On a Scale

It arrived in a battered cardboard box with some sort of foreign postage. Symbols that could be letters. A bald man with an authoritarian frown. Sylvia had purchased the scale from an online marketplace after following a series of sidebar prompts, like a child chasing a ball.  Over thirty-five? Click. Care about your health? Click. She’d entered her credit card and hit confirm without being fully conscious of the transaction. 

Until now.

The chrome square seemed to hover over her bathroom floor. The box contained no instructions, but, really, did she need any? She stepped on. A digital number appeared. The number didn’t horrify her. She penciled it into short-term memory and added this action to her morning routine. But, a week later, the scale stopped working. 

She told her husband, “It says I gained six pounds since yesterday.”

Doug was observing his own morning ritual of newspaper, coffee, and toast. Other partners might say something like “That’s silly, you look amazing.” But Doug wasn’t the pacifying type. The day before she’d made the purchase, she’d asked him offhandedly if a skirt she’d picked up thrifting was too short. He’d shrugged. “Well, you’re no teenager.”

Today she got, “Maybe you have it on a different part of the floor.” 

“It’s the same spot. I used it to cover the broken tiles.”

“Well return it then.” He extended his arms, creating a wall of newsprint. 

Sylvia glanced at the lead headline, which proclaimed the candidate she did not like was leading in the polls.

“I’ll have to pay return shipping. Probably cost more than the purchase price.”

“Mmm.”  

True, the $35.53 wasn’t a huge deal, even though they were being frugal, trying to save for a condo. But a sense of unease trailed her on her way to work, like an extra shadow. Was this yet another consequence of aging? To have her biological mass expand overnight like a sponge in water. If so, what was she absorbing? Dust mites? Dead cells? Fear? It didn’t make sense. Numbers, unlike wrinkles or gray hair, should be consistent over time. 

Sylvia was a numbers’ person. A bookkeeper for a small corporate office, she aspired to someday see the post-nominal letters of CPA after her name. But she also appreciated the way numbers provided a steadying effect to her days, like protective scaffolding. The world might be crazy (and getting crazier still) but there were still thirty-two tiles on the bathroom floor. Seventy-seven steps from her door to the El. Twenty-four stairs to the platform. Eleven dings of the elevator to her office. Hence the number from the morning, inconsistent with the metrics of weight gain, didn’t fall within Sylvia’s realm of acceptable variation.

The next morning, she awoke first, which meant she was in charge of the coffee. Sometimes Doug faked it, but today he seemed legitimately asleep, his mouth parted, hair squashed in a way that would make him cringe.

Her friend Camille had started a text thread: “Spousal Habits you’d like to banish”. Sylvia had been surprised how easily they flowed. “Sports programs always on. Shoes kicked off wherever. Towels on the bathroom floor!” Camille, now two months past her divorce replied, “And that’s why I’m happily single.”

What Sylvia hadn’t shared, because it was harder to express in words, was how, lately, Doug seemed to inhabit too much of their shared atmosphere, as if his mood was one of those sponge animals. Banging doors. Stomping and sighing. An irritated shrug when asked to please not use up the milk without letting her know.

A relationship advice column she’d clicked on the other day suggested focusing on the good things about a person to imprint positive feelings. As she walked to the bathroom, she thought of a night early in their dating when Doug had traveled from his apartment in a snowstorm to dig out her car. He hadn’t even told her, just left a snow heart with his initials on the hood. So sweet. Not that she was overly romantic. Marriage was not unlike paying into a retirement fund; a step toward future security.

She stepped on the scale while she brushed her teeth. Four pounds less than yesterday. Well, that was a relief. Water weight she decided. More efficient intestinal microbes.

As the coffee percolated, she checked the news and was pleased to see her candidate had taken the lead. The kitchen seemed clean and bright in the morning sun. Her banana was perfectly ripe. At work, her numbers added up and a meeting with her boss went well. When she got home, there was a message from Doug that he’d be working late and she rejoiced at an evening in charge of the remote. She waited up but knew by the slam of the door that he was in another one of his moods. She went to bed without saying goodnight. When he climbed in he took all the covers.

The next morning she stepped on the scale. Stepped off. Stepped on. The number had jumped by seven pounds. Had she grown an extra appendage? The headlines were alarming. Doug was still grumpy. It took her twelve extra steps to get to the train. If she hadn’t been close to missing it, she would have tried again. But then Doug came home in a better mood. “It’s not you, just stuff at the office.” The next day, her weight was close to where she’d started. The steps matched. Her day bloomed. 

 The following morning, she stared at the scale as she gnawed a hangnail. A pattern seemed to be forming: high weight, bad day, low weight, good day. The emotional side of it made sense, but what caused the actual fluctuation? And did she care? She was healthy after all. Her curves would have made her a Goddess in ancient Celtic days.

Doug pounded the door. “Line forming.”

“You’re fired,” she said and stuck the scale under the sink.

The survey showed up that night in her email. Please tell us about your recent LifeDirect purchase.

 “You bet I will,” she muttered. After ranking the lowest number for all questions—reliability, ease of use, functionality—she filled the space for ‘additional comments’ with a single-paragraph rant about the impact companies like theirs had on body dysmorphia. She hit send and felt lighter already. But curious too. 

Maybe just one more try. 

 In the bathroom, she removed the scale and set it over the chipped tiles. She stepped on. Instead of listing her weight, it flashed what appeared to be an 800 number. She stepped off and stepped on. Same thing. Maybe it was broken after all, and this was the number she could call for a refund.

She returned to her desk and made the call. After a few beats of hold music, a monotone voice invited her to take another short survey. She sighed and shifted in her chair. 

“How often do you experience déjà vu? Press one for often, two for rarely, three for never.”

Odd question, but several recent instances came to mind. She pressed 1.

“Since purchasing your item, how often have you noticed a day-to-day perceptual shift?”

She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it could be an apt description of what was occurring so she pressed 1 again. 

“Have you attempted to alter the item?”

She hadn’t. Did that demonstrate a lack of initiative? Come to think of it, she hadn’t even looked for a reset button. With a sigh she pressed 3.

The automated voice informed her to please wait. She expected to be transferred to a representative but instead the voice said “your appointment has been scheduled” and relayed a date, time, and address. She wrote it down as she grumbled about impersonal customer service.

“Push 1 to accept this appointment, 3 to decline.”

She read her scribbled writing. The appointment was in two days, right after she got off work, and the address was walking distance from the office. A helpful coincidence. Plus, she did believe in getting her money’s worth. She’d once stood in a post office line for thirty minutes to return a five dollar picture frame that had arrived damaged. She pressed 1. The call disconnected. 

On the day of the appointment, she put the scale in a grocery bag and shrouded it with a dish towel. After work, she headed to a strip mall she must have passed countless times, which housed an EZ Pay and a discount liquor store. The other storefronts seemed vacant. She walked until she spotted a small sign for LifeDirect on a glass door next to an even smaller notice to Ring Bell for Admittance. She paused. The door was curtained and the blinds on the window were closed. But the scale was heavy on her shoulder and she didn’t feel like dragging it home. She could just poke her head in. If it felt unsafe, she’d split.

At the sound of a buzzer, she pushed the door and entered a softly lit reception area with orange chairs lining the perimeter. The reception desk was strewn with wires and cords, old stereo speakers, and other electronic components. The space might have once been a dentist’s office, now repurposed for technical repair. A poster on the otherwise bare walls displayed a cartoon image of a shooting star.

Sylvia kept her hand on the door. “Hello?”

An older woman with a halo of white hair emerged from below the desk. She was shorter than Sylvia by several inches. 

Sylvia released the handle. “I have an appointment?” She couldn’t help but phrase it as a question. She removed the scale. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it’s been inconsistent. I was hoping I could get a refund.”

The woman took the proffered item and set it on a pile of wires. She motioned for Sylvia to sit. “A few questions first, if you don’t mind.”

A small notebook materialized from inside a pocket, a pencil from behind her ear. Sylvia sat in the nearest chair. The woman turned a second chair to face her.

“So, tell me, have you experienced any flickers?”

Sylvia assumed the woman meant on the digital display. She nodded yes.

“Any pulses, false steps?” 

The look on Sylvia’s face must have illustrated her confusion because the woman smiled. “I see you’re not understanding me.” 

She shifted forward so that her feet were flat and stared intently, as if Sylvia was a spreadsheet with a broken equation.

“Is there something in your life that’s giving you discontent? Something that feels like an unintended consequence?”

“You mean other than my flip-flopping weight?”

 “At LifeDirect it’s your interior state we’re interested in.” The woman motioned to the poster, as if that implied an unseen body of experts. “The force that animates your mass, that’s what the scale measures. It’s designed to help you align your choices with your authentic nature. This was all noted in the terms and conditions.”

Sylvia had always wondered how people were roped into prank reality shows. Could she have fallen into a similar trap? A microphone under the woman’s lapel. A camera hidden in a light.

The woman held her gaze. Sylvia couldn’t look away.

“Tell me, is there anything you’d change in your life if you could?”

“I wish I’d never married Doug.” 

Sylvia blurted this without thinking. Had the woman hypnotized her? But how clear it suddenly seemed. The mistake made.

“Do you have someone else in mind?”

Sylvia broke eye contact, although she suspected if she’d been hypnotized, she wouldn’t know to wonder about it.

“No, not at all. I just meant he’s not my soulmate. But that’s a made-up thing anyway. I mean, we’re really good together fiscally.”

The woman rose and walked to the reception desk. She placed what looked like a battery tester into a slot on the side of the scale. A moment later a nearby printer spit out a sheet of paper. The woman studied it as she walked back to her seat.

Sylvia spotted rows of numbers. “What’s that?” 

“A map, of sorts. It shows how far you need to travel to arrive on your truest path.”

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with the scale.”

The woman sighed, as if Sylvia were a child asking obvious questions. She ran the pencil through a tuft of hair; it disappeared and reappeared like a plane in the clouds. 

“The scale works like an energy conductor. You can use it to track your progress. But like any other lifestyle modification, this does require a commitment on your part. In this case you will need a consistent practice of focalized awareness. What you might call extreme wishing. If your numbers go down you’re headed in the wrong direction. Your numbers go up and you’re getting closer.

Now it was Sylvia’s turn to give the woman an irritated look. Next thing she’d be handing her a pair of ruby slippers. Sylvia looked around again for a hidden camera. Maybe that poster was actually covering one-way glass.

“When the numbers go up everything sucks.”

The woman smiled pleasantly. “A pass-through stage. That will be reversed when you’ve moved on.” She handed Sylvia the scale. “Please note, any additional appointments will incur a $100 service fee.”

Back home, Sylvia unwrapped the scale and set it on the floor. This was crazy, of course, the idea that she could shift reality. But she felt a strange tingle. What if this really was a chance to get back on track? Who knew what that future might bring? She could adopt a cat. (Doug was allergic.) Find time to study for the CPA. Go on that spa weekend Camille suggested that Doug said was too costly. Flashing neon arrows appeared in her imagination, sending her down multiple uncharted paths. But there was also something to be said for sticking with what you know. What if she did as instructed and ended up married to Bruce Rasher, her senior year boyfriend, who was in prison for embezzlement. Yes, it was just as plausible that things could get worse. 

 And yet, Sylvia found herself following instructions. She wished in the shower, at her desk, climbing—depending on the day—twenty-four, twenty-two, or twenty-eight stairs to the El. I wish I’d never married Doug. I wish I’d never married Doug. 

The number on the scale rose.

She expected her pants to get tighter, her chin to sag. Instead, she experienced it as a mental weight. She felt shackled by marriage and the man who slept next to her, his arm flung over her chest like an added ballast. His various smells affronted her: his dirty running clothes, morning breath, even the whiff of his deodorant. Everyone she passed on the street seemed to wear Doug’s scowl. The train was never on time. At work, mistakes accrued. Her boss was short-tempered. 

“Why are you even with me?” she asked Doug one night after yet another curt exchange. 

“You weren’t always such a bitch,” his response. 

She knew she had somehow brought this about, this total animosity, and yet it felt like a natural progression.

That night Doug fell asleep on the couch. The next, he didn’t come home. She felt the air open up. The quiet settle. She texted him to make sure he was okay and when he thumbs-upped her, she added, “We need to figure this out.”

The next night, she heard the key in the lock. He slammed in and lodged an attack of complaints that played him as victim. Not that she listened closely. It wasn’t worth her energy. When he ran out of insults, she simply said, “I don’t know you anymore.”

It was late. So late that she didn’t argue when he climbed into bed, staying to his side, the mattress delineated by an invisible line.

In the morning, Sylvia awoke alone and headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She stepped on the scale but couldn’t remember the number from the day before. The screen flashed red then went blank. Did that always happen? There was a gap in her memory. 

She jiggled the scale but the display stayed dark. It was probably broken. Oh well, she could live without it. She couldn’t even remember why she’d bought it. She stayed in a healthy range. That’s all that mattered. 

On her way out the door to work, Sylvia got a text from Camille. “Excited for our trip this weekend?”

“You bet.”

“Who knows, you might even meet your soul-mate.”

Sylvia checked her reflection in the hall mirror and smiled. “Maybe, but I’m not counting on it.”