No.42

Another snippet from my flash fiction slim volume SUCK.

no.42
At least 2.8 million people a year die from obesity.
An annual date where the government visit each house and count the number of bodies lodged between the armchair and the wall, the number of faces staring through an aquamarine veil. Their eyes are always open. Slipped under bathwater long enough, eyes turn to lychees, soft and soaking in their own juices. Tinned fruit, a fat person air tight within a porcelain can, a brick house can, a mass of quivering, rotting jelly.

They always thought he would die from being so big. He was so big.
Walking with four legs, two wooden, two bright pink beneath a mushroom head of fat.
People laughed when he walked to the corner shop, sniggered when he crawled up the high street buying bags of bruised bananas for pence and dog meat that no one knew why he bought because he didn’t have a dog.
Wives of overweight men, would whisper and cackle. Happy with beatings and slipper whippings as long as the mass was made up of ale and whisky and heartburn and they didn’t have to loofah anyone’s anus as a household chore.

They all crackle at the very idea of dissecting somebody else’s fat.
But none of them wonder. None of them wonder why he is the size he is, how it happened, was it through secret ice cream pints and 100g chocolate bars even though he has no one who cares enough, to hide them from. Or was it because fried chicken was a better doctor when his mum killed herself, how hard she took it after her husband and his father passed away from choking on his own vomit. Maybe it is glandular, maybe it is in the blood, replacing each vein with barbeque sauce was his natural progression. Nobody cares enough to wonder the real reasons.

And nobody wondered why they didn’t see him for weeks.
No one asked about the man they saw buying tins of expired pet food, no one queried over the wellbeing of the man with two extra wooden legs, with three extra fiery red chins, with his planetary stomach.
Nobody wondered until the smell went next door.

Author's Note

Would like help with any sentence that seem too long, I'm terrible with grammar and punctuation placement. It has been edited but any further help to sort it out in my head would be great.

Reviews

[Misery]

You are a writer! Your words are intriguing , captivating, they hold the reader's attention and that is the most important quality. One note about editing: if you ask ten people you'll get ten different opinions. Please remain true to the inspiration that chose you.