billboard above me, I realized then and there that I was going to look like her. That’s when my problem started.

As soon as I got home I threw away all of my food. I was going on a strict diet, water and fruit. I was going to look like her, no matter how hard it was. I was supposed to look like her, otherwise she wouldn’t be there tempting me to put down my food. I was ugly and I knew it. Fat, stupid, weird, and ridiculous. Why couldn’t I be more like her?

After a few weeks my diet wasn’t getting anywhere. I would still look in the mirror and still see a blob of a person. Everyday I would walk past the model wondering what I was doing wrong. I must be doing something wrong. I wasn’t eating any food but I still wasn’t losing any weight.

I jogged a lot more; hoping exercise would do the trick. But every time I would go past that billboard, dread overcame me. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I really wanted to be perfect.

I wanted to be perfect until I realized that the poster was giving me stupid ideas to do ludicrous things. These things would replay in my head over and over until I cave in and do what it asked me to do. I gave up hope.

My friend noticed my change and took me to classes to help me recover from my uncontrollable mind. I was getting better, but every now and then I would her myself whisper ‘Ugly’ or “Fat’ to the reflection in the mirror. I stopped jogging past the shampoo advert and took a different route. Things were getting better. They had to. ~

And as I lowered my gaze from the silly advert, and turned around, I realized I was living in a city with so much pressure put on our society. Everywhere I looked there was a model advertising something, standing there posing. She may think it is just a job but it’s more than that. It’s a hint.

As I was contemplating what happened to society, I knew at that point there was a girl wondering why she wasn’t perfect.

But she was.