[UA] Renunciation

[Greg Stolze]

To make up for that sad, sick, sorry-ass pun I posted sixty seconds ago,
I'll give y'all the rundown for a new Room of Renunciation I came up with
while changing at the gym.

It is... the Changing Room.

Only one person can enter the Changing Room at a time, and it is entered
through health spas, gyms and cosmetic surgery clinics.  The only people
who find it are those whose dissatisfaction with their physical appearance
eclipses their GENUINE accomplishments.  You don't get in unless the worst
thing in your life is that you wish you were more muscular or less fat or
more pretty or less black or more tan or less male or more SOMETHING.

The antechamber holds a menacingly futuristic array of fitness devices,
surrounded by a lengthy jogging track.  Its sole inhabitant is the Personal
Trainer (or PT).

The PT is always perceived as being the same gender as the potential
renunciate, and s/he is the absolute apex of physical perfection.  Upon
arrival, the PT declares that the candidate can finally get the body s/he's
always wanted... all it takes is sweat.

Then, through abusive exhortation, the PT drives the candidate through a
grueling workout -- running, lifting weights, sit-ups, medicine ball
drills, wind sprints, anything you can imagine.

Furthermore, once the PT has smelled your sweat, s/he knows everything
about you.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  Your secret feelings about your wife,
your job, your accomplisments -- all find their way into his/her screeched
exhortations to work.  Anything in which you take pride is derided as
secondary to the New You -- the You that can be had with just a little more
effort.

Some candidates give up.  They decide their life is not so bad, love
handles and all.  But those who keep pushing and won't give up eventually
have one of two things happen.

Either their muscles swell so grotesquely that their skin splits like
over-ripe fruit and falls off in tatters: Or their skin becomes so loose
and saggy that they can slip out through the mouth-hole.

In either case, once the skin has been shed, the PT picks it up and
grudgingly says, "Okay, good job... hit the showers."

After showering, the proper Changing Room comes open.  It's an ordinary gym
locker room, with only one locker unlocked.  Inside is another skin -- a
different one.  When slipped on, the candidate physically changes, becoming
someone who was thinner (maybe anorexically so) or bigger (though maybe
through fat, not muscle) or a different gender, or someone in perfect shape
whose face is marked by hideous scars.

Once the skin is on, it stays on, and the candidate exits the room to
restart the life of the person whose skin was taken.  Of course, that
person may be missing -- may have been gone for decades, leading a new life
as a renunciate, while the abandoned skin waited for someone who would love
it like its owner never did.  The new wearer has no memories of the old
life, though fingerprints and retinal patterns and every other physical
trait shows him to be the person whose skin he wears.

Some who visit the Changing Room try to re-commence their borrowed lives,
picking up in the middle.  Some try to go back to their "real" lives --
trying to start again with an entirely different body...

...and with the knowledge that their old physique is waiting for a new
tennant to come along and take it...

-G.

Questions?  Comments?  Accusations that it doesn't make up for that awful pun?



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