Mum and Dad have both grown to the height of ostriches—Mum’s ponytail scrapes the ceiling, Dad sits with the kitchen table balanced precariously on his knees. We discuss the morning’s opinion columns, but not my parents’ growth. Their skin seems taut, tense. My sister, entering with hair dripping, is, like our parents, of expanded size, and adheres to our unspoken agreement that we say nothing about it. Soon, Mum, Dad and my sister leave for work and study, and I am left alone at home, pondering. I peer out of the windows, and note that our neighbours have undergone similar growth spurts, having to squeeze outside, like their front doors were birth canals.
Mum calls during her lunch break and, demonstrating some peripheral awareness of her enlargement, reassures me that I should not worry too much about how small I have become, and that the problem is likely addressable by eating more protein. The words echo in the empty living room. I have not left the house in weeks. My sister, also vegetarian, messages to ask if I want a falafel wrap from the University’s canteen, but also, I suspect, to check in on me. She is the only person who believes me, believes that my fatigue is not just in my head. I message back with the lie that I have been productively networking in pursuit of employment—I have actually spent hours staring at my reflection, searching for indications of growth. I saw that my clothes hang loose, as if I have been evaporating. As the day wears on, I oscillate between internet research on growth disorders and periods of dissociation from a body that feels increasingly foreign. My sister eventually replies with just a thumbs-up emoji.
When my family returns to our inner suburb one after another in the early evening, it is obvious that they have all continued to grow. It is not clear to me, in fact, how they were able to navigate our city’s urban infrastructure, now that, inside the house, the three of them must crouch on their knees to fit. Entering the kitchen with difficulty, my family members discuss their days, particularly their conflicts with co-workers, caused by various lacks of respect for personal space. I notice that their clothing is torn around swollen flesh. During dinner, our parents eat steaks that look dainty entering their cavernous mouths, and my sister and I share reheated falafel wraps that seem to provide enjoyment only to her. Mum talks about the need for a positive attitude, and Dad drops hints as subtle as his meaty hands that I soon must get outside and resume looking for work. My sister offers a defence, perhaps not entirely full-throated, of my right to figure things out at my own pace, but I mostly stay silent, reflecting on the darkness of my hollows.
I am exhausted, but sleep is difficult. I think about the nights, long past, when my sister would sneak into my room, and we would talk for hours, often about her own illness. I wake, anxious, and descend the stairs to use the bathroom. The air feels gelatinous. I hear squeaking sounds around me, and see a gigantic fold of flesh spill through my parents’ bedroom doorway. Dark hairs identify the flesh as my father’s. The partition walls are cracking, with flesh protruding through the gaps. I am bumped from behind, and forcefully propelled, stumbling, out of the kitchen door, and into the backyard. Despite the darkness, I see flesh piercing the night sky in all directions. Fragments of residences cling to giant limbs like barnacles on whales. Somewhere behind me, I hear Dad’s voice, deepened and slow, saying that it was about time I left home and led a normal life. I hear other voices too, all resonating deep into the stillness of the night, saying that it is mild, that we’ve all got to stop living in fear. I pick out my sister’s voice, now gargantuan, droning about how we can push on through as a herd.
I flee from the strident voices and ponderous soles, and take refuge under a bridge leading out of town. As the night wears on, I see people continuing to grow, with fractured concrete raining beneath their limbs. Strangely, there, on the mud, listening to the river and the destruction of the city, I eventually sleep, more soundly than I can recall to mind.
When I awake, the remains of our city’s urban peaks are dwarfed by anonymous towers of flesh. The giants seem tangled, bloated, drooling. I make my way into the ruins of the city, tunnelling between tightly-packed limbs and torsos, now finding the low spoken rumblings completely incomprehensible, and finding the omnipresent flesh to smell sweetly of decay. By forcing myself through my fatigue, I manage to scale one titanic figure, gripping onto tree-like body hairs, and dodging terrifying drops of saliva, until I make it to what I think is the top of a head. From up here, I can see clearly, and I spot more than a few inflated heads detach, with a loud “pop”, and drift upwards into an otherwise-empty sky.