Fool’s Gold
This is a (very) short piece I wrote for the 2025 Genrecon Short Story prize, the theme: Alchemy. I didn’t intend for it to be so dark, I swear I didn’t…
TW: Body dysmorphia, self-harm.
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It was 10pm on a Thursday when I finally made the change. The rhythmic boom and rattle of dropped barbells and whir-whir-whir of treadmills being pounded almost sent me to sleep while I waited. Once all conversation faded, the music stopped, and the gym floor lights flicked off, I emerged from the toilet cubicle and locked the bathroom door. Only then was I safe to peel off my baggy hoodie and tracksuit pants, drenched with summer sweat. My suit of cotton armour, protected from head to toe. I can’t abide Lycra or nylon you see, anything that compresses or hugs the skin. I don’t need another reminder of my body’s hideous shape.
The shower was scalding so I could punish the parts I disliked most, although those changed depending on the day or mood. There’s something redeeming about a good scour. When I am broiling is the only time I feel clean. I imagined the hot water might slough off the fat and freckles and scars and leave only hard muscle behind, beneath perfectly smooth skin. I didn’t have the guts to check, though. I long ago mastered the ability to clean myself without looking down. Coward.
Examining my body is a painful daily ritual and one which I can only stomach for a limited time, like staring at the sun. I braced myself for it in front of the foggy mirror, which reflected a pitiful pink shape. It couldn’t be me, this grotesquerie of uneven angles and stick-like limbs, feeble and thin. I wiped away the condensation and faced reality. My body was just as contemptible as always: arms too long, dangling to my knees like a troll; ass too saggy, obscuring what should have been a thigh gap right below my shrivelled penis. Limp-dick loser, my ex Gracie called me when I broke up with her. She hadn’t used those exact words, but they amounted to as much. I couldn’t help but agree as I followed a tangle of ugly black hair which crept up in a snail’s trail to my belly, never quite as flat as I wanted it to be. No better word to describe someone like me than loser.
But something was going to change all that. The time had finally come. I knew how to fix everything wrong with me.
Tucked away at the bottom of my gym bag in a black case was the answer. Purchased for a small fortune, but what thing worth having wasn’t? I’d argued with myself viciously for almost a week before I worked up the courage to use it. Unzipping it felt as smooth and satisfying as the first stroke of sex. A needle gleamed within. The serum looked piss-yellow under the fluorescents, but I told myself it was liquid gold.
My hand shook as I wiped down the injection site with a swab. In the upper outer quadrant of the glute, any other area might hit my sciatic nerve. Did I have enough muscle for the injection, or was my useless ass too flat? Should I inject both glutes, in case it made me big on only one side? The tip of the needle hovered millimeters from my skin, glistening.
‘You’re fucking disgusting’, said the ghost of Lisa Chapman in tenth grade. ‘How can you live with yourself when you look like that?’
The needle inched closer.
‘Look at bubble-but run!’ hooted Lachie Young, track-and-field star, surrounded by his friends. ‘If he keeps going, they’re gonna pop!’
It came closer still.
‘You’re never going to get a girlfriend if you don’t work out, mate’ muttered Dad, not ten months past. ‘It’s not enough to be slim anymore. You need to have muscle, too.’
The needle hurt no more than a hard pinch when it slid into me, but the serum burned like grease fire. The plunger resisted being pushed, but slowly the viscous substance ejected and pooled under my skin. My entire glute was aflame when I pulled the needle out. A film of sweat instantly coated me, clogging all my pores. I was panting by the time I mustered enough energy to look myself in the mirror. My flesh was bright pink, redder than it should have been. Something moved, and I groaned. I brought a finger to my cheek, where the skin gave way and rippled. By then the fire had risen past my torso to my head. I fell to the floor, spasming, and all I could do was grind my teeth and cry.
When it finished, I was so afraid of the transmutation that I resolved never to look at myself again. I lasted about a minute.
I was taller, that was obvious at first, and bigger, so much bigger. My shoulders were broad, no longer bony, and when I tested my arms my hand wrapped around barely half of it. I looked deep into my eyes, now the clear jade I’d always wanted, and for half a second I smiled.
It didn’t take long to start noticing the flaws. I was taller, yes, but now my head looked disproportionately small. The length was added more to my legs than my torso, so they were ridiculously uneven. And the muscle was too much; I probably looked half a whale, I wouldn’t be able to get through doorways with how wide I was. I was absurd, like a dorito on legs.
I scrambled for the needle kit, sure there was some mistake. I must have taken the wrong dose, too much or too little. There had to be something I could do to reverse it. But there was no second vial, no secret instructions. Nothing except a white tag. I pulled on it gingerly, with my clumsy sausage fingers, and shuddered at the hidden compartment underneath. Scalpel, tweezers, and a whole suture kit glistened in the fluorescence as brightly as the serum had.
The serum only did half the work, I realized, but that’s okay. I knew how to fix everything wrong with me.