Dead Woman Walking

Yesterday at the grocery store, I passed a dark-haired girl in her early 20's. She was slowly pushing a big, nearly empty grocery cart. In a slow voice, she was asking the young teenage boy accompanying her: “Which bread do you prefer?”

She was wearing a t-shirt and her stick-like arms displayed the unmistakable fuzz of advanced anorexia. Her thighs were approximately the size of a muscular man’s biceps, and as tiny as her jeans were, the complete absence of buttocks made them hang awkwardly. She was by far the most emaciated person I have ever seen with my own eyes.

What was she doing there, pretending to casually be buying food? She should have been on a hospital bed, being fed intravenously and closely supervised by a psychiatrist.

For some reason, her pretence at normalcy got to me. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to point to her cart and ask: “Who do you think you are fooling?” I wanted to tell her: “Do you really think you are fat right now? because you are a walking skeleton.” I wanted to tell her: “Eat. Just EAT or you will DIE.”

At her weight and degree of cachexia, vital organs, including the heart, can fail at any time with no warning. She’s a dead woman walking.

I know nothing of her story. Will she live? Will she die? I will never know either.

And if I sound harsh, it's the anger of helplessness.