The Purification of the Temple
- Sep 7, 2018
- 4 min read
by Kelly Chastain
According to the infomercial, the apple cinnamon detox kit contained a three week supply of psyllium powder and specially formulated herbs to thoroughly, yet gently, rid Lynette’s body of all known toxins, helping her to shed the remaining 37 pounds of post-divorce stress weight and return her skin to its prepubescent glow. She couldn’t remember exactly what her skin had looked like then. It had been more than thirty years since the first spot of blood bloomed in her panties, but she knew that her crow’s feet, the fine laugh lines around her mouth, and the ever present stomach bloat that she referred to as her “baby balloon” were not part of it.
It had been a full week since she’d begun mixing the powder with six ounces of apple juice and a tablespoon of cider vinegar, just as the package instructed. She choked it down along with four giant, herb-filled capsules that smelled suspiciously like fresh cut grass and mushrooms. Every morning, about an hour after breakfast, the squeezing in her guts would begin and by the time she made it into the bathroom, her bowels would twist as if being wrung out like a wet dishcloth. She didn’t mind. She had pored over the webpage explaining how the herbs worked like little miners, chipping away at the fecal buildup on the walls of her colon. The testimonials included several statements from people who had lost up to thirty pounds on the protocol, consisting mostly of the years-old shit that had compacted in their intestines. Lynette began to welcome the pain in her guts each morning, anxiously anticipating a change to the number on her scale. To her coworkers in the accounting department, she affectionately referred to the herbs as her little blasting agents.
Halfway through the second week, the time it took the herbs to work their magic had compressed, and she found herself parked on the toilet a minute after starting the coffee pot, the cramping more intense than the weekend she spent in her dorm room suffering from salmonella poisoning. She chalked it up to the work the miners were doing on her behalf. If it hurt this badly, surely a big change was coming. The scale hadn’t moved, but she carried on undeterred. Annie F. from Glens Falls, NY had reported on the website that her scale hadn’t budged the first two weeks either, but the third week was like all of her Christmases had come at once. Fifteen pounds down, and although she was still a bit woozy each day, she was back into a pair of pants that she hadn’t worn in eight years. Lynette scrolled through the endorsement on her phone, smiling at the exclamation points and the before-and-after pictures, especially Annie’s svelte frame in the second one. Even though the woman’s eyes looked positively hollowed out, the size of her thighs was something to envy.
By the third week, Lynette could barely swallow the concoction. The mere smell of it almost made her retch, but she pushed through the nausea. The scale had moved down one pound and her skin did seem a little dewy. It might have been from the profuse sweating brought on by the herbs. The package listed it as a known, yet uncommon, side effect. Now, she swallowed her regimen while already sitting on the toilet, the effects coming immediately. She had at least half an hour to sit and think, so she leafed through the stack of fitness and beauty magazines she kept in a stylish rack near the sink, and woefully cried out as the volleys of pain shot through her guts as hot as lightning. Her asshole puckered as if it had just French kissed a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Lynette gripped the magazine in her clenched fists, tried to remember the breathing techniques she learned in lamaze classes all those years ago, and when that failed, she prayed.
When the episode finally passed, it left her weak and shaking, her back covered in a sheen of sweat. As she gasped to catch her breath, the magazine fell to the floor in front of her, landing open on a two-page ad with a young, thin fitness model on one side and delicate, beautiful font scrawled across the other. Slim In Six. She swiped the book from the floor and read in earnest. NO Tonics. NO supplements. NO exercise. A miracle salve you apply to problem areas twice a day. She groped for her phone on the bathroom counter and punched in the 800 number listed at the bottom of the page. She chose next-day shipping and her two month supply of wonder cream would land on her porch by ten o’clock the next morning.
Kelly Chastain is a graduate of Pacific University with a BA in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in The Burrow Press Review, The Citron Review, Cactus Heart Press, and Silk Road Review. She has work anthologized in Traveler’s Tales Best Travel Writing Volume 10 and a notable essay in Best American Essays 2015, among others. Currently, she is working on a historical novel. You can find her at kellychastain.com.
