Picture here in your mind’s eye: the promise of spring, with the fresh green colors everywhere. Two little girls walk slowly over the new underbrush, over a log. They hold hands. Declaring their love or each other, they promise to be best friends forever. A blond head and a brown, blue eyes and green. This is just one day of many happy ones, dear to them, but not dear enough. Soon they will part forever. The blue eyes goes first, she becomes a different girl. She lives in a different world, where every ounce of fat a crime, and the heart’s intent does not matter. No, it is not a world, it is a monster. Soon the blue eyes see their mistake, and cries out for help, but the monster swallows up the sound before it reaches another’s ears.
The green eyes are left alone, outside this new world-monster. She is horrified, but also fascinated. She begins to see an ounce of fat here and there, where it should not be. And so, trustingly, she takes a step into this new world, planning to back out as soon as anything goes wrong. She wants to find her friend, she tells herself. But! She soon has taken another and another step into this new world, this monster. The world filled with walking skeletons, alive but hollow-eyed, haunted by floating visions of the dreaded calories. She soon sees her mistake, how she is joining these walking skeletons. She turns to find her way out, but she cannot find the exit. Once inside, you cannot escape. Those green eyes look up, and she sees a light, a small light up above. Excited, she goes to find her friend, but cannot. She runs in circles, looking for a familiar face to save, desperate. Why is she here? She blames the blue eyes, who led her there. Anger fills her, she wants to get out. She finds a rope above her, up to the light. If she jumps, she can reach it. And so she climbs, slowly, up the light. Many times she wants to give up, but she keeps on going. She is so hungry, and this makes it hard to climb, but she perseveres. Terrible things rush at her, scaring her about the journey. What if she gets fat? Just when she is sure she can go no farther, she reaches the top. The light is her family and true friends, who value her heart. They are the true lanterns that lighted her way.
She turns to go home joyfully, but remembers the blue eyes, still in the pit of darkness. She calls down to her, to come up out of the monster. But blue eyes, down in the depths, wants to stay there. She is too scared of climbing the rope, of braving the dangers. The green eyes weep to find she has lost her friend, who would never give up so easily. Every day she calls down to blue eyes to come up, and everyday that voice she knows so well becomes more and more faint. She knows that one day, one day soon, there will be no answer. She will have been swallowed up by the monster that has stolen many lives from the sweet girls that once upon a time have been someone’s best friend.