Belinda Burpwell's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Belinda walks toward the contest tables with the plate balanced on her belly. She makes it three steps before the crowd closes in. A woman grabs her elbow. A man steps in front of her with both hands up. More press in behind, six or seven of them, pushing her sideways until her back hits a tall black slab. The stone is veined with bright pink and green light that pulses where her shoulders touch it. She burps into the woman's face and the woman does not let go. "Slow down," the man in front says. "You're going to hurt yourself." Behind him, an older voice says she should sit. Someone else says she has had enough. A boy near the back holds up a small pocket watch on a chain and taps the cracked glass, as if her eating can be measured in minutes. Belinda burps again, longer. The plate trembles on her belly. The cake slides but does not fall. She plants her bare feet on the grass and sets her shoulders against the lit stone. The crowd has her boxed in against a fractured platform off to her right, its cracks pooled with shining liquid that drips onto the trampled grass. People lean their hips against the platform's edge to get closer to her. One woman climbs up on it to see over the others. Belinda counts the hands reaching for her plate and decides she is done being polite about it. She grabs the wrist of the man in front. He flinches but lets her move it. She drags his palm down and presses it flat against the curve of her belly, under the paper plate. His fingers go stiff. "Feel that," she says. "That's room for more." Then she leans forward until her face is close to his, opens her mouth, and burps straight into him. It comes up from deep in her gut and lasts a long count. His hair lifts. His eyes water. He staggers back into the woman behind him. The pocket watch drops from the boy's hand and lands in the grass with its chain coiled around it. The woman holding Belinda's elbow lets go and wipes her mouth like she tasted something. The crowd peels off the fractured platform and the lit slab and gives her a clear half circle of grass. Someone laughs, high and nervous. No one tells her to slow down again. Belinda steadies the plate on her belly and steps over the dropped watch without picking it up. She burps once more, softer, just for herself. The contest tables are still ten paces off and the hands packing them up have stopped to watch her come. She picks a tray of fried dough at the near end and aims for it. Her belly leads the way. Behind her, the lit veins in the black stone keep pulsing, and the crowd stays back.