Early Retirement (Original Version) - PART TWO

 

It was a miracle, nothing short of a miracle. Maggie rushed down the stairs of her Great Aunt’s home with incredible speed, a pearly white grin stretched across her smooth, flawless face as she did so. She revelled in the sensation of her newly restored long and full blonde locks bouncing around and gently batting her shoulders with each step as she made her way downstairs clad in what were now a greatly oversized set of silky blue pyjamas. The rejuvenated 23 year old held the sagging, wide bottoms with her delicate and newly liver-spot free hand so as not to trip over them in her excitement. She briefly glanced at the photos hanging on the wall as she got to the bottom of the stairs. There were a lot of photos of her grandmother, and for the first time since her transformation she felt like she could really look at them again without wincing or getting upset. Now when her eyes caught her own reflection in the framed photos she didn’t see a look alike, she saw the woman’s granddaughter…herself. Her velvety, soft lips contorted into a catching smile as she noticed this fact before moving on. In no time she had already reached the kitchen. She privately marvelled at just how fit and healthy she now felt after having spent such a long time walking slowly and carefully, waddling here and there around the house usually fetching tea or the like, her hand nearly always to her back for support. She closed her right hand into a tight fist and then stretched the fingers out again in a spread. Maggie smiled once more and told herself that she wasn’t going to take her good health for granted any longer, that was for damn sure.

 

She looked up from her hand to see her Aunt Doris busying herself with the breakfast, none the wiser to her young once again Grand Niece standing in the doorway. Now stripped of such features it was almost impossible for Maggie not to look at her Great Aunt’s generous backside swaying back and forth, jiggling ever so slightly with the movements, not to mention the fleshy arms, belly rolls etc. Maggie held the wide waisted bottoms out from her and peered down. Slim, sexy, enviable, no gut, no flab…she felt amazing, healthier than she had ever been even. She almost couldn’t believe just how similar she and her Great Aunt had looked only the day before. To think that when she’d walk around in public, people would see her flesh wobbling, huffing and puffing as she waddled around, sweating like some pig….to think that she had well and truly been a fat woman…it was surreal, but it was all over now she thought, all over. Part of her almost felt as if the whole experience had been some terrible prolonged nightmare, like she had just woken up from a coma. During this pause she also took a second to appreciate her newly renewed senses. From the rays of sunlight bursting through the kitchen window giving way to the slight dust particles in the air, to the sound of the bacon frying in the pan, everything looked and sounded clear again. It was as if some thick fog had lifted from her head, freeing her senses. That meant no more clunky old glasses, no more people having to repeat themselves or talking louder so she could hear more clearly…she was really free from all of that now, free from the prison that was old age.

 

‘Aunt Doris’ she said with excited anticipation, the lilt in her voice soft and youthful once more. Another little reclamation of her true self that she revelled in.

 

Doris turned around slowly with the pan in one hand, and when she laid her tired morning eyes on her Grand Niece they suddenly enlarged. Her jowly face scrunched up in a series of folds as she carefully took in the youthful vision in front of her. Was she dreaming perhaps? Was this some sort of trick? It only took a few seconds for Doris to give into the reality of what she was seeing, dropping the pan as she rushed over to her grand niece as fast as her thick, cellulite ridden legs would allow her, and then they embraced.

 

‘Oh Maggie’ she said, her voice muffled against the neck of her grand niece ‘I can’t believe it! I really can’t believe it!’

 

As they hugged one another tightly, Maggie was slightly taken back by the softness of her Aunt’s portly body in comparison to her own. To feel Doris’ soft belly and pillow like bosom squishing up against her newly thin, girlish frame was a strange sensation for the rejuvenated young woman, having lived with such heavy features herself for what had felt like forever.

 

‘I’m so happy for you Maggie I can’t even begin to tell you’ The old woman said, pulling herself away from Maggie, ‘I’m almost scared to believe it it’s so wonderful.’

 

Maggie laughed ever so slightly.

 

‘I know exactly how you feel, I can barely believe it myself Aunt Doris.’

 

Still clutching onto the sagging PJ’s Maggie looked down at herself, and for the first time in a long time her vision was not barred by a sagging bosom or gut. She patted her tight and toned stomach, pinching what very little fat was there and laughing to herself with elation as Doris watched on delighted.

 

‘I’m finally…me again.’

 

Doris was tearing up, clasping her hands together and placing them to her heart.

 

‘It’s a miracle dear, nothing short of a miracle….I tell you what, why don’t you go get yourself into something more comfortable and I’ll call your mother right away to tell her the good news, I’m sure she’ll be up here in no time to see you, to take you home.’

 

Maggie could feel the tears begin to build herself, she sighed with relief and nodded at her Aunt Doris’ gesture. There was some finality to the sigh, long and satisfying, as if this release of air was carrying all of the aches and pains of old age with it into the ether. The weight, the pressures and stresses she had been forced to endure for so long all drifting off somewhere far away from her. In that moment she felt truly free.

 

‘That sounds great Aunt Doris’ she managed, her happy tears catching in her throat just a tad.

 

As Doris made her way towards the phone Maggie began to hurry herself back up the stairs and to her room to get changed. She was taking great pleasure indulging in her returned youthful energy, leaping up the stairs two, three steps at a time as she made her way. Maggie got back up to the bedroom and once again felt an inclination to observe the surroundings with her younger eyes. This room was Doris’ guest bedroom but it had well and truly been Maggie’s domain for the length of her ordeal. In a strange way it had begun to feel like home for her, the décor with its doilies and pastel colours, its ceramic ornaments and simple aesthetic all befitting her elderly self…but she wasn’t old anymore. She was back to her true, youthful self once again and she took great delight in feeling at odds with the room upon her return. It felt like it belonged to someone else, not her. Her true home was back in the town of White Peaks, and she could hardly wait to return to it.

 

She let go of the plus size bottoms and watched as they fell about her bare feet in one swift movement, no tugging or catching at all, the garment puddled onto the floor completely and utterly it was so big on her. She smiled cheekily as she stepped out of these oversized pajamas with ease, shaking her head in slight amazement as she took in the size of them. To think those giant things used to fit her snugly, she thought to herself. She certainly wasn’t going to miss lugging around all of that weigh.

 

Continuing to gaze around the room Maggie’s eyes befell the full length mirror. She walked over to it slowly, realising that this was the first time this mirror had ever held her true reflection, her young self, her real self. Her features came into focus with each step, and when clarity took hold she felt herself shiver as she gazed upon her restored young image. She placed a hand to her cheek and stroked ever so slightly, cute and soft, no longer plump and jowly. Her hand then gently traced her forehead, where once a small series of wrinkles would frow there, her head was once more smooth and sleek…essentially, everything was right once more. She smiled again, laughing softly to herself as she shook her head and playfully threw her thick and luscious locks into the air in one swift movement of self indulgent fun. Her slender, bare legs exposed, Maggie began to arch them into different seductive positions. She pouted her lips, blew herself kisses and struck various sexy poses that would drive any man wild. It had really been a long time since she was able to do something like this. Such a long time since she was able to look upon herself and not see a stranger. Maggie was always scared that one day she’d look in the mirror, see the elderly reflection and see herself in that image….that her true self would be forgotten, replaced and turned to memory, but now that was behind her. As she indulged herself in that moment of well earned vanity Maggie was already eager to allow her strange ordeal to fall to some dark recess of her mind, never to be thought of again.

 

With her actual self restored Maggie’s mind began to race with all of the new possibilities that had suddenly opened for her. Her personal life was in such complete ruin, she hadn’t seen or contacted her beloved boyfriend Billy in what had felt like forever, a true sore spot for the girl, but now she could finally make things right with him now and give him the attention, time and love he had always deserved. She could do the same with her group of friends, attend her graduation and of course finally get her career back on track. Doris was right, it was a miracle and nothing could ruin the moment, nothing in the world.

 

Maggie could feel a nasal catch in the back of her throat and with one definitive snort she woke herself up. Sitting up in the bed and still quite dazed from awakening Maggie took a few moments to process her surroundings and discern her reality. Only a minute ago she was positively elated, experiencing the end of her miserable ordeal and was finally back to normal after what felt like a lifetime, but as she grew further and further into wakefulness and the world around her came into greater clarity so to did the realization that it had been nothing more than a dream. It wasn’t particularly devastating or shocking for Maggie given that she had been having variations on the same dream for well over a month now. Looking down at her lumpy, bulbous body shaped under the warm covers she let out a tired, familiar groan. It was strange that the thought of her 23 year old self posing sexily in the mirror, reveling in being slim and having the energy to walk down a flight of stairs without getting a little tired was now relegated firmly to the world of dreams for her. Old women must have dreams just like that all of the time she thought to herself, fantasizing about returning to their long forgotten youth back to when they were pretty young things like in the good old days before the stretch marks, wrinkles and the grey hair…she had been an old woman for over two months now, how she should be any different?

 

Maggie smacked her dry, wrinkly lips before yawning deeply, her exposed bingo winged arms outstretched and jiggling faintly with the motion, her double chin accentuated as her mouth widened. She grunted a little as she pushed her heavier frame up and out of the bed, it creaking under her weight just a bit as it did every morning. With a slight thud her chubby, cankle topped feet hit the floor, her belly forming deep rolls as she sat up at the side of the bed and paused for just a moment to get her self together. Absent mindedly and now purely out of habit the aged girl scratched there, the softness of her aged stomach no longer such an oddity for her. As always, her trusty pair of pink, fluffy slippers were placed strategically at the side of the bed so that with little effort she could slip her aged feet into them and be ready for the morning. She started shuffling off towards the bathroom, her back already playing up she instinctively placed a palm of her hand back there for support.

 

Maggie was in fact only wearing her silky pajama bottoms and now her slippers but nothing else. In the middle of the night she had woken up briefly to find herself far too hot, her new fat old body was far more prone to overheating and sweating than it ever had been before, so she had thrown her pajama top to the floor. With no top or bra, Maggie’s saggy and fleshy breasts were completely exposed, ever so slightly patting against her stomach as she waddled along the room. Eyeing the silky garment scrunched up messily on the floor Maggie bent over to pick it up but felt a slight click of pain in her as she did so, her knees ached ever so slightly and most surreal of all was the feeling of her large bosom and paunchy stomach sagging and drooping with added gravity. Letting out a tiny audible moan of discomfort as she slowly but surely arched her way back up, Maggie didn’t dwell upon the aches and pains she had just experienced, those feelings having eerily grown normal and mundane for her now. If it was earlier into the transformation, back when it all started a little over two months ago such sensations would have caused Maggie to feel nothing less than ill. When this had begun her instinct was always to feel sick or to wince or react in any negative way as she was forced to reckon with her new flabby elderly body…but now these moments conjured nothing in her. She was an adaptive sort, the kind of person who could survive in any condition, and as debilitating a condition as this was she was still hanging on…however barely she often felt was the case. Two months might not seem like such a long time in the grand scheme of things, but to Maggie it had felt like forever. To live for that length of time in a completely different town, as a completely different person really, or some version of herself that she didn’t align with, it was deeply unfair and a struggle…but his was her world now, it’s not like she had a choice.

 

She stood there in the bedroom for a moment as she placed the silky garment back on her flabby body but she was fussing with the thing. This had been happening quite a bit lately with a lot of her clothes and she had tried not to really acknowledge it, not properly, but she had to admit to herself now that they were getting tighter. The top still fit and she managed to button the top up soon enough but she could feel her blubbery paunch pressing up against the buttons with a little more force than usual. She had noticed this a little while back, perhaps just under a month or so ago. At first she was ready to blame the weight gain on the transformation itself, that perhaps the magic that had cursed her into this elderly form hadn’t finished with her yet and was making her fatter and fatter…but no…she knew well and fine that this additional plumping was down to her and her alone. Her diet had changed almost immediately, eating meat, finding herself gorging on chocolate biscuits and baked goods far more often thanks to her seemingly endless cups of tea, but it was more than that. Especially since the revelation during her first bingo game that her identification had morphed along with her, Maggie had found herself sneaking an extra sweet here and there. She never thought she’d ever be the type to comfort eat, as it was almost certainly linked to the depression brought upon by the change, but she was already fat she often thought, what were a few pounds more? She picked up the thick glasses from her bedside table and placed them on her grandmotherly head as she continued to think. If she kept it up she thought, it wouldn’t be long until she had to start raiding her Aunt’s wardrobe. The thought of being just as large and fleshy as her pretend sister not making the aged girl feel quite as disgusted as it perhaps should have, at this point, two months into living as a portly grandma, it really just seemed like an inevitability.

 

As she got to the bathroom and took a look in the mirror, Maggie groaned once more as she was met with yet another little elderly detail to put a damper on her morning. She sighed as she made her way to closer to the mirror and eyed it carefully behind her thick lenses. With one chubby hand she prodded at her soft jaw, and with the other held a pair of tweezers that had been sat on the sink tightly in her wrinkled fingers. Her heavy morning eyes, still bleary from her awakening locked in as best they could upon the target as her right hand, armed with the tweezers moved closer to her chin. She closed them down and pulled, and with a slight tug it snapped. The plump former youth tutted as she brought the object of her frustration close to her bespectacled eyes for closer inspection. It was a little hazy at first, but with some refocusing it came into clarity. A single white hair. It had been sticking out of the fold of her soft double-chin, and it had been the fourth or fifth hair she had pulled from that area in the past two months. With little regard she ran the tweezers under the tap and watched the now almost invisible white hair get sucked down the drain as she peered down and over her generous bosom.

 

Her eyes returned to the mirror. Her face was thick with morning puffiness. Her eyes droopy and lined. Her cheeks were plump, meaty looking jowls that were hanging even more so than usual, thank you cookies, she thought sarcastically. She sneered as she stared at her tired reflection, anticipating the monotony of the day ahead.

 

'Good morning crone'.

 

______________-

Her slippered foot was tapping nervously against the kitchen floor as the sound of the boiling kettle rumbled in the background of her thinking. Doris was sat through in the living room, lounging as always in her recliner, her old bones a bit tired and in need of some relaxation after waddling to and from the Easy Springs supermarket. More than just the groceries, Doris also picked up a few anti-aging products as the behest of the self-conscious ‘young’ Maggie Harris. This was a fairly recent development for the aged girl, the on-set of wrinkle worry…triggered mainly by her becoming more integrated within the Easy Springs community. At first she was just so disgusted and shocked by her lined, haggard appearance that she wanted to shut herself away from the rest of the world but after meeting ‘other’ elderly women, getting to know them over the past two months and spending some real time with them at Bingo and the like, Maggie didn’t feel quite so alien in her saggy, wrinkled skin…but that just meant she had a new set of peers to compete with. It was so odd for the aged girl to find herself feeling that way, trying to look younger, thinner, smoother for a group of elderly grandmothers.

 

Before the transformation Maggie was effortlessly the most attractive of her small, tight-knit friend group, and so trying to look her best in her friend’s company simply wasn’t something she ever had to deal with. Maggie had always viewed that competitive aspect of female friendships as being beneath her, as a behaviour only teenagers and truly immature women engaged in…but things were very different now. It wasn’t even competition so much as just fitting in. All of the older women she had encountered were the same, trying to look younger…complaining about how old and fat they had all gotten and how they wish they could get rid of their double-chins or the lines in their forehead etc. and now Maggie was just another old lady with the same wants. It was very different for her however. These elderly women fundamentally understood that they could never look as young as they really would like to, that the best they could hope for was to avoid their guts getting any bigger or their wrinkles getting any deeper, but for Maggie her new concern with how old she looked carried with it a real emotional weight that no-one in the Easy Springs community could ever understand. She kicked herself at Bingo nights when she’d glance over at Aunt Doris’ friend Agnes, comparing her slim and well maintained appearance to her own frumpy, matronly one. She had even considered taking up Agnes’ offer to join her for her morning jogs but the mere idea of her now rotund, fleshy body running up and down the street in gym wear, with her droopy breasts and paunch flopping up and down for the whole community to see…it was more than a little much for her, she would rather just stay fat.

 

Oddly enough though, despite her concerns, her body was one area of her new life where she felt she had some semblance of control. Being overweight or even having to put up with achy hips and the like just didn’t bother her a whole lot anymore. That might be in part due to her being surrounded by people who look like she does now, who can relate to her physical troubles. It was everything else that had begun to really dig deep into her psyche these days.

 

Maggie had spent the last two months doing very little, and was finding it easier and easier to give in and appease those elderly aches and pains with long bouts of time spent in her soft and comfortable recliner. If she wasn’t sitting in that chair of hers watching some nonsensical soap opera she’d be sleeping in it. Really outside of going to Bingo every Tuesday which she couldn’t help but admit she was well and truly enjoying, she would be house-bound…trying to find various ways and means of amusing herself. She had even taken up reading some of Doris’ old romance novels. The trashy, ridiculous kinds that bored housewives tended to indulge themselves with…and Maggie (much to her own embarrassment) was now just another frumpy homebody who was thinly projecting herself onto the heroines of her new favourite book series. She didn’t even want to acknowledge the fact she was identifying with the main character who was also a mature woman in her early fifties, swept off her feet by a series of young men. The aged girl wasn’t quite ready to admit to herself that her habits were becoming distinctly that of a real older woman and not just someone stuck as one.

 

Maggie was perhaps too self aware and self critical for her own good, as her new-found laziness and her utter lack of drive was beginning to really eat away at her internally. She was still the feisty and focused young woman she was only a few months prior no matter how many granny habits she was beginning to pick up – and the conflict between her young and elderly self lifestyle wise was becoming a lot to handle. She was a young woman trapped in the body of a plump old lady and with that Maggie felt as if all her of her zeal and resilience was slowly escaping from her. Unable to put all of that former energy to use, and of course still deeply disturbed and depressed concerning her strange predicament, it was much easier for Maggie to avoid dealing with the challenge of creating a new life for herself that had purpose and focus like she had planned, and instead indulge in the odd, lazy comfort of being old. She really hated to admit it, but nothing quite satisfied her as much these days as kicking off her conservative pumps, shoving her puffy feet into a pair of comfy slippers and finally sinking her fat backside into that recliner of hers. Even the creak it made when she plopped her heavy, round self down was weirdly satisfying through familiarity. Maggie argued with herself often that she deserved these small pleasures after all she had been through, but today was different.

 

Today she was stood against the kitchen counter, preparing the 2nd or 3rd cup of tea for herself and her great aunt Doris, but thinking incessantly and deeply about what lay ahead. Most of the time she tried to not stand for too, this simple act often enough to bring about the slight twinges, pulls and aches that peppered her lower body, but Maggie was so distracted at this time that this everyday concern that had become instinctual for the aged girl simply fell by the way side and didn’t matter. Achy hips be damned.

 

She had been avoiding this for what felt like forever, throwing out excuses whenever Doris or her mother Julie would press her on the subject…which was quite often. Her mother would call, Doris would ask politely mid conversation and Maggie would say things like her back was playing up more than usual that day or that she felt especially tired. On one occasion Maggie even used her new found fondness for playing bingo as an excuse to avoid this day…but she was all out of excuses. Today really was the day, in which she said goodbye to her former self for good. Or at least that’s how she saw it. Of all the strange and uncomfortable things Maggie had been forced to contend with since her transformation nothing made her feel quite as nervous and ill at ease as what lied ahead…because today was the day she went home.

The part that irritated the aged girl the most was that had been her idea in the first place. Maggie was getting flashbacks of a few weeks prior in which she had calmed her distraught mother over the same kitchen table that stood inches away from her now. Telling Julie that she wanted to go home again and spend real time with her mother…and most importantly of all, her little sister Ashley. Maggie had truly wanted this and felt ready for it at the time, but now she was regretting her words. She hadn’t considered just how difficult such a thing would be. The aged girl shook her white-blonde head in mild frustration at her past self for putting her in this current situation as she poured the hot water into the cups. How could she be so stupid, she thought. It had only been a little over two months, she wasn’t used to anything yet, not really…there was a degree of familiarity with her flabby old body now sure, and she had fell pretty heavily into the same daily routine as her elderly great aunt…but seeing her sister again, which would be emotional and heart wrenching enough without then having to take on the role of her grandmother…her own grandmother at that…what was she thinking?

 

Stirring one of the cups thoroughly (both she and Doris were fans of strong tea) Maggie sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want those things. To be reunited with her sister and to get away from Easy Springs for a while…away from the boredom and routine of her new elderly existence…of course she wanted that, but the realities of it all were frightening. Reintroducing herself to Ashley as ‘Grandma Margaret’ as she saw it, would be the final nail in the coffin for Maggie Harris. Which in turn meant the definitive beginning of her new life as Margaret Barnes. She just wasn’t ready for that she thought, and might never be.

 

‘Maggie honey are you still making the tea?’ Doris called from the living room.

Maggie turned, still distracted.

 

‘What was that Aunt Doris?’ Maggie asked, leaning her ear a little closer to the kitchen door, her eyes crinkling slightly behind her thick spectacles in concentration.

Doris sighed before replying.

 

‘I said, are you still making the tea dear?’ she asked once again, louder and making sure to annunciate each word for her hard of hearing grand niece.

 

‘Just a second!’ she shouted back through from the kitchen.

 

She muttered away to herself a tad angrily, trying to shake herself out of her funk and also annoyed that she had asked her Aunt Doris to repeat herself for what must have been the millionth time. It wasn’t that her hearing had gotten any worse, she had just become acutely aware of how bad her hearing really was now – and it had even become something of a running joke among her new friend group. ‘Two time Margaret’ Betty had called her innocently one night at Bingo when they were all a bit tipsy. She had asked Maggie what she wanted from the bar at least 3 times before Maggie finally understood. It made her sound like such an old hag too she thought. ‘What was that?’ ‘Say that again?’ ‘Speak up now dearie my hearing ain’t quite what it used to be hehehe’….well that last one wasn’t real, but that’s how she felt whenever she had to ask someone to speak louder for her. Like she was some dithering, decrepit granny cliché. Doris had suggested that she might go to the doctor’s about it, see if they can do anything to help – she even tried to suggest hearing aids as a possible solution, speaking endlessly about the wonders it did for her neighbour. Maggie respectfully turned down the offer however. Her hearing wasn’t great but truth be told she understood it wasn’t as bad as all that, she certainly wasn’t deaf anyway and she’d also rather not embarrass herself by having to rely on yet another accessory to her old age on top of her thick glasses, support hose and joint cream.

Getting out of her own head for a second Maggie picked up a piping hot cup in each liver-spotted hand of hers and carefully plodded through into the living room.

 

‘Sorry Aunt Doris, my head was elsewhere’ Maggie said placing the cup next to her comfortable looking Aunt, a slight strain in her voice from the faint pulling sensation in her lower hip as she bent over.

 

‘That’s quite alright honey…is everything alright?’

 

Maggie stood up straight and sighed, her own cup still gripped tightly in her wrinkled fingers.

 

‘I um…I’m just a little all over the place right now…it’s a big day y’know?’

 

Doris nodded gently in understanding. She did know and in fact had been privy to Maggie’s anxieties for a while now. Julie would phone everyday to check in and naturally would always ask her aged daughter if she felt ready to return home, if she knew when she’d like to see Ashley again. It was clear to her and to Julie that Maggie was evading this very fundamental next step. Doris had spoken to both Maggie and Julie on the subject separately. First with Maggie, the same night her mother left Easy Springs where Doris first detected the hesitance in Maggie’s demeanour on the topic of her little sister. The aged girl got antsy and much to Doris’ surprise, in an attempt to avoid the conversation actually pulled herself out of her recliner in the middle of their favourite soap opera to go ‘wash some dishes’. The same antsy behaviour she was witnessing now, as Maggie’s round body stood over her with a slight restlessness she hadn’t seen in the elderly girl since she came to Easy Springs. Doris understood Maggie’s agitation of course, this was going to be a major development in all of their lives and she also empathised that Maggie, having resigned herself so defeatedly to her new elderly body, might regard this as her first true act as the matronly old woman she had been turned into, the first one that truly mattered, cementing her new role as Margaret Barnes, grandmother forever…but what other choice did she have now, Doris often thought.

 

Doris had always privately hoped that Maggie could in some strange way learn to embrace her new identity as Margaret Barnes so as to make the loss of her true persona that bit easier. She struggled with that hope of course, knowing that it was something she could never openly share with her grand niece or Julie, but returning home and being reintroduced to young Ashley as her grandmother, it was a step in the right direction in her tired eyes. She was elated when Maggie had told her the idea in the first place, seeing this as a truly positive growth, as the first real movement from Maggie towards getting some semblance of a real life back. Now Maggie’s nervousness was making her feel nervous too. She knew that it was impossibly surreal for her grand niece, that to re-enter her home in the body that she didn’t identify with it would be the strangest and perhaps the most internally devastating thing Maggie would have faced so far. But if she could overcome this, Doris thought, then she knew she could overcome anything else the future might have in store for her fake sister. Doris deeply understood that such a transition wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d rather Maggie face something like this now and conquer it than allow her own panic, depression and sense of loss to overcome her entirely. It would be an easy spiral to fall into, and that’s the last thing she wanted to see Maggie do.

 

‘It is a big day Maggie. I know that. But a good one, yes? Are you not excited about spending some time back at home? You must be getting sick to the back teeth with me and the soap operas by now dear’ Doris chuckled slightly, trying to keep the mood light, but her warm smile faded as she gazed over Maggie’s still distant and concerned expression.

 

‘And seeing Ashley again of course…’ she added, a little more seriously this time ‘that must make you feel a little better about today?’

Maggie stood there still, lifting her cup of tea to her red, wrinkly lips. The aged girl took a deep breath before looking back at her Great Aunt.

‘Do you think Aunt Doris…that I could maybe…’

 

‘What honey?’

 

‘…cancel…today?’

 

Doris sat up a little bit before pushing the recliner back enough to become just a normal chair.

‘Maggie what are you saying?’

 

‘I’m saying…I’m just saying maybe we could leave it for today y’know? I mean, I could always head back later in the month or something right? I’m a bit tired I think. You know what it’s like, when your hip plays up, feels like it’s been getting worse throughout the week and –‘

 

‘Maggie come on now, this isn’t right.’

 

‘What isn’t?’ she asked nervously.

 

‘This…’ Doris said, using her plump hand to gesture towards Maggie ‘…this has been going on for weeks now. You can’t keep putting this off dear.’

 

‘I know but—‘

 

‘No, no more buts. This is serious.’

 

‘You think I don’t know that Aunt Doris?’ Maggie retorted an anger taking hold of her voice. Doris shied down some, a little surprised at Maggie’s tone. Despite spending the last two months together the two pretend sisters hadn’t really argued. There were petty things that they might have fussed about sure, the choice of cookies bought from the super-market came to older woman’s mind, but nothing even remotely serious. She had never seen her grand niece like this.

 

‘Listen Maggie…I know—‘

 

‘No you listen. I know that you mean well Aunt Doris, and I know that you think pushing me home will—‘

 

‘I’m not pushing you dear’

 

‘Would you just hold on a second? Let me speak. I know that you think going home will help me or something but…but you don’t know that. You don’t know anything about this.’

 

‘Maggie that just isn’t fair. I’ve been here for you every day for the past two months or so, don’t tell me I don’t know anything about this, you know that isn’t true.’

Maggie was starting to get quite upset now. Her pretty but baggy eyes began to water, her turkey waddle neck quivering a little more than usual as her throat welled up some.

 

‘I know that’ she said, trying to keep it together ‘and I appreciate that more than you can imagine, but Aunt Doris when I say you don’t know what its like to be me, you just DON’T. Yeah sure, you’re old and you’re heavy…just like I am now…but what? You think…you think that’s all it takes? That you know what I’m going through because we both have to rub lotion in our joints and we can’t see our toes anymore? It’s not as easy as that. We’re not supposed to be able to relate, not like that. I don’t want to relate to you. I’m…I’m not supposed to be…this.’

 

Maggie gestured down at her round, flabby and distinctly grandmotherly body. Clad in a pair of black elasticated slacks and a red cardigan, not to mention her fluffy slippers, granny panties and support hose Maggie could not have felt more separate from her true self in this moment.

 

‘Maggie sweetheart please just calm down a second’ Doris replied, trying to keep the aged girl from having a full breakdown.

 

‘I mean I’m 23 years old for Christ’s sake and look at me! I’m fat…and old and…and I’m sick of it!’

 

‘I know you are dear, why don’t you just sit down for a second and we can talk about it some more.’

 

‘No’ Maggie said, a little quieter this time. She paused for a moment, and in that pause grew to realise how she was unfairly attacking Doris. That she had let the stress and fear that had been building up inside of her these past few weeks build and now it was spilling out of her. She had to get under control, she thought to herself.

 

‘I’m sorry Aunt Doris…’ she said, wiping the tears gently from her chubby face, ‘…you don’t deserve any of this.’

 

‘It’s fine honey, you’re allowed to be upset.’

 

Maggie nodded and smiled down at her Great Aunt. Still so patient and caring with her even now after all of the stress and insanity that Doris was exposed to through her. The aged girl felt both guilty and in awe of her Great Aunt’s nurturing resolve. Perhaps it comes with age, she thought to herself ironically enough. In that second she realised how odd it must be for her Doris and her mother when these moments occur. When Maggie would get emotional like this she’d strop and rant like any other young woman barely out of adolescence as she truly was still, but now in the body that evoked the aura of a kind, warm and doting grandmother. Wise, calm and caring with age as Doris was…and she just didn’t feel like that, not at all. Maggie still felt like her young self beneath the grey hair and saggy breasts, she couldn’t adapt to this ‘new life’ that was being laid out before her, and she reckoned she never would.

 

She often thought in these moments that the closest parallel to what she was going through was like someone waking up from a long, long coma. The world having gone on and evolved and grown and left her behind, leaving her to wake up in the body of some old woman she didn’t identify with, unable to catch up in time either emotionally or mentally in order to live a normal life. Her tears dried up as she lifted her head.

 

‘I think I just need to clear my head a bit Aunt Doris. I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’

 

‘Don’t worry about it dear, you’re right I can’t understand what it is you’re going through…not entirely. I don’t want you to think I’m pushing you into anything Maggie, I promise I’m not.’

 

‘I’m just so confused right now. It’s my own fault really, I’m the one who said this would be a good idea…I even had to convince my mom to go along with this in the first place. It just feels so sudden in a way. Honestly my whole perception of time has been so crazy since this all started. One minute it feels like I’ve been stuck this way for years despite it only being two months, and other times its like it’s just happened and I’m having to adapt to being this way all over again.’

 

‘And it’s going to take a long time before you truly feel better. That's the sad truth of it Maggie, but like I’ve always said…you will get through this one way or the other. Life…it may not be the same ever again..for any of us…but I know that in time you’ll be ready to take it by the horns and really live again. I know it.’

 

The aged girl laughed slightly, warmed by her Great Aunt's kind words of encouragement.

 

‘Thanks Aunt Doris, you always know the right thing to say.’

 

Doris with a bit of a grunt pushed herself up and out of her chair to embrace her grand niece. Without saying a word the two old ladies hugged tightly, their fleshy bodies smooshing up against one another warmly. As the two reconciled Maggie turned her puffy, bespectacled eyes to the clock on the opposite wall. It was just coming up for 12 in the afternoon, that meant for sure that her mother Julie was already in the car and on her way to Easy Springs to pick her up. She had said she would try to get their for around midday. She was still panicking of course, the weight and importance of seeing Ashley again not having lessened any, but the argument helped. The two pretend sisters let go of one another as Maggie continued to think. She was being selfish, she thought. This reluctance to move forward, this inability to see her change beyond the confides of Easy Springs…it was as if in that moment the magnitude of her transformation’s effect on those closest to her was fully realised. Her mother only saw her sporadically these last two months and that was largely her own doing, her beloved Billy hadn’t received anything in the way of closure and of course young Ashley was fed a spontaneous lie that didn’t even begin to communicate to the little girl how seriously different her life would be from now on. Maggie owed them all something, and in spite of it all, she didn’t plan to wallow in her own misery anymore…she planned to deliver.

 

It was colder than it had been in quite a while, Maggie stretching out her withered hands to turn up the heating in her mother’s car as Julie focused on the road ahead, a satisfied and content smile on her face. For a split second the thought that her ‘old bones’ might make her more susceptible to the cold flitted through Maggie’s mind as she wrapped the thick, matronly cardigan she was wearing that bit tighter around her similarly thick and matronly body. She was still a little unused to riding in cars in this grandmotherly new form of hers, and as such began shuffling her soft, round frame just a little to ensure that the seat-belt didn’t cut into her doughy stomach too much.

 

The image of her transformed daughter fussing around in the car like some old biddy was no longer so strange to Julie. Instead she was simply happy to be returning Maggie home, where she believed her daughter really belonged. A little over two months might not seem like a great deal of time but given the peculiar set of circumstances it might as well have been a decade for Julie. Even in spite of the incredibly strange and distressing nature of her daughter’s homecoming Julie couldn’t help but just be glad that at least one aspect of her family’s existence was returning to normal for a time. Maggie’s absence at home had been well and truly felt by Julie those last two months, and having to continuously lie to her youngest daughter Ashley as to nature of her sister’s whereabouts was a daily heartbreak. The lie would have to be upheld of course, at least until they figured out some way of explaining to the young girl the truth in a manner she could understand, but Maggie being back home was a small victory that Julie was more than happy to claim.

 

They still hadn’t really talked about how long Maggie would be staying in fact. A couple of days? A week or two? More? Julie hoped for more that was for sure. She truly hated being so separate from her daughter especially given their situation. After their heart to heart a few weeks prior Julie made a greater effort to be present in her daughter’s life, visiting Easy Springs at least twice a week now, and while it was certainly hard for her to see Maggie as the elderly woman she had become, stuck in such a foreign environment as Easy Springs, Julie was still glad she had made that extra effort. For a while when this had all begun both mother and daughter had feared that their close-knit, solid relationship was beginning to suffer because of the madness surrounding them. There had been a real lack of communication between the two and the inherent awkwardness of Maggie’s transformation had truly put a strain on their tight bond. Through honest, emotional conversation however, they managed to persevere and were now firmly on the other side of their personal troubles.

 

Julie briefly turned her head away from the road to look at her aged daughter. Like that first day when she had driven Maggie to Easy Springs, mere hours after the transformation had taken her daughter, she took in all of the physical changes that had befallen her. Maggie was at that moment cleaning her thick glasses with a cloth that she now always kept handy. Her round, white haired head bent forward and illuminating her undeniably blubbery double chin. The clothes she wore were practical, dated and grandmotherly. Fat, stubby legs encased in support hose and a frumpy old skirt, topped off with a pair of orthopaedic slip on loafers…Maggie just looked so unquestionably old now. A far cry from the trendy young fashionista she was just a few months prior Maggie didn’t give any of her former self away anymore, it was like she was someone else now entirely…or at least, had become the version of herself that she would otherwise be 40 some odd years from becoming. Even in her unconscious movements like the delicate placing of her chubby, liver-spotted hands atop her pillowy gut and beneath her motherly bosom. The jowly face, wrinkling further in slight frustration as she treated her specs, her baggy eyes narrowing in and out for focus. This all denoted a truly mature woman, not just a young girl trapped as one.

 

Most strange of all for Julie was how this fact no longer made her stomach turn as it would have before. Noticing these differences in Maggie’s physicality and being confronted with them as she was then in the car used to make the aged girl’s mother want to weep for hours on end. Just the thought of her ambitious, beautiful and driven young daughter stuck in the dumpy frame of an old lady, trapped in that dull and dated house of her Aunt’s watching soap operas in their recliners…it would often bring Julie to private hysterics, and now that had stopped, and she was a little afraid to ask herself why. Was she finally coming to accept that Maggie’s transformation was permanent? Was she beginning to recognise her daughter as an actual, legitimate senior citizen rather than as a deeply unfortunate twenty-something stuck as one? It was hard to tell. On the one hand Julie still deep down clung to the hope that Maggie could somehow be made normal again. Not a day went by she didn’t beg, plead and pray to the universe and God and to any benevolent force out there who would listen for such an outcome…but now, there was a certain calm to her prayers. They had grown less urgent, desperate or demanding. After Maggie had let her know that the spell cast upon her had done more than just change her physically, but in fact changed aspects of her reality to better suit the new status quo that she was indeed an elderly woman from now on, Julie had to accept the sad fact as her daughter had done before her that whatever had happened to Maggie was more than likely permanent. That used to be an impossible thought for Julie, something she fought and struggled with continually, that she utterly refused to accept. Now when she looked at her aged daughter she saw that physically Maggie was for all intents and purposes an old woman – and that was the reality she just had to live in now. It would do Maggie no good for her to be stubborn now, for her to drag her heels regarding this new state of affairs pretending like things could change. Her daughter had been changed, maybe for good…and she had to endure that fact.

 

With this new begrudging acceptance of her daughter’s fate came many deep questions concerning their future. If Maggie was to be old from now on would she just stay at Easy Springs forever? Would she want to? Would she ever come home permanently? What about Billy? Would she ever tell him the truth? She often thought about the nature of their own relationship, if it would change now that they would have to swap roles when in the company of anyone other than her Aunt Doris. There was still so much to consider moving forward, but at least they both had a better grasp of things now.

 

‘So…’ Julie said, pulling herself away from her deep thinking, ‘…you excited? Nervous?’

 

Maggie placed her thick glasses back on and squinted her eyes before answering Julie.

 

‘Both I suppose…’ she croaked, her voice still so earthy and mature sounding compared to her own mother, ‘I was pretty nervous for a while there I have to admit.’

 

‘Yeah I noticed honey’ Julie replied, a slight chuckle in her voice.

Maggie breathed in deep.

 

‘I know I put this off for quite a while mom, I’m sorry.’

 

‘Oh don’t be Maggie I understand. It took me a while to come around to the idea myself remember.’

 

She did remember. Maggie could still hardly believe that she set herself up for this, was convinced that it was the right step for everyone. Truth be told she still believed that, she was just scared. Her little argument with Doris earlier in the day had allowed her to clear her anxieties somewhat. As strange as it would be pretending to be her own grandmother for her little sister, she recognised that it was the best option available for them to reconnect. This had to be done.

 

‘So what have you said to Ashley?’ Maggie asked, curious as to her little sister’s thoughts on her ‘Grandma’s’ arrival.

 

‘Just as we said before honey. I told her that her “Grandma Margaret” was going to be staying with us for a while.’

 

Maggie let out a short, throaty laugh.

 

“Grandma Margaret”….Jesus’

 

‘She’s really excited about it actually.’

 

‘Oh yeah?’

 

‘Yeah…I mean, she never had a grandmother, not like you did. Actually she’s not stopped asking me about you—I mean “Grandma Margaret” since I mentioned it.’

 

‘No pressure then. What is she expecting, baked cookies and knitted scarves at the ready?’

 

The mother and daughter chuckled.

 

‘Well honestly…I don’t think you’re far off sweetheart.’

 

‘What the hell, why?’

 

‘Well she came in one day after spending the night at Sarah’s grandmother’s house, I guess she’s very traditional, baked the girls little cakes and everything.’

 

‘Ugh…I suck at baking. She’s going to need to drop that idea and fast. Besides, no aprons in the house in an extra large am I right?’

 

Julie held in her giggle, not sure whether it was appropriate for her to laugh at little comments like that just yet. Things had gotten better sure, but there was still an underlying tension surrounding Maggie’s transformation. It was hard to tell what was ‘okay’ to talk about and what was off limits. Anything could upset her. Maggie noticed her mother’s sudden silence and shook her head a little.

 

‘It’s okay mom really’

 

‘What is sweetheart?’ Julie asked, playing dumb.

 

‘To laugh.’

 

Julie paused a moment before responding.

 

‘That’s…I’m glad you feel more comfortable Maggie…to be able to laugh even when its something serious…it’s…’

 

‘Mom?’

 

Julie looked straight into her aged daughter’s wrinkled old eyes.

 

‘It’s FINE, seriously…’ the elderly girl laughed again, ‘…I mean if you can’t laugh you’ll cry right? Honest, I don’t want you to be scared to upset me or anything. This is…the way things are going to be for now, so…we may as well find the humour where we can right?’

 

‘Oh of course Maggie. Don’t worry about it sweetheart I won’t be so serious all the time, I’m sure that just makes things more awkward’ Julie said, understanding.

Maggie began to fiddle with the radio as Julie continued to drive along the highway, the latter growing more frustrated as they seemed to find themselves stuck behind some heavy traffic. Julie was about to express her outrage before none other than some classic rock music began to fill the car.

 

‘Ooh I love this song’ Julie said, reaching over and turning it up a little bit.

 

‘Who is that again? The Beach Boys?’ Maggie asked, genuinely confused.

 

‘What? Noooo c’mon Maggie, it’s the Beatles!’

 

The song was ‘Help!’ Maggie could relate.

 

‘Oh of course yeah…’

 

Julie began bobbing her beautiful head up and down in enjoyment.

 

‘I love the Beatles, your grandparents made sure of it.’

 

‘Oh yeah? Were they big fans?’

 

‘The biggest!’ Julie said, her voice sounding so youthful and light compared to her croaky daughter, ‘It was a big part of my childhood actually. Reminds me of summertime. I’d be playing out in the yard or in the neighbourhood with the other kids and your grandparents would have the windows wide open, playing Beatles or the Kinks or whatever on their record players at full volume….think they even got some complaints from the neighbours once or twice.’ Julie giggled, finishing her story.

 

‘Wow…never took Grandpa Richard and Grandma Margaret to be noisy neighbours…couple of party animals then huh?’

 

‘What? Oh no, far from it. That was an exception because my mom just adored John Lennon. She INDULGED for John…but the rest of the time? Total homebodies.’

 

‘Really? I always remembered her as being kinda lively.’

 

‘Well she was when you were born, I think becoming a grandmother rejuvenated her a bit but she really enjoyed being home. My dad would try and get her to go to parties with their friends and stuff but she’d always drag her heels a bit. She was a homemaker though…perhaps it’s a generational thing.’

 

‘Homemaker? You mean she was a housewife?’

 

‘Uhh….yeah, I guess you could say that.’

 

The music continued to play as Maggie began to think. It made sense, her grandmother, the ‘real’ Margaret Barnes, being a happy little homemaker and housewife. It was like Maggie could ever think of her having a job. This realisation didn’t bother the aged girl all that much but it did make her consider how people would perceive her now that she was adopting her grandmother’s name. The very fact that she was now a woman approaching her seventies would bring with it a whole host of associations she hadn’t ever considered before. It was hard for her to imagine someone looking upon her and thinking ‘housewife’, ‘homemaker’ ‘stay at home mom’ but that likely would have been her vocation if she truly was 67. Maybe she would have been a screaming fan girl for the Beatles too like the real Margaret, or maybe she’d have been a far out, free loving hippy in the 1970’s. Her eyes widened in realisation as it dawned on her that she was a baby boomer now. All of the things people associate with that generation would apply to her now also…and that was strange. Despite her flabby frame and achy joints being so new they conveyed a real history. Assumptions about her personality, interests and her beliefs would now be aligned with that of the average sixty something woman, which meant a great deal. Would people think she was conservative because she’s older? Out of touch politically and socially? These were aspects of the change she had never even remotely considered before this point, and as irritating and difficult as it would be to navigate this new set of expectations those around her would place upon her…there was something kind of fascinating about figuring out the history of this new old body of hers.

 

‘Billy really likes the Beatles’ Maggie said, pulling herself out from her thought process, ‘One of his favourites actually.’

Julie hesitated for a moment, discussions of Billy were more than a little uneasy as she knew that Maggie wrestled with whether to update herself on the goings on of her beloved boyfriend. Billy had not spoken to Julie in a little over two weeks. He had gotten frustrated with her lack of answers, and being a smart kid, he knew that there was something about Maggie’s ‘illness’ he wasn’t being told…ever respectful though, he left Julie alone and didn’t pry her for further info. The concerned mother could feel the awkwardness build in the car just a little after his name was uttered. Maggie wanted to ask about him, but also didn’t want to torture herself.

 

‘So…have you…spoken to him recently?’

 

Julie nodded softly.

 

‘I uh…spoke to him last about two weeks ago.’

 

‘How is he?’

 

‘Fine…as fine as he could be given everything.’

 

‘Y’know I’m kind of hoping that he starts hating me.’

 

‘What? Why on Earth would you say something like that?’

 

Maggie shook her head a little.

 

‘I don’t know…I guess it would just be easier if he did. Hate me might be a bit strong, I just mean…I…just mean I want him to move on is all. I feel guilty still being around and he’s thinking I’m half dead in a coma somewhere. Achy hips and a fat ass aren’t the best things in the world but I’m not on death’s door…I think. I shouldn’t have said that to him. Should have thought it through.’

 

‘Maggie you acted in the moment, it was a difficult call to make. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’

 

‘I’m not I just feel that of everyone, its Billy that’s been left the most in the dark about all of this. I’m going to go see Ashley again y’know….even if it is as “Grandma Margaret”…she gets some reconciliation from this. He doesn’t.’

 

Julie furrowed her well trimmed brow and reached to turn the radio down.

 

‘Maggie I know you said it was an absolute no before…but have you thought about maybe telling Billy the truth?’

 

Maggie pouted as she thought. Briefly considering the possibility.

 

‘I….no. It’s still no. It’d just be too weird.’

 

‘I know honey but it might be less weird than…y’know…pretending your in a coma for the next however long. Not saying you should do it, it’s always going to be your call…I just think it’s something worth considering.’

 

‘Yeah I know. I definitely can’t keep up the coma thing for much longer. I’ll think about it ok? Ashley’s my focus just now. I want to make sure things with her go smooth before I even consider anything else.’

‘Of course sweetheart.’

 

Julie gazed upon her aged daughter as she spoke, noticing the sense of determination and resolve in her jowly face. Things were far from easy. There was still a lot of obstacles for her family to overcome in the coming weeks and months…but there in that moment, Julie felt a certain peace wash over her. Maggie’s predicament had dealt them all a severe amount of challenges, but there was an added strength and readiness to them all now…maybe they could make a life of it yet?

This was far from what she had expected. A return home after so long should have felt like a warm embrace. Sitting there awkwardly in what should have felt like ‘her’ living room, her flabby backside struggling to find a spot of comfort on the now creaking leather sofa, this did not feel like such an embrace. The aged girl sat completely still, her liver-spotted hands clutching onto her oversized handbag as ‘borrowed’ from her Aunt Doris simply staring up at the roof, then darting her bifocaled eyes to the fireplace, then the TV and the hallway…unsure of what to do with herself. She had been this way for about ten minutes, but it had felt like an hour. Her mother Julie had left her in the house alone whilst she went out to fetch Ashley from her friend’s house, and despite this being her home…the house she had spent most of her life in, the place where she had had birthday parties and slumber parties as a child, the place where she introduced her boyfriend Billy to her family for the first time...it didn’t really feel like home, instead it just felt…off.

 

It wasn’t the fact that she had been left to amuse herself until Julie and Ashley returned, no she was actually rather glad she had this extra time to ‘prepare’ herself for the reunion with her young sister. Her still young mind tried to undo this confusion, trying to pin-point exactly why she was feeling so distant from the place she was raised. It had been two months of course, easily the longest period of time she had ever stayed away from this place, and perhaps returning after that length of time was weird for everybody, she thought. But no. It shouldn’t be, should it? People felt relief upon crossing the threshold into their house after such a long time. She knew that feeling to a degree, and thereby knew what this return should feel like. How many times did she come home from work after a late shift at the bar, knowing that she had caught up on all of her studying, knowing that she didn’t have to get ready for any stupid party she didn’t want to go to? How many times in those instances did she drop her bags at the door, walk into the living room and throw herself down on the couch to feel a huge weight that had burrowed within her at some point during the hectic, busy day suddenly lift, washing over her an air of calm? How many times, in these moments, did she mumble into the couch pillow ‘it’s good to be home’…? Too many to count. Her return here should have felt something like that, she knew. So why didn’t she?

 

Maggie continued to ponder her predicament as she opened her large handbag and rummaged through its contents for a bottle of water. Her pruny lips were growing parched. The contents of this practically large, mature woman’s purse were so vastly different than that of her smaller, chique little purses of a few months prior that Maggie had a hard time actually believing such an accessory belonged to her. Surrounding the plastic bottle of water was her dark red lipstick, a chunky brown case for her glasses with cloth inside, some perfume as once again ‘borrowed’ from Doris, her arthritic cream and of course her various new forms of I.D. which included a Senior Citizen’s bus pass, an AARP card…all of which denoted her harshly as an elderly woman. She gave a throaty chuckle as she sipped the water bottle, each gulp bloating her dangling and soft turkey waddle neck as they passed down. The aged girl actually tutted out-loud at the realisation she had not picked up Doris’ medication for joint pain as her Aunt had insisted. Now thinking more in line with the old woman she had been turned into, Maggie no longer saw such additions to her person as embarrassing but essential. When she had taken a couple a few nights before they had done wonders for her lower back, even mentioning to Doris in conversation how she was able to bend over and pick up the fallen TV remote without her hip creaking or her knees popping. It was a small victory in the ever going battle against her newfound old age but she had to take them wherever she could these days.

 

The dark leather sofa continued to creak and moan under her shuffling weight, completely unused to the far heavier Maggie’s short struggle for comfort. No longer such an alien feeling, Maggie no longer repelled at the sensation of her blubbery butt squishing and wobbling against furniture in a bid for contentment. The reality of being a woman of girth as she now as meaning wriggling on seats had become quite a common occurrence for her. It was a little strange that she was forced to wrestle with a sofa she had appreciated and known so well, but this was the reality she lived now.

 

The thought hit her in that moment. A sad but reasonable thought. This sofa wasn’t hers anymore…not really. Nor was the hard-wood floor that made her grandmotherly pumps clack against the floor in a way that made her old feet ache, or the thin toilet seat in the bathroom that accentuated her cellulite ridden legs, or her bed which she was almost certainly convinced would feel too small and rickety to support her much heavier, yet fragile elderly frame. That’s why it didn’t feel like home, she thought. It wasn’t home. Not for her…not for who she was now. For the Maggie that could bounce down the staircase in seconds flat without breaking a sweat or a hip on the way down, sure…this was home for that girl….but she wasn’t that girl anymore, she wasn’t a girl at all. Maggie didn’t get upset at this realisation. She had cried so often and for so long that the tears were largely gone now, her emotions in this area had been depleted. Instead she thought harder, no longer running from the harsh realities she now faced.

 

This old body of hers had a home, and it was called Easy Springs. It had spent its entire existence in that place. Used walk-in showers, walked soft, carpeted floors and sat comfortably and lazily in that close to addictive recliner of hers. The recliner, her sofa wasn’t…she thought much to her own disappointment. No, this was the home of the Maggie that was stolen. The Maggie that was left to operate an ageing, fat body…unable to appreciate her proper home as she once had thanks to the layers of age that now separated her from the world she once inhabited.

 

Maggie looked around the room, settling her baggy eyes on the fireplace that held various family photos. With a sigh and then a subdued grunt, Maggie pulled herself out of the uncomfortable sofa, one hand drooped and limp at the wrist, the other positioned almost as always against her hip for support. Her gut and breasts heaved with the motion, and her wide behind took a few seconds to stop jiggling. All movements that felt normal now to the 23 year old senior citizen. She was about to walk forward but she stopped when she felt her right pump smack hard against the hard-wood floor, and with that she gently pulled her hose-worn, plump feet out from each shoe and then continued to move. Her dark red toe-nails evident through the material. Her finger nails had been painted the same color, all done the night previous…so they were clean and shiny looking. The pink that had decorated them before just looked too…youthful…for a woman ‘her age’. Dark red was the color of choice for the fashion conscious mature woman, and with her return to flab-less, wrinkle-less youth seeming more unlikely with each passing day that was what she had to settle for now.

She waddled over to the fireplace, only partly aware that her mother and younger sister were due back at any moment. She smiled warmly at the sight in front of her. A neat row of framed family photos stared back at her, with each capturing a moment in time she remembered fondly and also envied. The first on the far left was of herself, her heavily pregnant mother and her father. It was the only photo of her estranged father openly on display in the house, and despite the harsh legacy of abandonment and distrust he would leave behind only a few months later after Ashley was born, Maggie remembered that day with fondness. She had been excited for the arrival of her baby sister, and with the due date quickly coming up, her dad --- had treated his two…make that three girls to a nice day out in the park. It stuck out to her for a few reasons, one was that it was coming up on the Fall and was predicted to have been a cold day but instead the sun shone like it was spring. It was also significant as it remained one of the only sweet acts she could attribute to her father. Years later when she had gained some greater perspective on the situation with her dad at that time, Maggie thought that this gesture had perhaps been made in pre-emptive guilt. That he gifted them this kindness knowing he was to deliver them such cold, disinterest only a short time later….but now she didn’t believe that. Her father had wanted Ashley, Maggie could read it in his eyes on that photo…he just wasn’t ready for her and all that she would bring. The full family unit, the settled life. He was never a man for all that, and even though he had struggled to make it work with Maggie all for all those years, another child just broke him. She never blamed Ashley for her father’s exit from her life, not once. The air of departure had always hung around her dad, it was really only a matter of time before he gave into it.

 

She pulled herself away from that photo and moved onto the next. Little Ashley on her first day of school. It wasn’t all that long ago really, four years? Five? The little dirty blonde haired girl stood grinning against a stony, grey school wall grinning from ear to ear and showing off her cute but mismatched set of baby teeth. Maggie didn’t remember this day much to her own disappointment. She remembered arguing with her mom about it, telling her firmly and directly in that way of hers that she couldn’t miss her own morning for Ashley’s first day. ‘I empathise Mom’ she had said, shaking her head at how cold and measured she was in arguments and conflict. It would have only taken her five extra minutes to take a picture with her little sister and wish her good luck before heading off to school herself…but she wouldn’t have it. Maggie remembered that applications for work experience programmes began that day. They were first come first serve, and with a position available at the Taylor & Hale boutique that had just opened in town a month prior, the first and only high market fashion outlet to open in her quaint little town, she simply couldn’t run the risk of losing that spot. Julie had tried to lay a guilt trip on her later that day as all good mom’s do. Telling her that Ashley had asked where she was, why she wasn’t there…and at the time Maggie truly didn’t care. She knew she had bagged her placement and that was all she concerned herself with that day. It was a memory that would hang around in the back of her mind for sometime after, finally dismissing it when she got a little bit older as a ‘stroppy, hormonal teenage moment’. But it wasn’t that. She knew. It was that unsinkable drive of hers that had steered her decision. Nothing else. And that was something that she still struggled with, even now in this elderly form. Emotionally, mentally she was still that Maggie…was that ever going to change?

 

Maggie tore her eyes away and then down to her support-hose covered feet, recognising that her commitment to success was perhaps the reason she ended up in this matronly old body in the first place. Was it really that bad, she thought? Was it really so far gone and so out of control that she had to be stopped dead in her tracks and forced to exist as…this? Maggie didn’t want to think about the answer, so turned to the last photo for distraction.

 

This last fireplace photo was of her. Just her. It was a professionally done photo taken for the purposes of college I.D. Her mom Julie loved the photo so much though, that she had it blown up and kept on display. Maggie inched closer to this frame, and with her red nailed hands took the photo and held it. Maggie was smiling gently on the photo, not forceful or fake but very calm and natural. Similarly her shiny blonde locks were down for a change, so often held in a tight, business like ponytail most of the rest of the time. It was weird, the aged girl thought. This image didn’t feel like that of the direct and efficient young woman she had been for what felt like a lifetime. The aloof, withdrawn, sarcastic girl who had planned the rest of her life so thoroughly wasn’t in this photo. Instead it showed a girl who was…content…relaxed…at peace. None of which are descriptors her friends or family would ever use to describe her. Maggie didn’t tear up, but there was an emotion behind her tired eyes as she gazed into those of her photo self. What had happened to that girl, she thought? She couldn’t remember her. The picture then shifted, pulling Maggie out of her deep thought as her reflection flooded the frame. Now, she was holding a form of mirror in which she could see her plump, matronly self reflected. Looking down, her blubbery double chin was accentuated and her jowly, lined face almost made her look stern and curmudgeonly. She didn’t wince though. Not like she would have done if this moment had come only a few weeks prior. The old woman staring back at her was admittedly more familiar now than that of her younger self. Especially this calm and content younger self whom she struggled to recognise. The grandma in the glass she realised…wasn’t a stranger anymore….and she didn’t know how she felt about that.

 

With the sound of the front door clicking to life, the aged girl blinked repeatedly and placed the photo back on the fireplace in a burst of attention and wakefulness. Maggie could hear her mother using her high, light voice that she only ever used on her baby sister Ashley, and with that the elderly twenty-something waddled back over to the uncomfortable sofa and hurriedly shoved her puffy feet back into the matronly pumps. As her left foot finally sank with some satisfaction into the orthopaedic shoe, she raised her jowly head to see her mother Julie standing behind the eleven year old Ashley. There was a smile on both of their faces. Maggie was nervous and emotional at the sight of her little sister of course, but she had prepared well for this moment, and not giving into the oddity of this reunion she returned the smile. Her plump, chubby face giving way to added creases and crinkles as she did so.

 

‘Grandma Margaret?’ the little girl asked, inching forward with some enthusiasm.

 

Maggie breathed in deeply, her mammoth bosom expanding as she did so. To be addressed like that by Ashley was cutting, there was no getting around that, but she had to endure.

 

‘Hi Ashley’ she returned, her eyes wide and inviting.

 

The young Ashley’s eyes brightened up also and in a matter of seconds she ran into her older sister turned grandmother and embraced her tightly. Maggie did the same with some degree of hesitation. It was so surreal to hug her sister in so long, as…someone else. Ashley was cuddling the warm, pillowy gut of her aged sister, completely unaware that such a sensation instilled in her new grandmother a plethora of reactions and emotions. At the initial moment of contact, Maggie instinctively felt embarrassed. Ashley had only ever seen her as the lithe, girlish and fit fashionista she had been only a short time before. Now here she was, as far removed from that as she could possibly be, a plump matron-figure. Maggie looked up to see her mother trying to hold in the tears, she was both happy and sad Maggie realised. It was certainly a bittersweet moment for the two of them. The aged girl realised though that, as far as Ashley was concerned, there was nothing undermining this warm, familial moment. As far as the young girl knew she was embracing her long lost grandmother tightly, with love, with care. When she realised that, Maggie hugged back harder. Her soft, flabby arms wrapping around the young Ashley in a cocoon of grandmotherly affection, and she felt something when she did this. That warm, comforting feeling that had been so prevalent at the beginning of her transformation and had been seemingly absent…suddenly returned. In that moment she felt truly happy. She let go of her baby sister, her dark red nails still clinging sweetly to her shoulders and as she beamed down at the girl who now called her grandma, she was suddenly reminded of that fireplace photo. The photo that conveyed a version of her she couldn’t remember being there…she felt it there, in that embrace.

 

‘Grandma Margaret do you wanna see my drawings? I have tonnes of pictures in my room. You should come see!’

 

‘Oh you do, do you?’ she replied, a smile still drawn across her plump face, emotion building in the back of her throat.

 

‘Yeah! I draw all the time. Mom says that I leave too much paper around the house but I don’t think so. It makes the house look better y’know?’

 

Maggie laughed warmly.

 

‘Of course I’ll see your drawings Ashley. Come show me.’

 

Maggie held out her hand, suddenly uncaring of its chubby fingers and liver-spots, and the young girl took it in her own impossibly young paw and gradually led her up the stairs. Julie and Maggie made knowing eye contact as they began to ascend. It conveyed a sadness of course, a sadness in the fact that Ashley was still in the dark in many respects, still believed her sister to be half way around the world living it up in Sweden; but that shared look also conveyed a relief. It was the relief Maggie had been missing earlier when they had first arrived. The relief she had felt before, and had hoped to feel when she got home. It might not be home for her new elderly self, she had to accept that…but with Julie and Ashley present, anywhere they went was home.

 

Ashley tried to rush up the stairs with her elderly sister still holding her hand behind her.

 

‘Hold on Ashley’ she said, panting just a tiny bit ‘You’re going to need to slow down for me just a little okay?’

 

‘Why?’ Ashley asked bluntly, still facing ahead and only slowing slightly.

 

‘Well…I can’t move as fast as you honey…it can hurt my back or my hip if I try.’

 

Ashley turned around and looked up at the aged girl with a welling empathy in her eyes.

 

‘Oh I’m sorry Grandma, I’ll move slow.’

 

‘Thanks Ash..’ she stopped herself, coughed and tried again...’Thank you dear’

 

It was bittersweet for Maggie. Sitting there on Ashley’s small-frame bed, ever so conscious as to not shift her excessive weight around too much for fear of breaking it, she watched her little sister turned granddaughter decorate the floor with sheets and sheets of colorful paper. Ashley was clearly excited at ‘meeting’ her, and this did fill her much older heart up with warm familial feelings…only it was still so strange and uncanny for her own sister to treat her as this entirely other person, as someone other than who she truly was. Ashley chittered away as Maggie wriggled her blubbery behind on the ill-supportive furniture, carefully trying to secure herself some comfort without straining the frame too much, its creaking and audible struggle to support her elephantine new self both worrisome and embarrassing for the aged girl. It was built with little kids in mind after all, not fat old ladies like her. Straining against this fragile frame, Maggie realised she hadn’t felt quite so fat in a while as she did in that moment and privately begged the universe to not let her soft and chunky old backside crash through her little sister’s bed.

 

The size of her sister’s room also didn’t help aid Maggie’s self-consciousness regarding her corpulent new body, its small walls making the aged girl feel especially wide and its bright yellow wall-paper, so youthful and vivid contrasted quite greatly with her own dowdy, mature appearance. Her thick support hose encased legs and frumpy plaid skirt looking especially homely and old-fashioned against the backdrop of such vibrancy. Maggie had thoughts like this quite a lot of course, especially when she was forced into a new situation she had yet to face as her elderly new self. Sometimes it would feel as if she had finally gotten a handle on this fleshy, ache-prone old body of hers, that she’d be able to just go about her day as if everything were normal…only to find herself reminded of just how much of this change she still had to contend with. Physically she may have grown accustomed to her elderly frame but psychologically and socially there were still many hurdles to jump, and coming home to face her young sister was one of the toughest so far.

 

It was impossible for her not to be brought back to that first day. The day when she woke up to find herself transformed into the portly old grandmother she now was. That initial feeling she had experienced when she gazed in the mirror and really took in what had happened to her. Saw the fleshy jowls, the flabby gut and wrinkles…it was always just beneath the surface ready to re-emerge. Even if just for a moment, she had no choice but to continually revisit that point. It was partly why the aged girl was so nervous about returning home, she knew ahead of time that there was going to be so many new obstacles and issues to face, so many aspects of her ‘old’ life still left to confront. She may have only been back for a couple of hours, but it already felt like a different place for her. Not unwelcoming exactly, just not quite…home anymore.

 

In contrast, the retirement community of Easy Springs felt more and more like true home to Maggie with each passing day. Unlike her journey back to White Peaks and the house in which she was raised, Easy Springs offered her a simple comfort. She hated to admit it but she had fallen into quite the snug and cosy routine up there, the slower pace of her Aunt Doris’ home far more befitting her aged body. Now thrown back into the surroundings of her pre-elderly self, it was tough for Maggie to feel at peace. It was as if the easy-going, simple living of retirement life had moulded her somehow. It was something she had yet to truly confront, but she could feel herself changing internally. Her behaviour, her habits, even her thinking patterns were no longer quite the same. They certainly didn’t reflect 23 year old Maggie Harris at least, that was for sure. No these shifts were in support of her new identity, that of 67 year old Margaret Barnes. Given how difficult the transformation had been for her at the beginning, it was as if with each passing day Maggie allowed herself to slip just that little bit deeper into her new grandmotherly persona. It was something she fought and struggled with at first, but now it was getting easier and easier to think of herself as the flabby old woman she now was. The thought even crossed her mind that she may have already crossed the threshold psychically, she may already be that new woman…and she just wasn’t ready to admit it quite yet. The strangest thing about this was Maggie’s inherent knowing that this curse or spell was not the source of this internal, psychic transformation…it all came from her. It was adjustment to her new body, it made it easier…sometimes it even felt good. The aged girl didn’t quite understand it, but she no longer put up so much of a resistance. Maybe it was only a matter of time before she succumbed entirely to this new reality. Perhaps she thought about it too much however, perhaps the comfort of Easy Springs was simply a by-product of manoeuvring the body of an elderly woman and nothing more. The retirement community helped ail the lethargy and exhaustion that comes with being an old lady, and she was so exhausted in many different respects.

 

Physically of course, as comes with being so over the hill and out of shape as she now was, but mentally she was also drained. The last two months had been an emotional rollercoaster to say the least, and Maggie was simply done with the suffering. She was sick of tears and of rages…and it was possible that she simply had nothing more to give emotionally either.

 

Seeing Ashley again, interacting with her was something Maggie had anticipated to be incredibly upsetting, and it was to a degree, a family reunion under such odd circumstances naturally stirred within the aged girl feelings of defeat and anger in regards to her predicament. But she wasn’t in tears, balling and screaming in anguish, wishing she would die now that her own sister looked upon her as a grandmother now. If this had been a few weeks back however, things might have been different. Quite frankly Maggie was dealing with things well, better than she had remotely anticipated and this lack of pain or anguish in her general demeanour these last few days actually made Maggie somewhat concerned. Concerned as this realisation raised the very valid question of whether Maggie was in fact getting over the transformation? Over in the sense that she was beginning to look at her youthful, pre-transformation self as some ‘past self’, and the matronly old woman she wakes up to every morning as her ‘new self’. Was she really beginning to accept that this was her life from now on? That she was becoming Margaret Barnes and leaving behind Maggie Harris for good? It was a strange one for the aged girl to ponder. On the one hand she had made the conscious decision to get on with things and to build some semblance of a life for herself in the wake of the revelation that she was now seemingly stuck this way for good…but she also didn’t expect to get to the other side of that journey so fast.

She cast her mind to some of her friends like Haley and asked what if this had happened to them? What if Haley had woken up one day to find herself a portly vision of matronhood and learned she was going to be stuck that way for the rest of her life? Visions of her former best friend turned into a fat granny screaming and wailing for months, if not years on end started to flood her mind. There was just no way she could have gotten to the point where Maggie was now. Having begun to create a new life for herself, ensuring her relationships with her family would hold strong in spite of everything that’s happened. Maggie should be proud of where she was now….so why wasn’t she? Was it normal, she thought, to be so complacent with all that had transpired? Wouldn’t any other person have just ended it if something like this were to happen to them? Maggie brought her dry, wrinkled hand to her soft face, flicking a bit of sleep from her tired and baggy eye as she brought herself out of her deep think. She had to stop delving so deep into the things she could neither entirely know or control, not anymore. Part of the journey back home was to be more in the moment, more active and present, it was time to start reflecting that.

 

Placing a dark red fingernail to her chunky glasses to fix them back in place, Maggie felt a smile form across her jowly cheeks as Ashley held up a single sheet of paper with enthusiasm for her new grandmother to see. Maggie already knew this drawing, it was an older one Ashley had done a few months back. Maggie had called it ‘her favourite’ back when Ashley had showed it to her true, youthful self sometime ago and there was something kind of sweet about getting to praise it all over again.

 

‘That’s a lovely drawing Ashley’ she croaked, the old woman coughing slightly as if to exercise the low, raspy aspect of her matured voice from her throat but to no avail.

 

‘This one’s Maggie’s favourite’ Ashley said, looking down at the drawing herself as she spoke.

 

‘I can see why’ Maggie responded somewhat knowingly, ‘It’s very nice. A dress design isn’t it?’

 

‘Yeah…I think she likes it because it’s a fashion thing’ Ashley said, shoving her long dirty-blonde hair out the way of her face ‘She loves fashion. Do you know that?’

 

‘Yeah I do. I….I remember her designing clothes from when she was quite young. Around your age in fact, she used to draw pictures like that too. Is fashion something that interests you Ashley?’

 

Ashley took a second to think before throwing the drawing away flippantly, dropping to her knees and returning to her large pile on the floor for something she deemed more interesting.

 

‘Nah, that’s boring.’

 

Maggie rolled her eyes a little behind her bifocals, having already known that this would be her little sister’s answer. Maggie had tried to impart her own love of the fashion world onto her little sister many times with very little success.

 

‘So…not quite your thing then?’ Maggie asked again, trying to subdue her smile.

 

‘I think it’s…I think it’s fine y’know? I just don’t care about it all that much. It’s like, Maggie’s obsessed with it and girls at school love that kind of stuff too…I just never have. I like drawing other stuff.’

 

‘Like what?’

 

‘Uhhh…I dunno. I draw like, monsters and stuff.’

 

‘Monsters and stuff?’ Maggie said, a slight giggle in her husky reply.

 

‘Yeah. Well…I mean not just that…I like to draw everything. People, places, whatever. I really want to be an artist when I’m older. Our art teacher Mrs Drew actually said I was the best in the class.’

 

‘I remember that she –’ Maggie stopped herself. Her tone of voice, her demeanour had changed completely and slipped right back into the version of herself that didn’t have to worry about her knees popping when she got up from a chair. She sounded like Ashley’s sister….not her grandmother. The aged girl cleared her throat a little before starting again.

 

‘I remember your mother telling me about that on the phone dearie. I’m very proud of you.’

 

‘Thanks Grandma.’

 

Maggie nodded a little awkwardly and smiled at the thank you. She had to remember that she wasn’t ‘Maggie’ in that moment, she was ‘Grandma Margaret’ and Ashley was not her tomboyish little sister but her granddaughter. Keeping up the charade might be a little tougher than she had initially thought, she would just have to be more ‘in character’ from here on out.

 

‘So…Grandma Margaret?’

 

‘Uh yes…dear?’

 

‘How come we haven’t met before?’

 

Maggie gulped, her turkey waddle throat wobbling slightly with the movement. The aged girl would have to think more on her feet.

 

‘Um…we have dear, lots of times in fact…only you were very young so you may not remember.’

 

‘Uh-huh…so why have you been gone so long?’

 

Maggie looked down at her pumps trying to think, although her vision was greatly obscured by her matronly bosom and pillowy gut. She twiddled her red-nailed thumbs together as she thought deeper, trying to stay in ‘granny mode’.

 

‘I live quite far away unfortunately. I moved out of the state a couple of years after you were born and…well at my age dear it’s not so easy to move around anymore.’

 

‘Mom should have took us to go visit you or something, it’s a shame we haven’t seen you in so long.’

 

‘I know Ashley, we always tried to…arrange something but it never quite worked out for whatever reason. Your mother was always so busy with you and your sister…but now I’m back! And we’re long overdue for some quality family catch-up time I would say.’

 

‘That sucks that you didn’t get to see Maggie’

 

The old woman’s fatty, round cheeks blushed a little at the mention of her true self.

 

‘Ah yes…it’s a shame. But I’ve had the chance to speak with her on the phone and she sounds like she’s having a lot fun way out there in Sweden. While she’s living it up there, you get me all to yourself!’ The aged girl said with a slight grandmotherly cackle, it was deeply awkward talking about herself as if she was another person.

 

‘What did she say? I haven’t spoken to her.’

 

‘Um…she said that she’s having fun and that she misses you and your mom and that she hopes you’re…um…doing well at school and uh—’

 

‘That doesn’t sound like her’ Ashley said, rather matter of fact.

 

There was a slight air of unease in the room now, Maggie’s matronly face looking positively jolly now with redness despite its source being tension.

 

‘Oh? What do you mean…dear?’

 

‘Maggie never asks stuff like that’ Ashley said as she flicked through various drawings, ‘She never talks at all really.’

 

‘Oh I’m sure that’s not true Ashley’

 

‘It is. You don’t know, she just comes in and goes straight to her room all the time. I never see her, and when I do she always says she’s busy…I don’t think she likes me.’

 

Maggie felt a stillness take hold of her at hearing these words. Ashley started to draw on a clear sheet of paper, completely oblivious to the sting of guilt she had placed within her aged sister. Did Ashley really think that, Maggie thought? That she didn’t like her? It was difficult to know how to respond exactly. She wanted nothing more than to break free of this granny role and tell her that she, Maggie, her sister not only liked her but loved her. That she should never think such a thing…but what could she do? She wasn’t Maggie, not anymore.

 

The aged girl took a deep breath before replying. If she had said something similar to the real Grandma Margaret, what would she want to hear? What was the truth? How could she communicate it through the filter of her new role?

 

‘Ashley…’ she said calmly, the rasp in her voice conveying a deep sincerity, the little girl turning around and looking up from the floor with wide eyes for her grandmother.

 

‘…I know that your sister can be difficult at times…’ Maggie continued ‘…but please know that she loves you. She thinks the world of you. She said as much to me on the phone when I spoke to her. I think…I think that Maggie just…doesn’t know how to convey feelings like that all of the time. She gets so wrapped up in her studies or her job that she forgets to say the important things…like I love you…to the people who matter. And she does love you, and you do matter to her…just as you do to me. Ok?’

It was strange, Maggie expected such a heartfelt exchange would elicit tears but it didn’t. Instead she held a certain tone of warmth and calm, not hysterics or upset…just like she remembered her own grandmother doing. Ashley smiled in response and nodded.

 

‘Sure thing Grandma, I know.’

 

Maggie nodded back, her aura of grandmotherly compassion holding strong about her and filling her with that rush of serenity and calm that she had experienced periodically throughout her time as an elderly woman. No sadness or pain, just affection. It wasn’t a feeling she wanted to end.

 

‘Hey listen…’ Maggie said, her pruny red lips smiling kindly ‘I think I’m going to go downstairs and make us some hot cocao…what do you say?’

 

‘That sounds great Grandma, thanks!’

 

The aged girl scratched briefly at her loose neck, the sensation of her plump hand prodding her soft, wrinkled throat no longer an oddity for her before she placed her hands on her round knees and with a slight grunt as always, heaved her rotund self up and off the young girl’s bed. Her knees creaked as she stood there, her joints always taking a second to adjust before she could move freely again. She sighed a little as she stood there, allowing her bones to settle before making a move.

 

‘Are you ok grandma?’ Ashley asked with genuine concern, her young eyes taking in the sense of struggle and fatigue that befell her hefty grandmother with such an otherwise simple movement.

 

‘Oh yeah don’t worry about me dear…’ she sighed, ‘…just a part of getting old I suppose.’

 

‘Do you need me to help you down the stairs?’ Ashley asked.

 

Maggie’s eyes widened a little in embarrassment. The aged girl now beginning to question just how old and decrepit she appeared to be in the eyes of her former sister.

 

‘No, not at all. I’m fine Ashley honest, it just takes me a second to…gather myself when I have to get up.’

 

‘Do you have to take pills for it?’

 

‘For what honey?’

 

‘Your hip? Your back? Knees?’

 

‘Uhhh…’

 

‘We stayed with my friend Sarah’s granny just the other week and she has to take pills for all kinds of things. She said they really helped.’

 

Maggie tried to suppress a chuckle, it was almost cute how concerned the young girl was for her even if it did make Maggie feel like she was 97 and not 67. Although, she had to admit that she was a little intrigued as to what kind of pills this old biddy was taking. Maybe they could be of use? Any respite from her creaky joints being more than welcomed.

 

‘I don’t Ashley but maybe I’ll get in touch with your friend’s Grandma, we can compare remedies for back pain’ the aged girl said with a sarcastic bent.

 

‘Ok, as long as you’re ok. I’ll come downstairs in a bit I wanna draw some more first.’

 

‘I’ll let you know when the cocoa is ready ok?’

 

‘Sure’

 

Maggie watched as her new granddaughter returned her attention to her drawing. She was such a creatively minded kid she thought, if she wanted to be an artist when she was older than there was no doubt in her mind that Ashley could make it. She turned and made her way out of the almost scarily youthful room, the disparity between Ashley’s colorful decoration and Maggie’s own dumpy, grey self appearing almost comical. She turned once more once she had shut the door, smiling a little sadly in reflection of their exchange before she began to make her way down the stairs. Waddling carefully, Maggie had one liver-spotted hand firmly on the bannister and the other holding her soft, fleshy back for support. She began to ponder Ashley’s comments as she made her slow descent. Did she really look like she needed more help? Was it possible that was true? Maggie had been embarrassed even thinking of having to use a cane or a walker…but this far in to her change, maybe it would make things a little easier for her? If she was going to be stuck this way forever there was no point in holding onto the vanities of her younger self. She had to start thinking more practically. It wasn’t even as if she would have to use something like that all of the time, just when she really needed it. Doris didn’t have one though, and she wasn’t as old or as big as her Great Aunt…

 

Her thoughts continued to circle this subject as she made her way down the stairs, each thud of her fat feet sending slight ripples through her cellulite ridden thighs and dimpled butt-cheeks. The jiggling of her fatty bits simply didn’t phase her anymore. It had become so normal, so everyday that she barely registered it. In fact, while she wasn’t entirely aware of this herself, Maggie was actually beginning to forget what it was like to ever be skinny. Almost as if she really had been inhabiting the body of a overweight woman for decades and not a mere two months.

 

Julie was walking by with some laundry as the aged girl made her way downstairs. She stopped to look at her elderly daughter, her face half happy to see her and half concerned at the image of her once little girl slightly struggling with walking down a stair case. The old twenty-three year old returned a smile to her mother as she descended, letting out a relieving sigh as she made it to the bottom floor.

 

‘Are you ok?’ Julie asked, concerned.

 

‘Yeah mom I’m fine honest. It just takes a little more effort manoeuvring the stairs is all. I’m pretty used to it now.’

Julie’s smile faded slightly. Maggie could practically read her mind. You shouldn’t be used to it at all, her mother was thinking, she could read it on her pretty face.

 

‘Y’know I didn’t really take into consideration just how unaccommodating the house is to your condition’ Julie said, a certain seriousness taking hold of her, ‘Is there anything you need at all? I can always run out and grab anything you think might make things a little easier.’

 

A cane, a walker, a stair-lift, a walk in shower, more fibre heavy foods, maybe a raised toilet seat…all of these things flashed through her mind in response, but Maggie merely gave a throaty chuckle waved her red-tipped hand in disregard.

 

‘No no, I’m ok really. Some days are just better than others y’know? I didn’t sleep all that great last night, that could have an impact.’

 

Julie nodded gently, trying not to press her daughter on the issue any further than she wanted.

 

‘Well if there’s anything, you know you just have to say. I don’t want you to feel embarrassed or anything sweetheart.’

 

‘Oh don’t worry, I’m way past that’ the old girl croaked ‘I’ll use whatever helps. In fact Ashley mentioned that her friend Sarah’s grandma took some pills for joint-pain. Doris was going to give me some of her to take with while I was here but I forgot. That might be worth considering?’

 

‘You want me to ask? I have her number.’

 

‘Sure, that’d be great mom.’

 

‘No problem, I’ll give her a call soon for you.’

 

‘Thanks’

 

‘How did it go with Ashley by the way? Everything go okay?’

 

Maggie nodded. That sense of matronly warmth returning ever so slightly.

 

‘It went fine actually. Better than I could have expected.’

 

‘Oh that’s great honey, I’m really glad to hear that. At least we can count on your baby sister not to make things any more difficult’ the happy mother said, her face beaming with the response.

 

‘She’s a great kid’ Maggie replied, holding onto to that feeling a little tighter this time ‘And you were right, she seems really excited to have me here.’

 

‘Grandma Margaret you mean?’

 

‘What? Yeah…right, not me sorry…Grandma Margaret’

 

Julie didn’t really pay attention to this slip, more relieved to hear how well things had went for her aged daughter today.

 

‘It’s kinda cute isn’t it? I suppose if we can squeeze anything positive from this whole ordeal we should embrace it.’

 

‘Yeah I guess we should…’ Maggie said a little aimlessly.

 

Julie picked up on her elderly daughter’s wandering mind.

 

‘Is everything ok Maggie?’

 

‘Hmm?’

 

‘You seemed a little elsewhere there. Something on your mind?’

 

Maggie licked her wrinkled lips and placed one hand against her meaty hip.

 

‘Y’know Ashley said something upstairs that surprised me a little.’

 

‘What was it?’

 

‘She thinks I don’t like her.’

 

‘What do you mean?’

 

‘I mean…not me but--god this is confusing. She thinks that Maggie, her sister doesn’t like her. She told me upstairs, thinks I don’t talk to her.’

 

‘Oh really?’

 

‘Yeah, she hasn’t said anything to you about that has she?’

 

‘Oh no, not at all. I had no idea she felt that way.’

 

‘Me either. I guess she felt she was able to tell me because I’m…well, the cuddly old grandma. And to tell you the truth, it didn’t feel all that bad. Hearing it like that.’

 

‘How so?’

 

‘Well, it’s obviously something Ashley’s had on her mind for a while. And if she hasn’t told the real me about it or you, it must have been bothering her for a while. But she felt ok saying it to me as Grandma Margaret. There was no filter at all, she felt completely at ease with me up there.’

 

‘I see.’

 

‘I feel terrible that she thinks that, and I know it’s not just her who probably feels like I don’t care about them as much as I should. You, Billy, Hayley and the others…before the change it was like I was almost on the verge of pushing everyone away for good.’

 

‘Maggie that’s not true, you could never push us away. We wouldn’t let you for christ’s sake.’

 

‘It is true. I was so wrapped up in my own bullshit y’know? Whether it was finishing school, making sure I was prepared for my big career in the fashion world…and look how that turned out. If I had gone any further with my behaviour before this happened, I might not have any of you guys left to help me.’

 

‘Maggie sweetheart, come on now, you know that no matter what I will always be there for you. The same goes for your sister and I’m sure Billy too. There was never a version of events where you dealt with this alone. None.’

 

‘Maybe, but it’s telling that she thought that about me. I have to do more for her, with her.’

 

‘Well we can work on that. You’re home now, where you should be and with all of this free time we can really put some quality time into you and Ashley. Into us, the whole family. It’s certainly not the ideal set of circumstances, but we can find a way to make this work.’

 

Julie placed the laundry basket down at the ground, Maggie noticing how effortlessly her mother bent down and got back up with no struggle whatsoever before Julie embraced her soft frame. Maggie thought about her mother’s suggestion while they hugged and realised that while she was right and certainly wanted to spend more quality time with Ashley, their dynamic had completely changed now. They wouldn’t be reconnecting or bonding as sisters anymore, but as grandmother and granddaughter. Was she ok with that, she thought? Was she willing to forge an entirely new relationship with Ashley? Perhaps she didn’t have a choice anymore. If the young girl really believed that Maggie didn’t like her then she would ensure that she thought her Grandma Margaret adored her. It was the least she could do for being so cold and aloof for so long. And if she could use this terrible curse to repair some of the damage she had done in the past, maybe all of this anguish and pain could give way to something good after all.

Coming back from the bathroom, her jowly face coated in a quickly drying green anti-aging night mask, Maggie made her way as gently as her heavier frame would allow to her room, trying to lighten her thick foot significantly so as not to creak the floorboards and disturb her slumbering baby-sister. How strange it is she thought, to worry about such things. She recalled memories from her teenage years, sneaking up the stairs and into her room without so much as a peep. Her frame, so much lighter then, practically floated across the floorboards and now look at her, waddling, lumbering. Each step of her fat feet thud-prone and heavy. Even the silky soft pink orthopaedic slippers she was wearing did little to soften the pressure of her thicker foot against the floor, although they did do wonders for her ankle pain. It made her feel especially overweight navigating her home in this body; her mother and young sister turned granddaughter being so small-framed and light. Just as she used to be. Now she felt practically elephantine in their company. Back at Easy Springs she had settled quite well into her round and meatier frame, her Great Aunt Doris sporting an even greater gut than she did. Creaking floorboards and furniture were a fairly consistent background feature of her quaint, sedentary little life up there, so much so as to no longer be an issue. The people she interacted with most often, whether it be her Aunt or her new group of granny pals like Betty and Elaine were all heavy-set too. Being such a common feature of the Easy Spring residents and encountering fat people like herself on a daily basis, it made her being overweight feel less severe.

 

Now however things were quite different. It was as if the house itself was doing everything it could to highlight how significant her transformation really was, to underline every layer of flab and every wrinkle. To establish this ‘new’ version of Maggie Harris as distinctly alien from the house itself. This thought deepened as she crossed the threshold into her bedroom. The minimalist décor and pastel color scheme, all exceedingly modern and refined clashed deeply with her tired and frumpy new self. Maggie paused for a moment, her right hand reaching behind her fat rump to the door handle and closing it. Her vision was blurred of course, her essential spectacles sitting on the bedside table – but even with her sight impaired as it was, she could still take in how adjacent this space was to her elderly being. She wrapped her fluffy pink nightgown around her wider self that bit tighter as she moved forward, trying to not dwell on this dissonance between her bedroom, the space she had always felt most at home, the space which had reflected her own personality better than any other, with her own body. It was 9:45 pm, (late, for her) she was tired…she wanted to go to sleep.

 

Maggie waddled on over to the closet where she disrobed, her soft and dimpled bingo wings jiggling ever so slightly with the motion. She paid little attention to the closet-door mirror as she opened it, wanting nothing more than to sleep and be rid of this creeping anxiety. It wasn’t like she ever struggled to fall asleep anymore. After a long and emotional day as she had just experienced, a deep, snore-filled sleep was well earned. She had warned her mother in advance of her new nightly habit, encouraging her to maybe invest in some ear plugs even.

 

‘Oh I’m sure it’s not that bad Maggie’ Julie had said, half-joking and dismissive, a warm grin across her youthful, pretty face.

 

‘You’d be surprised’ Maggie had responded, rolling her eyes behind her thick glasses, ‘I wake myself up snoring more times than I’d like to admit if I’m being honest.’

 

‘Well…if it doesn’t disturb your Aunt Doris I can’t see how it’d be much of an issue here.’

Maggie sighed, shaking her jowly head slightly.

 

‘Mom…Doris is even older than me. My snoring doesn’t bother her because she’s just as bad as me. I’ve seen it, heard it. Getting back from the toilet while we’re watching TV and she’ll be asleep on the couch, snorting up a storm. Hard to believe I make the same noises.’

 

‘I think you’re over thinking this honey. We all snore. I snore, your sister snores. It’s a normal, everyday thing’ Julie replied, folding some laundry and not making eye contact with her elderly daughter sat belly-pressed against the kitchen table.

 

Maggie could laugh.

 

‘You won’t get it I guess….it’s…’

 

‘It’s what?’ Julie asked, her face shifting to a sudden expression of concern.

 

Maggie chuckles throatily.

 

‘It’s nothing mom honest. You’ll understand when you’re older I suppose.’

 

Maggie replayed that last moment in her head as she hung the nightgown up into the closet. Her comment was met with her mother’s awkward laugh followed by her quit exit from the room. What a strange thing to say to one’s own mother. Had it really reached that point, she thought? So resoundingly senior as to provide her own mother with ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’ kind of talk? Julie didn’t address the comment when she came back in the room, and Maggie was happy to leave it as it was.

The saddest part about that moment was the honesty of it. Maggie unavoidably so, has more insight into being older than Julie now. In fact there’s so many little details and aspects of being an elderly woman that Maggie is more than familiar with by this point, all details she’s sure her mother has no idea about. No concept of. Does Julie know that she’ll involuntarily grunt with almost every transition from sitting to standing? Does Julie know she’ll spend a great deal of time wondering if she has any visible chin hair when talking to other people? Does she know that her vagina will change colour as she gets older? Maggie doubted it. She really hated it, the strange authority being an elderly woman suddenly gave her over her own mother. It was never addressed, nor would Maggie ever wish to, but their dynamic had shifted somewhat. Her mother was more agreeable than she had ever been, more accommodating, more…she didn’t want to think it, but it was true…more ‘daughter’ like.

 

Maggie had noticed this ever so subtle change in their relationship shortly after that reconciliation meal at Aberto’s about two months ago. It wasn’t conscious of course, Maggie understood that, but when in each other’s company Julie would treat her aged daughter more and more like the fussy older lady she had been turned into. Even with the topic of snoring earlier, Julie’s reaction put Maggie squarely in mind of how her mother would respond to the real Margaret Barnes. Rolling her eyes with some levity and saying something like ‘oh mother, quit being so dramatic’. How long before Julie started to treat her the same way? Maggie could feel it building slightly in the background of their dynamic. A year on? Four? Five? Maybe then they’d all be so settled into this new status quo, so comfortable with the changes that Julie could say things like ‘Oh Maggie don’t be so fussy, have you had a nap in your chair yet? You know how grumpy you can get without it’ and have it not be gut churning. Or maybe…maybe it’d even be nice, Maggie thought. No more fighting it, no more dancing around it or dissecting every new detail, trying to establish some scare hope for a return to normalcy. Maybe it would be nice for them all to give in to it. Really allowing herself to be this old woman, able to be comfortable and even happy in her wrinkled skin…as if it were completely normal, as if she hadn’t been forced into such a life...as if she was always just…Margaret.

 

She coughed abruptly, her flabby chest a tad wheezy. She was thankful for such a distraction. Letting her mind wander into territory like that was dangerous, and she never allowed herself the opportunity to give such thinking too much of her energy. Her dry and pruny lips cracked ever so slightly as she yawned, her soft face giving way to an ever deeper double chin as she did so – and absent mindedly and tired, she nearly didn’t notice a dress fall out of place from the closet. It lay against her slippered foot. A dark slinky number, its silky texture nice against her skin. Maggie didn’t even want to pick it up really. The effort it took to bend over these days was fairly excessive, especially so close to bed time, but ever the stickler for neatness the 23 year old grandmother reached down, her belly and bra-less breasts sagging as they always did, her meaty behind wobbling gently as it always did, her grunt, throaty as it always ways and with some sense of relief picked the item up and into her chubby, liver-spotted hands.

 

It lay there limply in those hands. Her red-nailed fingers gently rubbing the material taking in its soft and sensual texture, light and girlish. It was one of her favourite dresses, she recognised. The same one she wore the day she met Billy. The same dress she planned to wear if she had actually gone to Hayley’s party that fateful night two months ago. She loved this dress in fact. The old young woman held the dress up properly, her chunky, matronly arms outstretched and allowing the item of clothing to fall gently into shape. It was gorgeous. Simple in design, but effective. The definition of catching. Part of her really didn’t want to draw attention to how far gone she truly was physically, but her curiosity got the better of her. So somewhat softly Maggie brought the slinky, short dress closer to and finally against her thicker, mature body. She practically dwarfed the thing, the dress only accentuating how truly wide she had gotten. This dress was a size 6, a small. Now what number was she sporting? A size 20? A 22? Did they even have labels on the clothes she wore anymore? Or did they simply call it ‘plus size’ and leave it at that so as not to upset all the fat girls and grandmas of the world. Maggie quietly laughed. Had this been a few weeks prior she might have burst into tears in this moment, now however, she was so far into the other side of this thing that tears and hysterics were replaced by some level of humour and a great degree of quiet resignation.

 

The mental image of her elderly new self trying to climb into a dress that size was inherently comical. It’d burst at the seams for sure, ripping entirely and exposing any poor onlookers to her pale and jiggling flesh. If by some miracle the dress stayed on her round body, it would be choking the life out of her. Her thunder thighs rubbing together, chafing as she shuffled around, her distinguished, grandmotherly bosom threatening to pop out of the top at any moment…it might just be her worst nightmare for this new body of hers. She continued to chuckle quietly to herself as she sized the dress up. Staring at the short trim for a second she paused and sighed.

 

‘It would be nice’ she said aloud, stroking the thing gently, thinking of a scenario in which she was skinny enough again to put it on.

 

‘Although…’ she squinted her old eyes at the fabric and laughing a little as she said it continued, ‘…looking at it now…I suppose it is a little…risqué.’

 

Maggie continued to smile warmly, ready to put the dress back in the closet before it suddenly hit her. Her jowly cheeks blushed, her thick fingers rushed to her crinkled mouth with an ever so slight gasp. Her eyes darted around in struggled thought.

 

‘Did I really just say that?’ she whispered out-loud, shocked and embarrassed by the remark. Utterly confused as to why she would say such a thing about what was (once at least) her favourite dress.

 

Maggie held the dress up once more with some determination and scanned her tired eyes across it, as if she had missed a step along the way before, trying hard to look upon the item in the same way she did a few months beforehand.

 

She nodded enthusiastically, albeit a little unconvincingly at the clothing saying in a surprisingly high pitch, more youthful voice ‘Yeah, yeah…I…don’t know what I said that for it’s…it’s…..sexy! It’s…fun! It’s….’

 

The dress stared back at her now. Right through her in fact. Who was she kidding?

 

‘It’s too revealing’ she said, her voice sinking back into its now naturally croaky timbre. She took a deep breath before engaging with these thoughts. It was too short, it left nothing to the imagination, if she had had any real boobs before the change they’d have been falling out of the thing, it would do a girl no good on a cold night, so uncomfortable and impractical...

 

‘Holy shit’ she thought, ‘where did that come from?’

 

All of these thoughts ran through her grey-haired head, and they felt…right.

 

‘Ok then’ she said, gently placing the dress back into the closet, jarringly next to her dowdy, yet comfortable, looking nightgown.

 

‘So…I guess I’m an old lady for real now huh?’ she thought to herself, half joking, half nervous.

 

Was it the spell making her think like this? she thought, for a moment genuinely concerned that her own mind could no longer be trusted. It had to be…right? Only…no, not right. Maggie placed one hand against her soft, spongy hip as she used the other to open the closet door once more. It wasn’t the curse that made her think like this, Maggie realised, it was all her. Inevitable in fact. Living as an elderly woman for the past two months solid, and anticipating a life-time as one ahead, Maggie’s attitudes, thought processes, even her beliefs and tastes were almost certainly subject to change. Of course a woman whose main concerns regarding fashion were now limited to how well it hid or lessened her fatty, elderly features would think a short and slinky dress was too revealing…because it certainly was, for her. She could no longer look at the world through the eyes of her 23 year old self, to do so would be pretending. As she realised in that moment, her outlook was beginning to slowly conform to that of the average elderly woman quite naturally as a by-product of this magical transformation, and it made sense.

 

She was firmly an outsider to youth now she recognised, there was no getting around that anymore, and with her reluctant inclusion into the realm of the elderly Maggie has been forced to look at the world in an entirely different way. She thinks more practically now on matters she never did before. The clothes she wears must accommodate her aches and pains now, they have to be soft and supple, easy to get on and off, orthopaedic preferred in the shoe department. Even her very movement is now pre-mediated to a degree. Each hill, each flight of stairs, each uncomfortable looking seat must be approached with a certain pace and readiness. Once that’s been instilled in a person, there is simply no going back. She understood this now.

 

It explained a lot really, she thought. The love of Bingo, for example, a surprising revelation to the elderly girl – made a lot more sense with this new perspective in mind. She enjoyed Bingo as much as the rest of the old biddies because it helped break up the monotony of her week. Maggie was able to engage with people other than her Great Aunt for a change, it was social in nature. The tea and the soap operas in contrast, provided her some routine. Jobless and physically impaired in comparison to her youthful self, it was more than reasonable for Maggie to enjoy these quiet pleasures with her Great Aunt. Distracted from her seemingly endless stream of thought, keeping her as busy as her old body would allow. Maggie had to face facts in that moment, she wasn’t the same person anymore. The thought even crossed her mind for a moment, that if she should be so lucky as to return to normal, to wake up one morning and find her sagging breasts gone, her flabby belly gone, her wrinkles and aches and grey hair all gone, fully returned to the beautiful blonde young woman she was supposed to be…would she still be the same person she was with that body? Or would the habits and outlook of her grandmotherly alter-ego remain, holding true? Her outlook forever that of an elderly woman no matter how young and beautiful she became. It was a sad and puzzling thought.

 

Maggie bit her wrinkled lip gently as she continued to think, gently coming to the realisation that she had been stood here at the closet door for what must have been a while. She slapped her hand against her thick thigh as she shook herself to full lucidity. Too much heavy thinking for one night, she thought. All of the conclusions and revelations she had made in those couple of minutes were sure to carry over for sometime, she’d deal with it in the morning. Or maybe, she thought…she wouldn’t. Her earlier thought, of relinquishing the fight came into sharper focus. It wasn’t giving in she realised, it was working through. Not allowing such anxieties get the better of her and dominate her every waking moment was something she could really get into. Had she not told her mother and Great Aunt that in light of her seeming permanence as an old woman, she would make the best of it and persevere? Make a real life for herself no matter how hard? Maybe it was time to really put her money where her mouth was, Maggie thought. Maybe it was time for her to stop overthinking every new detail that found its way into her life, anguishing over the things she couldn’t control, and instead give focus to things that she could control. Her relationship to her family was one. Her social life was another. It was hard for Maggie to quite believe it but whether she liked it or not, she was a part of the Easy Springs community now. Maybe it was time for her to take advantage of that, to get involved.

 

A sense of determination took hold of her jowly face, and suddenly the realisation that she was beginning to think more like a 67 year old woman didn’t feel so bad. After all why should it? She was 67. She turned her fuzzy eyes to the digital clock by her bedside across the room but failed to make it out. It was after 10 though, practically a night out for her at this stage. Just as she was about to apply her arthritic ointment and finally head to bed, a thought took her. Maggie turned her round head back to the closet. The door was still open, the slinky and now suddenly revealing black dress still on display. Maggie reached out with her plump hands and grabbed it. She looked it over one last time before a warm smile grew across her soft old face. With the dress in hand Maggie turned and made her way out of the bedroom, her gait plodding. She stood at the top of the stairs and listened as best she could. Despite her hearing clearly not being what it used to be, the silence of the rest of the house allowed her to discern that her mother was still downstairs in the living room, watching TV. Maggie walked along the hall, once again doing her best to not disturb the rest of the house with her heavy feet, so putting her lightest foot forward Maggie very easily made her way towards her mother’s room. The dress still in her hand, Maggie waddled softly over to her mother’s massive closet, her slippered feet sinking into the soft cream carpet and stood at its door just as she had done to her own moments before. Her old eyes turned to the gorgeous fabric in her hands one last time, she didn’t feel sadness. Then she opened the door to her mother’s wardrobe and very gently and neatly hung the dress up on one of the spare hangers. It belonged here, she thought. She smiled once more before closing the door and making her easy exit out of her mother’s bedroom and back to her own. Interestingly Maggie didn’t think about the dress one minute more the second she returned to her own room. It was where it needed to be. Instead, her mind turned to more practical matters, her arthritic cream, sat there on her bedside table as if waiting for her. Maggie closed the bedroom door behind her and began to apply the product content and satisfied in knowing it will make the day ahead of her that much easier, for these are the things which concern her now.

 

‘Should it be as easy as this?’ Julie thought as she poured herself a glass of water.

 

It had been three days and things had been so eerily normal, since Maggie had returned home. Julie had found the whole idea of Maggie returning under the guise of ‘Grandma Margaret’ to not only be risky but maybe downright offensive at one point. It was a mockery of all the things she held dear. Her own mother, the real ‘Margaret Barnes’, long since passed – and of course Maggie herself. The idea of her own daughter having to play ‘Granny’ for her young sister had made her sick some time ago…and yet, here they were…getting along with it. Maggie was sat in the living room reading intently, and Ashley was upstairs playing or drawing as she often did. From where Julie was sat she could make see her aged daughter struggling to get comfortable on the black leather couch, its material not really built with the heavier-set in mind. Julie had even noticed a large indention forming in that seat, wide and deep, from her far heavier daughter’s consistent sitting there. Julie never mentioned anything of course, she was sure Maggie knew herself, it wasn’t like there was any way of controlling such a thing. There were a lot of little things like that though that Julie perhaps wished she could bring up. Little things that she allowed herself to avoid for fear of upsetting her elderly daughter and sparking an argument. Things like Maggie’s eating habits. Having gained so much weight in the transformation, Julie expected that Maggie might put a greater effort on how she eat from then on – but she hadn’t. Instead, she had been indulging in fattier foods ever since. It was beginning to become noticeable too. From the sugary cups of tea, baked goods, fatty meats and big breakfasts…Maggie was definitely gaining more weight.

 

This was deeply worrying for Julie. Firstly, seeing her once rigidly vegetarian and health conscious daughter eat such unhealthy foods was disconcerting, and while she of course would never mention such a thing to Maggie, the aged girl’s eating behaviour was also markedly different from her younger self’s. Julie wasn’t sure if it was a being heavy thing, or a being old thing, but sometimes when Maggie was eating she would kind of snort. Her lips would smack a little heavier and would just generally be a bit noisier than she had ever been before. Maggie had always been the ultimate figure of refinement and youthful class beforehand, and now that was simply not the case. More alarming for Julie however was the fact that Maggie’s new eating habits now posed a serious health risk. Her daughter was, for all intents and purposes, a 67 year old woman now, and an obese one at that. What kind of damage would all those fatty foods be doing to her daughter’s much more fragile system? What if she was eating herself into a heart attack? It was getting hotter and hotter lately too. If Julie was feeling the heat and getting tired what on Earth must it be like for Maggie? Having to lug around all that weight on those old bones of hers? What if she had heat-stroke? That could be lethal to a woman her age ---

 

‘A woman her age’ she thought, shaking her head. This was her 23 year old daughter she was thinking about.

 

Julie brought a manicured and gentle finger to her right temple and took another sip of her water to calm her thinking. Spying on Maggie again, watching her contently read her book, she knew she could never bring herself to say any of these things directly. How embarrassing it must be for Maggie, she thought, to have to be treated like the old woman she was never meant to be and now inexplicably was. Julie had tried to avoid such treatment as much as possible since this all began. Privately of course she worried herself sick thinking about all of the possible ailments, health problems and issues her now geriatric daughter might potentially have to deal with. She wanted nothing more than to make sure Maggie was safe and healthy, taken care of. But given her condition she knew that Maggie would feel like some sort of invalid if Julie fussed over her. Her daughter had always been so self-sufficient and prideful in that regard. Maggie was so strong, she thought. Even now. In spite of how soft and feeble she might appear, Maggie still resonated that strength on some level. Julie just wondered if she was being strong enough herself. At what point would her daughter’s health outweigh her embarrassment? At some point it would have to give, but not now, she thought. It had only been two months since this all began, still such a fresh wound…they just weren’t at that place yet.

 

The past two months had been the longest of her life though, that was for sure. It had felt like decades since that fateful night when Maggie returned home from work, tired and a little out of it. The last time she had seen her daughter as she was truly supposed to be. Young, slim and oh so beautiful…not this frumpy old woman she had been turned into. It simply wasn’t fair. Julie’s mind continued to wander as she poked her head in the freezer to grab some ice for her glass of water. What was in store for them now? She thought. Maggie seemed to be right in her stance that things weren’t ever going to go back to normal. That had been a hard pill to swallow for Julie, but two months into this nightmare, no-one was waking up. The distraught mother had quietly accepted, much like her daughter, that things would never be the same again. What that meant for the future of her family however was very much uncertain. What would the family even look like in a few years time? Julie had been excited about the idea of becoming a grandmother herself. A few years down the line and Maggie would have been in her late twenties, and hopefully long into a secure and stable relationship with Billy. The idea of those two young love birds having a child used to make her feel so happy, so ready for the future. Now that was all gone. A few years down the line and Maggie would be 70 years old. Getting older and older. She wondered if she Maggie would decide to live up there in Easy Springs indefinitely at some point. Would Maggie ever meet someone new? Some old man? The thought made her ill. The scariest thought that crossed Julie’s mind, something that she never dared speak aloud for fear of upsetting or scaring Maggie was the possibility that Maggie would age to the point where she could no longer take care of herself. What could she do then? Stick her daughter in a home? It was too frightening to consider.

 

Julie gulped the rest of her cold drink down and placed it down on the counter she leaned against. She had to stop doing this to herself, she realised. For Maggie’s sake above all, she had to keep a calm head…she had to focus on the positive. Things had been nice and easy the past few days, there was that. Maggie and Ashley had been reunited, there was that and most importantly, Maggie seemed to be doing just fine. The constant calls for ‘Grandma Margaret’ from Ashley didn’t seem to bother the aged girl all that much, which is not what Julie expected. In fact, Maggie played the part of ‘doting granny’ a little too well. The thought crossing Julie’s mind that Maggie had spent the last two months readjusting and settling into this new life of hers away from home. Away from herself. What if Maggie was allowing herself to really become this other person? Julie noticed she was letting that negative thinking creep in again, especially when she knew that Maggie’s becoming more comfortable in her sagging skin (however strange it ultimately was) would be much better than the alternative. Above everything Julie wanted Maggie to be happy, and if giving in to her new identity as ‘Grandma Margaret’ meant achieving that comfort and happiness, then so be it. It’s not like she would actively encourage it or anything, but she had to do what was right for Maggie, and that meant following her daughter’s lead.

 

It was then that the phone rang. Julie was a little startled by its sudden, sharp ringing – having been so caught up in her storm of erratic thoughts. She made her way towards the living room to answer it, realising that her daughter’s expression hadn’t changed one bit in response. Maggie hadn’t heard the phone ring at all. Julie rolled her eyes, wondering if her daughter’s hearing was getting worse or if it had been this bad since the beginning of her transformation. It was sat just a little away from where Maggie was, the elderly 23 year old only noticing her mother’s presence as she leaned over to pick up the phone. Maggie’s plump face showed a puzzled expression, a little concerned that she hadn’t heard the ringing what so ever. Watching her mother effortlessly bend over to pick up the phone was a source of slight amazement for Maggie – she herself having not bent over in a similar fashion without a hip aching or back pinching for what felt like an eternity. It was something she found herself doing more and more as she grew more settled into her elderly persona. She did the same thing just last week when she had to ask the ‘young man’ at the Easy Springs supermarket to help grab a bottle of sherry from the top shelf that she and Doris had decided to treat themselves to. He wasn’t a tall kid, but in a few seconds he had clambered up the framing without the help of any stairs and grabbed the thing for what he thought was nothing more than your average Easy Springs resident. She marvelled at the movement, kind of amazed that she herself was able to move like that only two months before as she was truly beginning to forget what it felt like to be young. Her mind had adjusted so firmly to the world of creaking bones and joint pain, the movements of youth seemed like an aspect of some different species entirely.

 

Maggie had even brought it up to Doris in what she would later recall with great internal embarrassment as the most authentically ‘old’ conversation she had yet had with anyone since her change. Walking in the door of her Aunt’s doily-ridden home, Maggie let out a heavy sigh and dropped the shopping bags at her orthopedically cushioned feet.

 

‘Thank god for that’ she had let aloud, waddling her way into the kitchen to grab a refreshment and deciding to pick up the rest of the bags a little later.

 

‘Hot out there is it Maggie?’ Doris said, clung to her comfortable recliner.

 

‘Indeed it is’ Maggie said, fanning herself with her plump, red-fingered hand and eager to join her pretend sister in relaxing by the TV.

 

‘More than that though…’ she huffed, still a little out of breath ‘…never felt so old since this thing began.’

 

‘Why’s that dear?’

 

‘Had to ask the kid at the store to grab that bottle of wine for me. They put it right on the top shelf.’

Doris tutted.

 

‘Ridiculous. This is a retirement community, they seem to forget that now and again.’

 

‘I mean really, how do they expect people our age to get something that far up?’ Maggie said, the use of ‘our age’ becoming an increasingly more common part of Maggie’s vocabulary.

 

‘It’s ageism is what it is dear. Plain and simple.’

 

‘Could hardly believe there was a time where I could move like that’ Maggie said, wiping some of the sweat away from her fat and fleshy neck.

 

‘Hear hear’ Doris chuckled.

 

Maggie shook her head once more and blew a grey hair out of her face before she plodded back over to the bags.

 

‘These young things…’ she had said, ‘…they really make you feel ancient don’t they?’

 

Young things. It hadn’t dawned on Maggie until much later in the day that she had used the term. The aged girl had felt a little uneasy at the fact, recognising all too well that her attitudes and outlook were beginning to shift firmly into that of the 67 year old woman she now was. By this point however, especially after her encounter with the slinky black dress of her youth only a few nights before, she was beginning to come to terms with this shift. Especially given how natural it was for her to pick such habits and thought processes up, all things considered. She lived in a community filled with senior citizens, all of her new friends were elderly, she lived with an old woman and most importantly, she was an elderly person too now. The fact that she was thinking of herself more solidly along those lines was inevitable, and positive in a way. Maggie reckoned it meant she was beginning to come out of her depression slightly. A step in the right direction towards building a real life for herself. The actions of young people, like the kid in the store, and even her mother here with the phone, othered her greatly. She recognised fully that she had no claim to youth anymore, and with every reminder of how so ‘not-young’ she now was she fell deeper and more comfortably into the realm of the elderly. Like it or not, those were her peers from now on, she was one of them now – pretending otherwise was simply counterproductive. The realisation that she was beginning to think of her own mother as a ‘young thing’ generated humour in the old girl more than anything, and with that it was safe to say that Maggie’s outlook was really beginning to change.

 

Julie stood not far from the seated Maggie, the phone held against her ear.

 

‘Hello?’ she asked, a little unsure who would be calling outside of Doris – and she usually phoned around 5 pm, not this early in the morning.

 

Maggie watched her mother’s face screw up in awkward confusion. There was a pause.

 

‘Um…just hold on one sec please.’

 

Julie placed the phone against her chest and addressed Maggie.

 

‘It’s for you’ she said, only whispering the words.

 

Maggie didn’t hear quite so well of course, and with a tired and knowing expression she pointed a red nail towards her right ear and shook her head. Julie sighed a little, trying not to look exasperated at her daughter’s inability, and then spoke a little louder, making sure to really annunciate for the hard-of-hearing 23 year old.

 

‘I said, it is for you’

 

‘For...two? Mom, what does that mean?’ Maggie replied, genuinely not understanding.

 

Julie breathed deeply, trying her best not to lose her temper. Her daughter was beginning to act more and more like a clueless old lady and it was irritating on a number of levels.

 

‘The phone…is. for. you.’ Julie said, pointing at the aged girl and then the phone.

 

Maggie’s eyes lit up in realisation.

 

‘Ahh…ok…well who is it? When you say ‘me’ do you mean ‘me’ or y’know…?’

 

The conversation was taxing for the youthful looking mother. She placed the phone back up to her ear for a moment.

 

‘One second please’ she said, trying to be polite to whoever was on the other end before turning her attention back to Maggie.

 

‘It’s a woman named Betty’ she said ‘She’s looking for “Margaret”’

 

‘Oh...’ Maggie said, a slight lilt of surprise taking her voice, ‘Yeah sure, put her on.’

 

Julie was glad to be pass the phone over, and as she let Maggie take over the conversation Julie made her way back into the kitchen. She wondered if she had been too short with Maggie there? Her exact worry about treating her like some fuddy duddy old woman had come through there somewhat. It wasn’t Maggie’s fault that she couldn’t hear so good anymore of course, it was just frustrating to constantly have to repeat things. She would just try and speak clearer and louder from now on. Her mind also turned to the person phoning, Betty sounded like an old lady and if she was asking for ‘Margaret’ that meant she was almost certainly some resident of Easy Springs that Maggie had maybe befriended. It was strange. Julie was at once happy that Maggie had people to talk to up there other than her Aunt but at the same time…having elderly friends and developing a social circle up there, it meant that she was beginning to make good on her promise to build something new for herself. To live a life. That meant moving on from her previous one for good. It seemed to Julie that Maggie’s life as Margaret was more accomplished already than she had previously considered. It was conflicting. She wanted Maggie to be happy, she just didn’t want her to join the bridge club in order to get there.

 

Maggie on the other hand was feeling much lighter on her newly elderly geared social life. Her group of granny pals may not be as lively or as trendy as the friends from her ‘youth’ but they were really sweet-natured, good people. Maggie had grown to really appreciate their company in the past two months. The bingo sessions and tea dates really going the distance in making Maggie feel like she was a part of something. It might not have been the kind of group she ever expected to belong to, but belonging to anything was better than nothing. She liked Betty most of all. Betty easily being the funniest and most vibrant of the group. Maggie also kind of enjoyed the fact that Betty was so similar to her in appearance. She was a fat old lady just like Maggie now was, and seeing a woman as heavy and as old as her be so filled with life and humour was really helpful. Maggie also liked talking to her because she wasn’t Doris. She loved Doris of course, and their relationship was as strong as it ever was; but being able to talk to someone who didn’t look at her with pity in their eyes, who didn’t know the truth and just treated her as a normal person was truly a relief. Betty made her feel like just one of the gals, and although she would have hated that very idea at the beginning of the change – anticipating a life of grannydom moving forward – having a real friend was so valuable.

 

‘So what’s with the call? You missing me already up there?’ Maggie said, her croaky tone growing slightly lighter.

 

‘Oh you know it dearie, bingo just won’t be the same without you this week.’

 

‘Forgot I’d be missing out on that this week. Can’t believe how disappointed I am, was never much for it before staying in Easy Springs.’

 

‘It’s infectious Margaret. No two ways about it.’

 

‘So what’s the occasion then? You just looking to catch up?’

 

‘Well yes, but not just over the phone. Your sister told me you were staying with your daughter for a little while and as it happens, I’m going to be in your neck of the woods in a few hours.’

 

‘Oh really? How come?’

 

‘My son Derrick asked me to come down. Haven’t seen him in a little while, so he’s on his way to pick me up now. Just for a couple of days y’know?’

 

‘Oh that’s sweet of him to ask’

 

‘I know. To be completely honest with you dear I think he just misses some decent cooking, that wife of his, she’s beautiful, she’s sweet, she’s a god-send and all that but my gosh does she butcher a meal’

 

Maggie chuckled.

 

‘So I was thinking, while we’re both in White Peaks we may as well have a ladies day out. What do you think?’

 

‘Oh you mean today?’

 

‘Yeah why not? We could grab some light lunch in town, maybe do a bit of shopping. I haven’t left Easy Springs in months sweetheart, I need to lay eyes on a human being who isn’t eligible for AARP y’know?’

 

Maggie sighed, ‘Yeah I do know. I uh…’

 

The elderly 23 year old was going to shoot Betty down. The idea of walking around in her home town as the old woman she now was, where someone like Billy or one of her old friends might spot her, it seemed too much. But then she thought again, she had been making all of this internal headway. She had been taking so many steps towards building a real life for herself. Here was an opportunity for her to just hang out with a new friend, to build on the relationships she was beginning to form. And more than that, she was getting kind of bored. There was only so many cups of tea she could make for herself, getting out and about might really help her. At the very least it would be an exercise in seeing just how far she’s able to go in this new body of hers. Was she able to go out and have a good time with a friend that wasn’t just bingo?

 

‘Sure. That sounds great Betty.’

 

‘That’s the spirit honey. I get into White Peaks around 3pm, I’ll get Derrick to drop me off outside of that cute little coffee shop right in the centre. We can meet there and figure out what to do from there. Sound good?’

 

‘So Kate’s Koffee? At 3?’

 

‘That’s the one. I’ll see you there dear! Bye now!’

 

‘Yeah see you, goodbye!’

 

Maggie hung up the phone. Still sat there on the uncomfortable leather couch, Maggie looked down at her slipper clad feet.

 

‘Guess I better get ready.’

 

As Maggie heaved her far heavier self up from the now sunken seat Julie quietly made her way back into the living room.

 

‘Hey’ she said, mid-grunt, no longer so embarrassed about her mother seeing her in such a state.

 

‘You need a hand?’ Julie asked.

 

‘No, I’m good thanks. Just a lot…y’know...heavier than I used to be, it takes a bit of effort to get up nowadays.’

 

Julie winced internally at the way Maggie spoke. Her vernacular, her expression, it was all more in line with a true blue senior citizen, not a 23 year old. The way she communicated her being older or fatter, it was as if she had always been that way. It was all just far too comfortable for Julie’s liking, but she pushed all that aside for the moment in order to speak to her daughter.

 

‘So…who was that on the phone? A friend?’

 

‘Yeah, that’s Betty’ Maggie said, standing with one plump hand resting on her wide, flabby thigh and the other hanging effeminately and limply by her blubbery, sagging paunch. Still visible through her dowdy looking pink blouse.

 

‘She’s visiting her kids too’ Maggie said, only catching how strangely she phrased that the second after she said it.

 

‘Um…I didn’t mean…y’know…’

 

‘No, no, not at all, I knew what you meant’ Julie said, trying to cut through the awkwardness.

 

‘Well…anyway, she’s gonna be in town for a few days and she asked if I wanted to hang out for a little bit. I’m going to get ready now. Take another shower maybe, feeling a little sweaty in this heat.’

 

‘Yeah…so what do you have planned?’

 

‘Not sure. She just said we could grab some lunch in town, maybe do a bit of shopping. Y’know, the usual stuff.’

 

‘Ok cool, cool’ it was weird for Julie. Maggie saying she was hanging out a with a gal pal, grabbing food and going shopping was once so common place. Now however it felt odd. She was palling around with some old woman, was it really healthy? She wanted Maggie to be happy and not feel lonely but was her constant hanging out with old ladies really helping her? Or was it just pushing her further and further into this new role?

 

‘Well, that’s great’ Julie lied, trying hard to hide her reservations, ‘I’m glad you’ve made friends up there. That’s…good.’

 

‘Yep’ Maggie replied, awkwardly.

 

‘Listen, um, I better go get ready. Takes me a little longer than it used to y’know?’

 

‘Oh of course, don’t let me stop you. Just let me know if you need anything…from me…or whatever…ok?’

 

Maggie laughed a tad nervously before waddling up to the staircase and carefully making her way to the bathroom. Julie looked on, a little sad, a little happy. Not sure exactly what to make of such a development. Things were moving faster than she had expected. Maggie was happier than she had expected too. All in all, the strangest part of it all, was how not strange it suddenly was. Maggie spending her time with old ladies, joking about being overweight or old…it was all too strangely mundane. Like that was the new normal…and maybe, Julie realised…that was the new normal. Maybe it was time to face the fact that Maggie’s life as an old woman, was really just beginning.

Clad in a trusty pair of black elastic slacks, open toed and comfortable white flats which showed off her dark red toe-nails, and an animal print blouse and white blazer combination, Maggie stood a little uneasily at the bus-stop just a little up the street from her home. She took a second to look into her large, old fashioned purse to make sure it was still there, the senior citizen’s bus pass which mysteriously showed up nearly two months ago during the beginning of this whole ordeal. The item, along with her AARP card and updated ID which dated her birth as 1949 had struck such a chord of fear and panic within her to begin with. It had easily been the most uncanny aspect of this change, more so than the physical side of the transformation in fact, the idea that her very reality was subject to change proving to be far more sinister than any weight gain or wrinklage. Now however, two months on and largely settled into the idea that she was never going to return to her normal youthful self ever again, Maggie was just happy that nothing else so unnerving had crept its way into her life. That had seemingly been the last aspects of the curse to reveal itself, her journey towards a normal life since that day uninterrupted by any new developments or surprises. Maggie had naturally worried that her reality might change entirely, that she might wake up one day to find no trace of her former self, that her mother and Aunt would treat her as if she had always been the plump grandmother she had been turned into. Fortunately, that hadn’t been the case, and now the aged girl, no longer distracted and panicked by the various and dramatic changes to her life could now focus on just trying to live that life as best as she could in the aftermath of it all.

 

Things were far from perfect of course, her relationship to her devoted boyfriend Billy was almost certainly over for good, and her dreams of becoming a high-end fashion designer were now impossible to achieve as the dowdy old lady she unavoidably was, yet she was beginning to look past that to a small degree. The sting of such huge losses, not to mention the loss of so many years of her life, was still fresh and it might never heal entirely, but she would not let this terrible change prevent her from living. In the past two months she had grown so much stronger. Coming to terms with her new physicality, accepting that she would be stuck this way for the remainder of her life, making new friends and igniting her social life once again – and of course most importantly, securing the relationship with her mother and sister. Coming home had been a big step for Maggie, and she was quietly impressed with how well she had kept things together since her arrival. There had been no emotional outbursts, no panic attacks or deep-seated worry. Her young sister referring to her as ‘Grandma’ and ‘Granny Margaret’ oddly didn’t embarrass or hurt the aged girl like she had expected. In fact, she had interacted with Ashley in a much more meaningful way in the last three days playing the role of grandmother than she had for quite some time as her sister. If there was anything positive to come out of this surreal transformation Maggie thought, it was in how much closer it’s already brought the two estranged sisters together. Her recent successes on these various personal fronts were part of the reason she insisted on taking the bus into town. Julie had naturally volunteered to drive her there, Ashley being more than fine left in the house alone for the twenty-minute drive duration, but Maggie protested. These past few weeks were all about Maggie taking back control over her life, and with this more positive mind-set she was eager to shake off the reliance of her mother and Aunt. Their help so far had been pivotal in keeping her afloat mentally, the thought of not having their love and support during this ordeal almost too depressing a thought to consider. Now however, Maggie felt she had to make some headway towards being an independent woman again. It had been such a defining quality of her ‘old’ self – so headstrong, determined and self-reliant, and after so many weeks of falling asleep in recliners, and turning to her mother or Aunt for anything, Maggie had begun to miss that aspect of herself. She was old now, sure, but that didn’t mean she had to live like some fragile creature, protected and sheltered from the world she had once aimed to conquer with her fashion. Her joints might be stiff and a little achy now, but they weren’t made of glass. Little steps like just getting from A to B without her mother’s help, and spending time with one of her new friends without the presence of her Aunt made her feel like a real person again. Granted, it wasn’t the person she ever wanted or expected to be, but it was something nonetheless.

 

The bus pulled up a little later than it was supposed to, and conscious of the time, Maggie grabbed her new senior citizen’s bus pass and held it up in her red-nailed fingers for the driver to see immediately. He smiled and waved her onward without a second thought. The idea that she could use a senior citizen’s bus pass and get away with it being such a laughable and ridiculous notion a little over two months ago, now an expected, almost mundane reality for the elderly 23 year old.

She pushed her thick, beaded glasses back onto her cute but jowly face as she scanned for an available seat. The bus was busy, and having not ridden the bus in such a long time she was a little unused to the protocol in these situations. Realising that there was no available seat Maggie sighed as she went to grab one of the handles for standing passengers – a little nervous about having to stand for such a long time on her tired old legs. Just as she did though she eyed a young couple sat in one of the front seats fuss a little. The young woman, who must have been around her true age was nudging her boyfriend and eyeing Maggie – clearly prodding him to stand up and provide her a seat. He didn’t argue, within a few seconds just as the bus began to move, the young man got up from his seat and walked over to Maggie.

 

‘Excuse me ma’am, there’s a seat there for you if like’ he asked a little nervously.

 

His uneasiness was cute, Maggie thought – and if she had been forty years younger she might have said he was cute outright. Shaggy brown hair, dimples and rough stubble, this guy was totally her type, the realisation hitting Maggie that she hadn’t really interacted with any young men since the change. It was an odd moment for the aged girl, to find such a young guy attractive in this matronly old body of hers. She knew that it was more than fair for her to still think like this, being only 23 in actuality, but she felt a little uneasy about it too. It made her feel older in a way. She shook herself from her thinking and addressed him.

 

‘Oh…thank you dear, that’s very kind’ she replied in her croaky timbre, the ‘dear’ slipping out so naturally now that she no longer questioned it.

Maggie then waddled gently over to the seat, trying to maintain her balance as the bus rumbled on, and sat her wide backside into the seat beside the young lady who prompted this act of kindness in the first place. The girl smiled as Maggie sat down, flashing perfect pearly whites that made Maggie wince slightly knowing that her own teeth had yellowed just slightly as happens with age. The girl wasn’t far off from how Maggie had looked only a few months back. Long blonde hair, pretty. It crossed her mind that this girl probably had no idea just how lucky she was – her wrinkle free skin, her tight waist, her vibrant and colourful hair – these were all things that Maggie had taken for granted when she was young. Like so many other young women, she had let petty issues cloud her self-judgement, focusing on things inconsequential in the grander scheme of things. Now, with a soft paunch, stretch marks, sagging breasts and a head of rapidly greying hair, Maggie would have given anything to return to the slight blemishes that concerned her past self.

 

‘I’m sorry he took so long to act like a gentleman’ the young girl said, cutting through Maggie’s thinking, ‘He’s a little slow on the upkeep’ she joked.

Maggie gave a throaty chuckle as the young man stood a little over her, holding on to the railing and shaking his head, half smiling at his girlfriend’s remark.

 

‘Oh that’s quite alright, he acted like a gentleman in the end, that’s the main thing isn’t it?’ Maggie said warmly, a smile strewn across her plump and grandmotherly face.

 

‘Exactly’ the handsome guy hovering above the two women stated, ‘you can’t rush an act of chivalry Jen, all that matters is that it happens.’

 

‘Chivalry?’ the young woman laughed.

 

‘Modern day Lancelot babe’ he joked.

 

The young girl shook her head, trying to control her smirk. He charmed her, it was clear to see.

 

‘I’ve been trying to find the right time to tell him just how unfunny he really is, although I doubt I’ll ever get the message across’ Jen said, turning to Maggie.

 

‘Definitely not. I’m deluded for good Jen.’

 

‘Have you two been together long?’ Maggie asked sweetly, a little surprised with herself that she engaged with the conversation so readily. It was all about engaging with the world again though, every small step is still a step forward.

 

‘It’s been a year’ the young blonde said, the joking sarcasm dropping from her voice a bit, ‘a year of sheer goofball-ness and delayed “chivalry” but I think he has potential’

 

‘That’s very sweet.’ Maggie replied, meaning it genuinely. It was nice to see such a young couple in love. It was bittersweet of course, as it made her think about Billy and the relationship she had almost certainly lost, but being around a couple such as Jen and her boyfriend was uplifting for the elderly young woman.

 

‘I’m Jen by the way’ the young woman said, stretching out her smooth and liver spotless hand which Maggie met with her own plump, old one for a handshake, ‘That’s Sir Michael, lord of chivalry’

 

‘It’s nice to meet you Jen, and you sir Michael’ Maggie joked, playing along.

 

‘Oh likewise’ he replied.

 

‘I’m Margaret’ Maggie said, with zero hesitation in her declaration. It had become and easier and easier to state such things, that her name was Margaret, that she had a daughter and two granddaughters etc. This elderly alter-ego of hers becoming more solidified with each passing day. That was a worry of course, but Maggie was in too much of a good mood to dwell on the ramifications of such a thing.

 

Their conversation continued for most of the journey, Maggie learning that Jen and Michael were on their way to look at a new house as they had planned on moving in together not too long ago. Michael was an aspiring writer who worked admin for some accounting firm and Jen was a professional photographer who made a decent amount of money from her art. Once again, hearing such a thing was two-fold for Maggie. She was glad to hear that these two were such a creative couple, but mourned her own creative career as they talked about it. Billy himself had dabbled with the idea of being a writer, although he never quite had the same drive Maggie did for achieving his goals, she had always tried to push him along where she could, but it just wasn’t in his nature to strive like that. Instead always hoping that such opportunities would simply fall into his lap. It was also a little strange for Maggie as she realised that, had she met these two when she was still her young self, they would have very easily been fast friends. They were exactly the cool, charming and funny people she had surrounded herself with during her formative years – and now lamented the loss of, kicking herself to some degree as she knew she had been pushing those same friends away in the year or so running-up to her sudden aging.

Maggie herself talked about her plans for the day, when the young couple enquired. Stating that she was going to be meeting a friend for some lunch, maybe a spot of shopping, she could tell that these youngsters thought it was cute to see what they must have thought was just a kindly old lady spending a day hanging out with her granny pals. Maggie took no offence at it of course, she herself might have reacted the same way when she was their age, it was simply what came with being elderly as she fully understood now. The worlds occupied by the young and old are so distinct they may as well be different planets. She had no real ‘in’ with people in their twenties anymore, her tastes, attitude and general outlook falling more and more so into that of the senior citizen she now was, and Maggie was finally beginning to make her peace with that. The aged girl even mentioned having a ‘granddaughter about their age’ at one point when the conversation turned to family, the act of referring to herself as a separate person, and as her own granddaughter no less, strangely no longer such a difficult thing to do.

 

Jen and Michael ended up getting off a couple of stops before Maggie, the charming young couple wishing ‘Margaret’ well as they said their goodbyes, waving through the window as they walked down the street hand in hand. Maggie moved up one seat, closer to the window where Jen had been sitting and began to peacefully gaze out at the town as the bus drove onwards. That had been such a nice gesture, she thought, the act of giving up the seat. Granted, they only did this because in their eyes Maggie was an elderly woman, in need of a seat far more than a fit young guy like Michael was, but Maggie allowed herself to enjoy the act of kindness. No-one ever went out of their way for her like that when she had been young, or have strangers talk to her so genuinely before. The closest thing to that being the endless series of creepy guys who would hit on her and barrage her with corny pick-up lines, and who would usually not leave her alone until she mentioned she had a boyfriend. The thought occurred to her as the bus came to the second to last stop for Maggie that she would never have to deal with such people again, the idea of a young guy trying to make a pass at her now genuinely laughable. It’s not something she would miss she realised, just as she would contrastingly miss interactions like the one she just add if she were to miraculously wake up young again. The thought stuck with her as the bus journey came to a stop.

 

She hoisted herself up with a bit of a grunt as usual and clinging on to the railings for some support, she made her way to the front of the bus and thanked the driver before exiting. There was an added spring in her step, and this positive encounter really set her on the right path for the day ahead as she continued to play it over in her mind.

 

‘Such a nice young couple’ she thought.

Maggie sighed with some relief as she and her new friend made it through the door of Kate’s Coffee. They hadn’t been walking long, but the two heavy-set older women were conscious of their aged, fatter bodies having to navigate in the sunny summer heat and were thankful to walk into a room with working air-con, comfortable seats and tea at the ready. Betty began to flap her bejewelled hand in her wrinkled face in some effort to cool herself down, her recently manicured and painted white nails shining gently in the sunlight still coming through the front door window. The 70 year old woman turned to Maggie as she did so.

‘Can you believe this heat?’ she said, fanning quicker as she moved further into the café.

Maggie nodded in response, showing solidarity with her elderly friend whilst the rest of the café patrons, all quite a bit younger, seemed unphased by the temperature. Maggie herself wasn’t too bad compared to Betty, the short waddle from the bus-stop to Kate’s Coffee being short enough to not force the elderly 23 year old into a panting mess, although admittedly she was a little sweaty. It’s not like it took much for the old girl to break a sweat these days though, the staircase in her Aunt’s home a source of exertion on a bad hip day. She was learning how to manage however, and in dealing with her flabbier body she no longer felt as if she was lugging around foreign weight. The sensation at the beginning of the change akin to what Maggie figured putting on a fat suit and not being able to take it off was like. Back then it felt like she was still a slim, skinny woman on the inside, trapped beneath a thick layer of cellulite and flab that she couldn’t free herself from. Now though, that wasn’t the case. Instead Maggie had come to recognise the soft blubber of her body as a fundamental aspect of her physiology now. The cushiony belly, the jiggling bingo wings, the heavy sagging breasts – they weren’t something external to her, they were her – and the realisation of this fact had alleviated that feeling of claustrophobia and heaviness almost immediately. That ‘fat-suit’ sensation only ever psychological in retrospect.

Nowadays Maggie moved her heavier and older body with the same sense of authority as she did her original lithe and light one. The once alien parts of her that she would look upon in disgust all deeply normalised…even comfortable. It wasn’t as if there weren’t still obstacles physically of course. She sweated a lot more than she’d like to admit, and the fact that a simple walk to the store, or to the bingo hall or even up the stairs could trigger a mild exhaustion made her feel weak and far more frail and fat than she actually was. Maggie still allowed herself to laze around in her reclining chair a little too often, and the thought of moving from said chair once sat in it was always cause for complaint. Yet, Maggie now recognised that she no longer experienced the world in a way different from anyone else her new age and weight. Her Aunt Doris, definitively bigger than her, older too, grunted when she had to get up just as she did, her new friend Betty, a similar weight to Maggie was easily bothered by the heat. So accustomed now to the changes that destroyed her youthful body, Maggie realised that her new reality, her new life, was becoming pedestrian.

She pondered this point as they made their way to some comfortable looking seats in the corner of the café. How strange it was for everything to feel…not strange anymore. When this transformation had first afflicted her a little over two months before, Maggie would wake up and for a second or two think she was back to normal, that her existence as a matronly grandmother was a mere nightmare to be disregarded in the waking light of the morning. Only then she would continually find disappointment when she took full stock of her surroundings, the flowery wallpaper and ceramic cats on the shelves leading to her probing at the thick, soft and lumpy body hidden beneath the sheets, giving way to how things truly were. At the beginning Maggie would get a slight shock each time she glanced at her reflection, the back of her mind still readily expecting the 23 year old blonde beauty she had been not long before, the face in the mirror foreign to her, a distortion of who she really was or was meant to be…but now however, no such feeling existed. Maggie now would wake up each morning a little groggy, she might scratch absent-mindedly at her blubbery paunch and then reach out for her chained glasses which sat waiting for her on her bedside table. Then Maggie would take a second to prepare herself for the slight struggle of lifting her fat, old self out of bed – that bit more achy and fragile first thing in the morning. The mirror too no longer held a stranger. The wrinkles, jowls and turkey wattle neck didn’t cause her to pause of flinch anymore, and she no longer felt disgust when she looked upon this vision of herself. No, the tired old woman she found in her reflection was unavoidably her, and she knew that now, she accepted it.

Maggie didn’t exactly know how to feel about this development. On the one hand she was happier and healthier mentally than she had been since this whole debacle started, she was reconnecting with her mother and sister, getting out of the house, making friends, the struggle it seemed…was over. On the other hand, however, did she really want it to be over? Getting along as the elderly woman she now was, making real progress, it pushed her further and further into a new life, a new identity that she never wanted…and at the same time further and further away from the young woman she once was. Maggie wondered if such outings as this, a cosy jaunt to the café with her bingo buddy, marked the end of the life she lived before…and with that, the end of trying to reclaim it. Did she have any other options though, she thought? What else could she possibly do at this point? She could either sit and cry herself to exhaustion for the rest of her life, or she could live that life, and she wanted to live. Maggie just didn’t know if it was right to want that, if it was right that she was falling so neatly and easily into the life of a 67 year old woman. This shouldn’t be normal, she thought as she and Betty planted their wide rumps into the cushioned seats, and yet it was.

‘Y’know I used to come to this place a lot when I was young’ Betty said, still just a tad flustered from the heat, ‘Wasn’t called Kate’s Coffee though, it was a bar…had a funny name…what was it again? Do you remember Margaret?’

Maggie put a red-nailed finger to her soft, round cheek as she briefly thought.

‘No I can’t dear’ she croaked.

‘Ahh it’ll come to me when I don’t need it too I bet, damn memory of mine. I swear I’m getting the Alzheimer’s’ the old lady joked.

Maggie tutted.

‘Oh come now Betty, that’s not even funny. You shouldn’t joke about things like that.’

‘Oh I know, I know…I’m just being silly.’

‘That kind of thing scares me to tell you the truth’ Maggie said genuinely, her eyes downcast somewhat, glancing at her mammoth bosom encased in an animal print blouse, ‘Just feels so…inevitable.’

‘Oh hush now, it’s not inevitable. Just…common…and in people a lot older than us mind you. We’re not decrepit old biddies quite yet Margaret dear.’

Maggie rolled her eyes as she gently shook her head.

‘Not far from it though are we?’ she said, a slight downbeat in her mature voice.

‘Good grief woman you really know how to kill a mood’ Betty joked.

‘Huh? No, I’m just thinking out loud is all…I’ve been in quite a good mood all day as it happens. These things though, talk of Alzheimer’s and…just getting older…even older…it’s a little scary and it makes me think.’

‘You think too much my dear. The last person I knew who got Alzheimer’s was that Darlene Chambers from around the corner. Really sweet woman, great baker. You wouldn’t know her, she got put in a home about a year ago the poor dear…’

‘Is this supposed to be uplifting?’ Maggie said, half laughing.

‘If you’d let me finish, I was going to say that she got put into a really nice, swanky home – all state of the art computers and gizmos and what not…’

‘Oh so as long as the home is aflush with “gizmos” it’s fine?’ Maggie said, continuing to joke.

‘I wasn’t finished! Jeez, you’re a handful today. I’m trying to say that she got put in this state of the art home at the ripe old age of 92. That’s like 20 years away. What I’m saying is, even if it does happen…it’s not gonna be for a while yet sweetheart. And in 20 years from now, with all the technology and advancements people keep making, they’ll have probably cured the damn thing y’know? Heck, maybe they’ll even find a way to reverse the aging process? What do you think?’

Betty took her wrinkled hands to her own plump face and playfully pulled back her cheeks, making her skin seem smooth and youthful if just for a second before it fell back in place with a bit of a wobble when she let go. Maggie laughed, or cackled really…her laugh having taken on a distinctly ‘granny’ tone since the change. Betty did have a way of making her feel better though.

Twenty years might seem like a long time away for Betty, but for Maggie whose life span had apparently been cut short by around forty years it was really no time at all. Twenty years on from now she should only be 43 years old, not nearing 90. It was a frightening prospect, that she would more than likely still be the elderly Margaret for another twenty years well into decrepit ‘true’ old age. She had accepted some time ago already that this transformation of hers would be permanent, but the realities of such a thing were still unnerving. What would her life look like in five years, let alone twenty? Would she still be living at Easy Springs? Back home? How much more frail and helpless would she have gotten in that time?

The idea of her being put away in a nursing home was a real fear for the aged girl now. It was an inevitability for so many elderly people, and Maggie was no different from the rest of them. She could envision herself getting older, more frail. Her hip and joints growing achier and weaker as the years went by, until she was forced to use a walker or a cane to support herself. Her teeth might weaken to the point where she needed dentures, and maybe six, seven years on from now when she was well into her 70’s she’d wake up face sunken and toothless, forced to slip false teeth into her gummy mouth. Her hearing was already so bad that Maggie felt it impossible that she’d avoid hearing aids somewhere down the line. She’d have to ask nurses and staff of the nursing home she’d be stuck in to help her adjust it correctly, to help her up or even to go the bathroom. Would she have to wear adult diapers at some point? Her mother of course would, as of now, never consider the possibility of putting her in a position like that….but would she still feel the same, five, ten years down the line? So far on that this elderly life she now lead was so cemented and normal that Julie too, grew to look at her as her elderly mother, not a daughter…and like all children, would be forced to make that decision for their ailing parents…doing what they think is best. She could picture herself twenty years from now, 87 years old – her grandmotherly body hunched over, fatter, shuffling around in a walker inside a nursing home, popping in a pair of dentures to start each morning. Even this far into everything, her future was still so uncertain.

‘So ladies what can I get for you today?’

Maggie pushed her thick, chained glasses up the ridge of her nose so as to fit better as she looked up. Standing over her round, blazer-encased shoulder was a young man perhaps a little older than her actual age with a pen and paper at the ready. Clad in a red apron, the handsome young man smiled as he awaited the response of the two portly grandmas, his name-tag red ‘Wes’.

‘Ooh, well I think I’ll just have a tea thank you dear’ Betty said, smirking at the young man.

‘And for you ma’am?’ Wes said, turning his attention to Maggie.

Maggie was a little taken back, she actually knew Wes…and intimately so. They had dated ever so briefly at the start of college, only for a couple of weeks amidst the colorful, party haze that was freshman year. Wes was never boyfriend material, he was far too obsessed with his appearance and too into his own issues to have ever been a real possible partner for Maggie…but there was no avoiding that the guy was hot. Their sex had been incredible, and for all his arrogant faults he had been quite the attentive lover. Maggie hadn’t spoken to him in quite some time, their relationship having devolved to the general nod of acknowledgement when they passed one another, at no point stopping to say hello or chat. Yet now here he was, standing over her and completely oblivious to the fact that the plump old lady sitting in front of him was in fact a former lover. Maggie swallowed trying not to get too weirded out.

‘Ah I’ll just have the tea as well please’ she croaked, a nervous tickle in the back of her throat making her cough slightly.

‘Okay, so that’s two cups of tea coming right up, I’ll be with you shortly’ He said with a smile as he swiftly walked back over to and around the counter.

Maggie couldn’t help but stare at him in some bewilderment. She took stock of Wes’ young, strong hands…his tight t-shirt giving way to a well maintained and toned body, his skin tan and spotless. Maggie was surprised to think that such a body had ever laid hands on her own. She had grown so accustomed to her flabby, older self that she was kind of forgetting what it ever felt like to be young and slim. It might have only been two months, but she felt firmly locked into this granny self now and to even imagine a guy like Wes had ever been romantic with the same body that sports love handles, saggy tits a fat and flabby ass as well as creaky joints…well it was surreal, almost laughable. The juxtaposition of her new senior citizen self against the vibrant, youthful Wes making her feel especially old.

‘Take a picture why don’t ya’ Betty joked, cutting through Maggie’s scattered thoughts.

‘Huh?’ she said somewhat sleepily, her attention now firmly placed back on her friend.

‘You just got flustered and stared at that young man for a solid 30 seconds uninterrupted’ she said, ‘Got a little crush on the young fella now Margaret?’

Maggie laughed a little lazily, trying to keep up appearances.

‘No, no…I…I know him…well, my granddaughter knows him. They dated for a while. Very briefly…if I could remember correctly.’

‘Oh really? Well your granddaughter is one lucky young lady. He’s a handsome boy, must have made an impression on you if you remember him having only dated Maggie briefly.’

‘Well, it was just…I just recognised his face is all.’

Betty chuckled and lowered her voice a little.

‘You know you are allowed to find young guys attractive…we’re not dead for Christ’s sake. I mean could you imagine waking up to that man boiling the kettle in the morning? What a thought.’

‘Betty hush’ Maggie said, smiling a little.

Betty threw her plump hand limply in a feminine gesture.

‘Hey I can fantasise. Next time your granddaughter dumps a guy you send their broken hearts my way, I’ll see them right.’

‘You ever heard the term act your age Betty dear?’ Maggie said, her vernacular firmly solidifying into that of an elderly woman. She no longer questioned it.

‘I’d like to act his age. How old is he do you think?’

‘Uh…26? I think that’s right. He was a little older than Maggie.’

’26? Wow, that feels like a hundred years ago...and I forget how old I really am all the time so it may just as well be that long.’

‘You’re telling me’ Maggie said, the odd point of humour being she hadn’t even made it to age 26 before becoming a senior citizen.

‘Actually come to think of it, I met George at 26’ Betty said, a faint seriousness creeping into her voice, ‘I had only dated a couple of guys beforehand, and we got married within a year so…’ Betty starts laughing ‘…I suppose me being his age wouldn’t make much of a difference. Would have been well on my way towards becoming a married woman.’

Betty sighed a little, reminiscing.

‘It was just a lot different back then wasn’t it? The rush to get married, have kids. Back then it felt like I had just become an independent, adult woman before suddenly becoming a wife and mother. These kids today seem to have so much more freedom than we did.’

Maggie bit the inside of her gums for a second, trying to think. Would she be able to relate to Betty on this level she thought? It wasn’t like she had any real point of reference for what Betty was talking about, having to become a housewife and mother at such a young age. Although she could relate in another way. She could empathise with what it felt like to be young and wide-eyed and have your whole future ahead of you, only to have it suddenly stop, your world becoming significantly smaller and pedestrian as a result.

‘It was different’ Maggie replied, ‘I think the kids today…they don’t know how good they’ve got it. At that age it’s so easy to get wrapped up in petty things. Concern yourself with aspects of your life that really feel important at the time, but in the long run just…aren’t. They’re not going to realise that until they’re our age I think. It’s at this point, I think, that you finally start to gain some perspective.’

Betty nodded in agreement.

‘Well said dear. I mean, obviously getting older…getting old…isn’t great. My back hurts all the time and I have a bladder the size of a peanut…’ Maggie laughs, being able to relate, ‘But…just like you said. When you reach our age, things strangely become clearer don’t they? All the crap you put up with as a youngster, the drama, the uncertainty, the worry about what’s going to happen in the future…it all just sort of fades away when you reach this point. I think, we really know who we are by now…y’know?’

Maggie nodded, trying to agree, but of course she was internally having something of an identity crisis. The aged girl wasn’t really sure who she was at this point, if she was Maggie, Margaret or someone else entirely. All she did know about being older however, one of the few benefits she could really speak to, was in the simple, easy clarity of it. Being older was humbling, it made her recognise that the world might not be hers to conquer as she once thought.

‘Did I ever tell you how I actually met George?’ the old woman asked, her chipper, upbeat lilt returning.

‘No I don’t think you have Betty’ Maggie replied, genuinely curious.

‘Well it’s quite a funny story. It was in the Fall, 1973…I remember the year only because Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ had come out not long beforehand…you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it, which is fine by me that song was damn sexy. Anyway I digress, I was actually dating someone else at the time. A man named John…John…oh I forget his second name…isn’t that terrible? John McSomething…anyway….I was dating him and it had only been for around a month or two. Nothing too serious but you know how it was back then, people thought you had seen someone for as long as that you were practically engaged. John seemed to think so too as a matter of fact. We were out one evening on a walk around down by the beach, it was really romantic actually. The sun was setting, there weren’t many people around…just all around really nice.’

‘Is George going to show up in this instalment of the story or should I wait until part two?’ Maggie said, a cheeky smirk across her plump face.

‘I’m setting the scene! Don’t rush a good story’

‘Okay, please continue’

‘Right, so we were on the walkway down by the beach, holding hands yadda yadda yadda…and then there’s this guy…a little younger than me sitting with an easel and a canvas and I hadn’t ever seen him before.’

‘This was George I take?’

‘This was George…and so I realised he must have been a cartoonist or something, and I asked John if we could sit and pose and for a caricature. I always thought those things were cute, and John fussed a bit but soon enough he gave in. Me and John sat in front of George arm in arm, grinning like idiots for the picture…and the whole time we sat there I kept making eye contact with George. We kept stealing glances at one another, would kind of giggle when we both caught each other…John was none the wiser.’

‘So then what happened?’

‘Well we sat there for about a half hour, then he finished up. John sees it first and starts to act up, like there’s something wrong. So I take a look at the thing and, get this, George drew John in the traditional caricature way…big goofy teeth and wing-ears the whole thing…but for me, he drew…he drew this really beautiful portrait. It wasn’t a caricature at all, but a very real looking piece of art. I’d never seen myself look so good to tell you the truth.’

‘Oh honey that is so sweet’ Maggie said, an enthusiasm in her croaky voice.

‘It really was, and he looked at me and he smiled really gently and I pretty much fell in love with him right there. Then a second later John punched him square in the nose.’

‘No!’ Maggie gasped.

‘Yep. Guess he picked up on our connection. They started to fight and so I got in between them and tried to stop it. I told John he was acting like a damn child and he took off in a rage, telling me we were through.’

‘Good riddance’ Maggie added.

‘So then I help George up to his feet and I apologise for how John acted. He apologised for causing any trouble and then I help him back to his house to get him fixed up and looked after. His house was just around the corner. Then we ended up chatting all night, one thing led to another and a year later I was married to the guy.’

‘Wow that’s a really great story Betty, so romantic.’

‘It is isn’t it?’ She replied, her eyes lit mischievously, ‘I love telling that story. He was such a good man.’

Maggie noticed a slight sadness take hold of her friend’s wrinkled face. Betty had mentioned before that George had passed away about three years ago after suffering a stroke. It had devastated her of course, the love she held for that man so apparent even now. Maggie admired how good-humoured and upbeat Betty always seemed to be, even when discussing heart-breaking memories such as this, her positive personality never faltered. It was then that Wes came back over with their cups of tea, Maggie still a little unsure of herself in his presence. He placed the tray down in the middle of the table, and as he did so Maggie couldn’t help but notice the firm muscles in his arm. She immediately started to think of her own arm in comparison, doughy and soft with dangling fat. Maggie took her liver-spotted hand and instinctively rubbed the underside of her plush arm out of some sense of embarrassment. Of course, clad in a blazer, her plump, cushiony bingo wings were far from on display, but that didn’t stop the aged girl from worrying what Wes might think. He looked down at the portly grandmothers as he stood back up, and Maggie couldn’t help but wonder if there was any inkling in her former lover that she wasn’t just some fat old lady, but was someone familiar to him…someone she knew, someone he had once had in his bed. Of course, she recognised how silly that thought was. Young men like that don’t spend that much thought or energy on old ladies like her. She was just another elderly patron to him, what a strange realisation, she thought.

‘Can I get anything else for you ladies?’ he asked, his strong hands clasped together.

‘Oh actually sweetheart do you think you could bring me a piece of chocolate cake? I spotted it on the way in, and it looks divine.’

‘Of course…and for yourself ma’am, any desserts?’

Maggie thought about it for a second before screwing up her wrinkled face somewhat in very slight protest.

‘Oh I don’t think I should, I’ve been trying to avoid that kind of thing’, her plump hand instinctively now resting on her round belly, held snugly in place by her wide granny panties and elasticated waist.

‘Oh don’t be so boring Margaret….bring us two slices please son, make them nice and big’ Betty said turning to the amused Wes, who nodded and proceeded to bring two fairly large slices back from behind the counter only a moment later.

‘Enjoy ladies’ he said as he strolled off to deal with another customer. The cake itself looked so moist and juicy, so sweet…Maggie licked her lips unconsciously as she stared it down.

‘I’m sorry Margaret but there was no way I was going to let myself look like a fat pig all on my lonesome, I had to take you down with me dear’ she joked before sinking her teeth into the spongy cake.

‘Well thanks but no thanks’ Maggie said, prodding the delicious looking item with her fork, ‘the last thing I need is more fatty foods Betty.’

Betty tutted.

‘Ugh don’t tell me you’re “watching your figure”, Agnes and her calls to exercise have clearly gotten to you.’

‘It’s not that, it’s just… I’ve been kind of putting on a bit of weight recently’ Maggie said somewhat softly, a tad reluctant to admit to herself that since the change she has adopted quite the substantial eating habit.

‘So?’ Betty muffled, her chubby cheeks still full, ‘I have to. In fact I’ve been putting on “a bit of weight” fairly steadily since my first kid. It happens at our age Margaret, we may as well indulge.’

Maybe Betty was right Maggie thought. Did she really care about losing weight? It’s not as if she had gone on a diet or tried to exercise or do anything of the sort since the change happened. She had been so wrapped up in the bigger aspects of her elderly transformation that such things kind of fell by the way side. She did worry of course about getting fatter and fatter, sometimes catching her Aunt’s gargantuan backside out of the corner of her eye and wondering how long it would be before her own looked like that. It wasn’t exactly far off already.

‘Are you not going to eat it? I’ll gladly take it off your hands then dear, consider me fat and proud.’

‘No I’ll eat it.’

Maggie stopped playing with the cake absent mindedly and instead poked it firmly onto her fork, before bringing it to her plump, wrinkled lips and biting down. It tasted incredible. Gooey and sweet, for the fat old woman she had become, such an item was heaven.

‘That’s good’ she said, still savouring the flavour, ‘that’s really good.’

The aged girl took another bite, bigger this time. Betty smiled as she did the same.

‘Thanks for not making me look bad Margaret’ she joked.

Maggie then stuck out her soft gut and preceded to pat it playfully for Betty to see.

‘Fat and proud dear’ she joked, ‘fat and proud.’