Chapter 6: The fat and lazy world
The silence of the dead device was a new kind of noise. It filled John’s ears as he woke, a hollow ringing beneath the sounds of the mansion. The sounds had changed.
It was the wet, resonant echo of a deep belch that pulled him from sleep. The bed beside him was a vast, warm continent. Katy was on her back, one colossal arm thrown over her forehead. Her breathing was a stertorous rumble, a vibration that shook the mattress springs. The elegant planes of her face were softened, buried under new layers of rounded, puffy flesh. Her neck had thickened, merging with her jawline in a smooth, seamless curve. Her breasts, always generous, now lay in sprawling, weighty mounds across her chest and ribcage, the pale skin of their undersides glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. They rose and fell with each thick, labored breath.
The sunlight through the skylight illuminated the dust motes dancing above a landscape of flesh. The sharp, ambitious law student was gone, submerged beneath five hundred pounds of cushioned indolence.
“Uunngh.” The sound came from deep within her. She smacked her lips, a dry, sticky sound. Her eyes fluttered open, bleary and unfocused. “Johnny. Baby. Get me the water. My mouth tastes like a sewer.”
Her voice was the same, but it came out slower, wrapped in a layer of phlegm. He slid out from under the sheet, the cool air a shock against his skin. The jug of water on the nightstand was a giant-sized thermos, condensation beading on its stainless steel sides. He strained to lift it, his muscles quivering, and poured into a glass the size of a vase. Carrying it to her, he had to climb onto the bed, sinking into the quivering valley her body created.
She didn’t sit up. She merely turned her head, her multiple chins compressing into a rippling stack, and opened her mouth. He held the glass to her lips. She drank greedily, water sloshing over the sides and tracing rivers through the sweat-damp cleavage that was now a deep, dark chasm. A long, satisfied “Aaahhh” followed, then another resonant belch that echoed in the glass. “Thanks, puddle-jumper.” She patted his head with a hand that was now plump, the fingers like sausages. “God, I’m beat. That fucking Con Law reading last night… just wiped me out.” Her eyes were already closing again. “Tell your mom I’ll be down for brunch. Maybe.”
The walk to the bathroom was an expedition. The hallway floor was sticky in patches. A discarded, empty family-sized chip bag lay like a plastic corpse against the baseboard. He nudged it with his foot. The house, once a symphony of clean lines and light, now bore the subtle, humid chaos of profound relaxation. A faint, sweet-sour odor hung in the air—old wine, fried food, and the ripe, musky scent of large bodies at rest.
In the bathroom, the scale was a heavy-duty industrial platform. A silk robe, strained to its limit, was draped over a towel rack that bowed under the weight. The mirrors were misted from someone’s recent, steamy shower. He wiped a circle clear with his hand. His own face looked back, pale and small, a ghost in a temple of gigantism.
Downstairs, the kitchen was a scene of languid industry. Claire stood at the colossal stove, but she was not the poised architect of before. She leaned heavily on the counter for support, her body a monumental testament to softness. Her back was a wide, rounded slope, her rear a vast shelf that stretched the fabric of her cotton pants to a shine. Each movement was considered, effortful. She shifted her weight from one tree-trunk leg to the other with a soft grunt, her bare feet spreading on the tile.
“Mom?”
She turned, her face florid from the heat of the griddle. Her blonde hair was piled in a messy bun, strands stuck to her damp temples and the abundant, flushed flesh of her neck. The beautiful bone structure was still there, but it was upholstered, buried under layers of plump, comfortable-looking fat. Her arms, when she reached for a spatula, jiggled with a slow, tidal motion.
“Morning, sweet pea!” Her voice was a warm, breathy wheeze. “Just making a little fuel. Sarah’s on a double again and needs her energy.” She gestured with the spatula, droplets of grease flying. “You want pancakes? I’m doing a triple batch.”
Before he could answer, the kitchen door swung open and Jessica shuffled in. Her artistic, experimental style had morphed into a uniform of enormous, stained sweatpants and a tent-like t-shirt that barely contained the rolling swell of her stomach and hips. Her face was round, a moon of soft flesh, her eyes bright but lethargic.
“Smells good,” she mumbled, heading straight for the industrial-sized refrigerator. She pulled out a two-liter bottle of orange soda, cracked the cap, and took a long, gurgling drink straight from the bottle. A bubbly belch escaped her. “Oops.” She didn’t seem to care. She waddled to the island and hoisted herself onto a reinforced stool, which groaned in protest. Her body settled, spills of flesh overflowing the seat’s edges.
Sarah entered from the other side, still in her scrubs, which were now a stretched, strained version of their former selves. The fabric puckered at every seam. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, her blonde hair lank.
“Rough night?” Claire asked, sliding a stack of pancakes onto a plate the size of a manhole cover.
“Four admissions. All of them huge. Everything is harder.” Sarah’s voice was flat, devoid of its usual dry wit. It was the voice of pure, weary pragmatism. “Lifts, scans, IV placement. It’s a biomechanical nightmare.” She accepted the plate, picked up a fork, and began to eat with slow, methodical bites. “My back is screaming.”
“You work too hard, darling,” Claire sighed, flipping more batter. The pancake sizzled, absorbing a lake of melted butter. “The system needs to adapt. Bigger equipment, bigger doorways…”
“The system is adapted,” Sarah said through a mouthful. “We adapted it. This is it.” She took a long drink from a protein shake that smelled like artificial chocolate and chalk. “We’re just… big. And tired. It’s the new metabolic baseline. The body wants to conserve.”
Jessica was drawing in a sketchbook with a charcoal stick, her strokes loose and lazy. “I’m doing a series. ‘Monumental Forms in Domestic Space.’ It’s about the beauty of mass and repose.” She sketched Claire’s broad back, the curve of her apron strings digging into the soft trench of her waist.
John stood by the island, a spectator. The conversation was the same, yet utterly different. The drive was gone, replaced by a deep, metabolic complacency. Ambition had been redefined as the effort required to get more food, or a more comfortable place to rest.
Katy lumbered into the kitchen an hour later, her hair a nest, wearing an enormous terrycloth robe. She moved with a slow, swaying gait, her feet shuffling. She went straight to Claire, kissed her cheek with a loud smack, then opened the fridge. “Leftover pizza. Yes.”
She ate two cold slices, leaning against the counter, chewing with her mouth partly open. Grease shone on her chin. “So, John,” she said, swallowing a huge lump. “I was thinking. Maybe we just order in tonight. Watch something. I don’t think I can make it to the library. My ankles are like, super puffy.” She looked down at her feet, encased in fluffy slippers. “It’s a lot, carrying all this.” She gestured vaguely at her own body, at the immense, soft bulk of it. She said it not with distress, but with a kind of lazy pride.
This was his doing. The device’s final, faulty spasm. A reality where the maternal was not just powerful, but overwhelmingly, physically present. A world of soft barriers, of warm, suffocating pillows. Love expressed through a belch and a demand for more butter.
He climbed the stairs to his little study nook. From the window, he looked out at the city. The streets were different. Movement was slower. Women filled the sidewalks, vast and slow-moving, like glaciers of flesh. Their laughter was deeper, their conversations punctuated by wheezes and contented sighs. Public benches were built like reinforced church pews. A delivery woman, larger than the one from before, was using a motorized cart to haul a pallet of groceries; she ate a pastry from a box on her lap as she drove.
He reached into his pocket. The device was cold. A dead stone. He pressed the smooth screen. Nothing. He shook it. He pried at the seam with a fingernail. Useless.
The door to the room opened with a soft creak. Claire stood there, filling the frame. She had changed into a vast, floral-print muumuu that flowed over her slopes and valleys. In her hands she held a tray bearing a single, normal-sized sandwich and a glass of milk.
“You didn’t eat, sweetheart,” she said, her voice a soothing murmur. She waddled in, the floorboards giving a soft complaint. She placed the tray on his desk, then lowered herself with a profound exhalation onto the oversized reading chair beside his nook. It swallowed her, her flesh conforming to its shape.
She watched him, her eyes soft in her puffy face. “You’ve been quiet. Are you happy?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We’re happy. It’s easier, isn’t it? No more rushing. No more striving for things that don’t matter.” She shifted, the chair groaning. A slow, long, gassy sigh escaped her, filling the small space with a warm, organic odor. She didn’t apologize. “We have everything we need right here. Comfort. Plenty. Each other.”
She reached out a hand, her fingers dimpled like stuffed pastries, and ran them through his hair. Her touch was still gentle, still loving. But it was the love of a keeper for a cherished, tiny pet. A love that required no reciprocation, only acceptance.
“My sweet, anchored boy,” she whispered, her breath a warm cloud carrying the scent of maple syrup and coffee. “This is so much better.”
Downstairs, he heard Katy’s braying laugh, followed by Jessica’s, then Sarah’s low chuckle. A symphony of contented, immense women. He looked at the sandwich. He looked at the cold, dead device in his hand. He thought of the world outside, a world of slow, soft giants.
The anchor was gone. The shore was a memory. He was adrift on a warm, quiet, boundless sea of flesh, and it was beginning to feel, horribly, like home.