The Diet Coke Paradox

The paradox

ELIZABETH WALKER

CW: The following piece makes mention of disordered eating

Instant coffee for breakfast, Diet Coke for dessert, layering new mascara over old. A light taste and sugar-free. 7.1 kilojoules, enough to carry me from my bedroom, to lock the back door, and stumble into a tram. My jaw has been clenched for days. I take another can from the fridge on my way past, shove it deep in a tote bag for later.

4 pm, a drowsy drag of a cigarette, and the mind starts to wonder. Could there be a correlation among these appetites? The evidence presents itself directly, the still smoking gun held trembling between overly caffeinated fingers.

Sugar-free sweetness. Zero-calorie energy. A chestful of air-free air. Smoke permitted to cloud my lungs, each pack shortening my life by 28 minutes. I borrow time from my future, ignoring the debt piling up. With each inhale, the sooner comes the day I will take my last breath.

I propose a paradox. A Catch-22 in consumption.

Breathing, akin to drinking water, is paramount to sustaining human life.

Thus, by supplementing basic instincts with dubious carcinogens, do we - Diet Coke truthers united - rob ourselves of humanity?

A belly full of aspartame and carbonation, bloated but never truly full.

I see myself mirrored in that silver surface, reflections snarling back at me from a spray of several cans across the bedroom floor. Through the looking glass there sways a zombie, animated by cravings, a thirst that will never be satiated. Early evening, nose back to the library grindstone, Monster Energy Ultra Zero. Call me crazy, but the devil does work in mysterious ways. Maybe it’s not so hard to believe in a demonic energy radiating from that product.

Bottoms up, and the rattling of those last few acrid drops may as well be the devil laughing.

In the pursuit of making myself smaller, I’ve never been more monstrous. Aiming for an impossible number, reaching towards a pointless goal, running on fumes. Well, running on taurine. The closer to ultimate zero, the closer to perfection, the closer to God. Or, in a way, the closer to meeting him in person.

“Unleash the beast!” commands the can. Ever the devotee, I followed the devil’s bidding without scepticism. I found it easy to become a mean and miserable villain to everyone I knew and loved. I spat poison and kept my hackles raised. I bite the hand that attempts to feed me, with a mouth that reeks of sucralose and spearmint gum.

Gnawing hunger comes from a deep reservoir, from far beneath the stomach sediment. A seismic echo felt in my ankles, my knees, behind my spine. I feel it in my head. If you drop coins in a glass of Coke, they emerge the next day shiny and new. If opened up, would my organs be sparkling clean, or black as tar? Again arises a paradox: how can these chemicals be cleansing, when my teeth have long since yellowed?

The cadaver is kept pickled, preserved in fizzy formaldehyde. The brain, suspended in fog. The specimen is frozen in a superficial state, posed to imitate life. Only when the jar is cracked open do you start to smell the rot.

In the Church of Coca-Cola, I will be a faithful follower. I will take thrice-daily communion, and preach to those who will listen. My body, desecrated though it may be, a temple. As I wheel the recycling bin down my driveway, aluminium clatters in my wake, and the congregation bells ring.