GRADE 11-12 HONOURABLE MENTION
FAT
CINDY WANG

I was fat. Granted, nobody ever dared to call me that to my face. Instead, they told me that my puppy fat made me look cute. They insisted that a full figure suited me. But I understood the insinuation of the word “curvy”.
I saw it on their faces when I forgot to suck in my pseudopregnant belly. Their eyes always seemed to travel to the muffin top pouring out the waistband of my pants. Every jiggle my arm or thigh made, every too-big smile that caused my cheeks to pinch my pig nose—I caught every lingering stare.

Even as an infant, I wasn’t much of a crowd-pleaser. Adults would gossip behind my parents’ backs. My parents weren’t hideous-looking people, so how did I turn out so fat and ugly? They all cooed over the other babies, the cute babies. When it came to me, their gushing was insincere and forced, merely a formality in front of my parents.

In the early years of elementary school, I was teased for being heavy and as a result did not have many friends. The girls didn’t really want me to play with them, so at recess they did gymnastics knowing full well I couldn’t mirror the graceful whirlwind of limbs of their cartwheels and somersaults. In comparison to them, I felt like an awkward giant. I remember at one point I felt so alienated that my only company was my imaginary friend named Julie. I thought that I could cope by acting like a tomboy who didn’t care about her looks. It was easier to purport apathy regarding my appearance than to attempt (and subsequently fail to) doll up.

My parents desperately wanted to help me lose weight and be healthy. They meant well, but their incessant reminders to watch myself annoyed me. When an extra chunk of meat was picked up, they would ask, “Should you be eating that?” After a particularly rich meal, they’d tell me to go exercise. Dessert after dinner was unheard of in our household. I was so terrified of eating that I always sought approval silently with my eyes before I extended my chopsticks.

Over the years, I grew less and less confident with my body. I felt like boys didn’t like me as much as other girls. I felt ashamed and embarrassed all the time. Each glance in the mirror spurred a pang of self-abhorrence. Looking down at my doughy thighs made my heart sink. I was constantly angry and touchy and defensive. It wasn’t so much directed towards others as it was to my own person. I hated myself for not being able to lose weight. I hated myself for not being strong enough. I hated myself for letting my parents down.

My friends noticed that I wasn’t very happy. I constantly complained about my looks and talked of all the pounds I planned on dropping. They tried to persuade me to stop obsessing over my weight. They told me that I was beautiful, but I wouldn’t believe them. I couldn’t believe them. My parents had taught me that people lie because they want to be nice, and so I had convinced myself that they were holding back the truth for the sake of politeness.

And so I resorted to more unconventional methods. Throughout my first two years of high school, my weight fluctuated ten pounds. I starved myself by skipping meals and I threw out my lunches that I ostensibly didn’t enjoy. Doing this made me feel famished, so then I’d gorge on everything in the fridge, even the foods I typically didn’t enjoy. Afterwards, I’d feel so guilty and utterly repulsive that I’d slide my index finger down my throat and throw it all up into the toilet. Then, I would promise myself to stop binging, to lose weight properly, but one way or another I’d get launched into the cycle again and again and again.

I hit rock bottom one Saturday while I was volunteering at a reception desk. Traffic in and out of the building had trickled down to a stop. The night before I had gotten plenty of sleep, but suddenly I was hit by a wave of fatigue. I decided to rest my head down on the table just for a minute. One minute blended into twenty.

I was trapped.

I drifted in and out of consciousness and my body was completely frozen. My arms and head felt so incredibly heavy. I felt nauseous and dizzy, but I wasn’t moving or swaying—I didn’t even have any strength to push myself up. I struggled for a while until my supervisor sensed something was wrong. She shook me awake and forced me to eat some bread and butter. Immediately after devouring the food, I began to feel better. It had been one of the scariest moments in my life.

After that incident I stopped my unhealthy habits. It really didn’t matter what other people thought of my body. I didn’t need to kill myself and my happiness trying to lose weight and please them. I discovered that all along I had been overly paranoid. Nobody other than my parents and myself had thought that I was fat for many years. All the stares I thought I received were nothing but a figment of my hyperactive imagination.

It’s been a while since I’ve started to come to terms with the way I look. I won’t lie; every day is still a challenge when I confront my acne in the mirror and feel my thighs squash when I sit down. The journey of becoming comfortable in one’s own skin is arduous, but I’ve realized that ultimately we’re all travelling in the same boat. As self-absorbed humans, we’re inherently hypercritical of ourselves without registering that nobody is actually paying attention to anyone other than his/herself. Everyone is too engulfed in his/her own insecurities to notice the infinitesimal flaws of other people. It would be absurd to suggest that people should eliminate their self-consciousness altogether. That’s impossible. However, what we can do is foster safe spaces and establish positive support networks wherever we go. We need to teach one another to love ourselves.

I’m ready to commit to a lifetime of love for myself. Are you?

GRADE 11-12 WINNER
DERAILED
MACKENZIE EMBERLEY

Going unconscious was not as cool as I thought it would be. I didn't visit heaven, I didn't have an out of body experience, and no one was fanning me when I woke up. Actually, no one was around me at all when I woke up, which was depressing. Seriously, I just full out collapsed in the middle of a busy subway station, I expected someone to be leaning over my body wondering why I just fainted out of nowhere.

When I managed to get over the fact that fainting was not as cool as it was on TV, I noticed while sitting up that something really weird was going on. Here I was lying on the dirty tiled flooring of the station and not one person could have cared less. Everyone was just by passing me; stepping around my body like if it was normal for some random dude to be sitting in the middle of the room moments after gaining consciousnesses. No one offered their hand to help me up, or asked me if I was okay, I didn't even see anyone whispering about my strange state. Okay then... This is perfectly normal. Yep, nothing to see here, just an awkward teenager passing out in public.

I finally decided to stand up, accepting that today was simply international day of letting the unconscious kid lie in the subway station without giving it a second thought. I dusted myself off and began to walk with the flow of the crowd. I don't remember why I was getting on the subway, but that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was figuring out what was going on. The more I walked and looked around, the more confused I became. The crowd of people was parting to let me by and I didn't run into anyone like I normally would when the station was this busy. Every single person was just casually getting out of my way without noticing me at all. Another thing that struck me as strange is that there was absolutely no sound. It's like I had gone deaf or someone pressed the mute button on my life. This was freaking messed up. I couldn't hear the passing of the subways, I didn't hear the voices of people around me and I didn't hear one of the many foot steps taken by the rushing crowd. I thought that whatever caused me to go unconscious made me lose my hearing as well, and that's when I started to get scared.

My head was pounding, my heart was racing and my breathing was fast and shallow. Why was no one noticing me, why couldn't I hear anything, was I dead? When my thoughts brought me to this possibility, I realized that that could very well be what happened. I have seen many movies where the spirits of dead people walk among the living going unnoticed. I forced myself to think of a better explanation because I didn't want to be dead.

Choosing to ignore the possibility that I was a ghost, I told myself that I was just being paranoid. Yeah, I was just overreacting. I mean, it's not like people would normally take an interest in me. People didn't care about random guys walking in the subway. I realized that I was reaching out to nothing, trying to come up with lame logical explanation, but it was the only thing keeping me from passing out again.

That was weird too, passing out I mean. I don't remember hitting my head or simply fainting, I just remember regaining consciousnesses from my very deep slumber and having no clue what was going on.

Frustration and anger started to take over. It was not fun being invisible and deaf at the same time. It was scary and confusing. I pounded my fists against my head trying to wake up my senses in vain. I must have looked like an idiot if anyone would notice me.

"I'm okay guys, really no need to worry. I'm just slowly going insane while you people continue with your lives!" My shouts echoed back as I jumped around.

Regaining control, I caught my breath and slowed down because I realized that freaking out was not going to be useful. I reached out to people but it was like they were simply floating away. It wasn't aggressive, so I wasn't purposely being avoided; it was more like the universe made it possible that I would go unnoticed. My body was a barrier and no one could pass it. It was physically impossible for anyone to accidentally run into me.

While my feet carried me to some place, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my stomach. It was like being stabbed in the right side of my lower torso. I doubled over and clawed at the nonexistent wound in my abdomen. Of course no one noticed my pain, but that didn't stop me from feeling it. I lowered my body to the ground and let out a cry. Wincing and cringing, I lifted my shirt and pressed my hands against the skin. I didn't see any stab wound or see blood which was really weird. The messed up part of this, was that I felt blood. My fingers were slipping with warm thick liquid, but I didn't see blood on my stomach and my hands weren't stained red.

What the hell was going on! Something was seriously wrong! I slowly got to my feet and started to run as fast as I could, ignoring my invisible wound. As I was running to no where in particular, my head lurched to the side, making my neck bend. My face erupted with pain and my whole head was throbbing. I lifted my fingers to my nose and I felt the same ghostly blood on my hands and in my mouth, it was warm and tasted metallic. And then, my whole body started to scream in pain. Random bursts of agony attacked my legs, chest, torso and my head. I was thrashing around as I tried to fight the invisible force long enough to understand this madness.

Something made me forget the pain momentarily while my blurry vision focused in on a scene happening on the subway platform. There was a large group of people standing in a crowd surrounding something. The whole scene was very chaotic, there were people shouting (or seemed to be shouting), they were shoving one another, some people were laughing and others were frantically talking on the phone.

I made my way into the action and pushed pass the gathering of bodies with no problem; I basically just walked to the front of the crowd to see what was happening. There were three rough looking men who were towering over some poor guy on the ground. The scary looking dudes were beating up the guy crumpled on the floor. They threw kicks and punches at the young man who was barely conscious while the crowd of people just watched.

I started to walk towards the fight in order to break it up forgetting that I was nonexistent to these people, but then I stopped dead in my tracks. The attackers shifted position and parted which allowed me to see the victim. It was me!

I was laying there all bloodied and defenceless on the floor. There was a knife sticking out from my stomach which was bleeding a lot and my face was also stained with blood flowing from my nose. A dark purple bruise was already starting to appear on my head and the rest of my body looked broken.

I felt sick and sore everywhere. I fell to my hands and knees in front of myself and started to hyperventilate. I sobbed and scream and shook fervently as I watched myself get beaten to death. I hoped that the phone calls being made were emergency calls to 911 because that was my only chance.

Shockingly, I could reach out and touch my broken body without missing it. I put one hand on my head and the other on my chest. My heart beat was weak and barely there. My eyes were closed and I was motionless. However, I could still feel breath coming from my mouth and my chest still rose and fell lightly. I knew that I didn't have much longer. If an ambulance was coming, it wasn't going to make it because the attackers were still beating up my body. If someone didn't do something, I would be dead by the hands of these three sick murderers before help could get here.

This was a weird moment for me as I was leaning over my own body and sobbing with my head pressed into my physical shoulder. I realized in that moment that people were incredibly selfish and that if I was going to survive, I would have to do it myself. I left my body where it was and stood up. My plan was very flawed and it wasn't much. I needed to kill my attackers. For a while, I contemplated on whether or not I would be willing to kill someone to save myself. The three bastards were grinning and forever beating my body. Watching this sickening scene, I made my choice pretty quickly. It was self defence, and these jerks deserve to die for killing an innocent guy for no reason. I needed to protect myself and bring justice to those who do wrong. I understood that my strange experience in the subway was the universe giving me the chance to fight for my life and survive. I woke up in this place from a coma like state, which I could not explain, in order to save my dying self from these evil men.

There was one problem with the plan that I had. How was I going to kill my attackers if I couldn't touch them? I threw my fist at one of the guys but I never came in contact with his face. I lunged towards another one of the dudes but he moved suddenly and I went flying towards the gap of the subway rails. I was hanging over the roadbed of the subway with half of my body just hanging in mid air. While dangling there, I got an idea. If I couldn't physically hurt the attackers, then my only option was to push them to their deaths.

I backed away from the trench in the cement and positioned myself in front of the guy kicking every inch of my body. I reached out to his arm, and as expected he simply moved his arm away casually. Great so now, he was not able to pass my outstretched arm which left him with only space on the other side. I extended my other arm around the other side of his body leaving him only the possibility of backing up. It was like giving a hug to someone insanely germaphobic who couldn’t bear to be touched. The guy looked confused because he was no longer able to hurt me. I saw the flashing red lights warning that the train was approaching and quickly started to push up against the guy making him walk backwards. He was angry by his lack of control and his anger soon turned to fear as he moved dangerously close to the train tracks. I advanced on the guy, and in no time he fell into the ditch in the cement. The man tried to desperately climb back up, but I could see that it was difficult and that he was hurt.

I approached the next attacker and did the same thing. All the while doing this, the train was getting closer and the second guy could definitely hear it judging by his scared expression. The second guy fell into his soon to be grave. He landed on the other dude and they both tried to get back to the platform.

The last attacker was frozen in his spot as he just watched his two buddies fall to their deaths. He was shaking with fear and wasted no time sprinting away from the scene. Well that was easy. "Cool." I said casually thanking the dude for making my job easier. I didn't worry too much about him because he would surely be brought to justice somehow.

I looked at the faces of the crowd; they were all looking scared or shock. The train came barrelling into sight and rammed into my attackers. Some people on the platform closed their eyes or looked away, others had their mouths wide open and some ran away. I didn't care about anything, not my attackers who just suffered a brutal death, not the selfish, scarred witnesses; I just cared about the poor guy still lying on the ground. I went back to my body and knelt in my own blood. Every wound inflicted on my body was screaming in pain. Now that my adrenaline was gone, I felt everything, every bruise, slash, broken bone and luckily my only stab wound. But the best feeling was the weak beat of my heart. I closed my eyes and let my spiritual body lie next to my physical body as I waited for the ambulance to show up.

I couldn’t tell if minutes or hours went by, but I eventually woke up to the feeling of hands gripping my body. I opened my eyes to see two paramedics lifting me onto a stretcher. I could suddenly hear the sirens of the ambulance and the many voices of the crowd in the subway station. Everything was too loud, all the shouting, the rumbling of trains and the voices of the paramedics telling me that they would help me.

It was all too much, too much stuff was going on at once and the lights were too bright. So I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes and fell into a peaceful state of unconsciousness.