Fair Grounds - Short Stories

The Butcher

Edith leans forward in her armchair to get her feet closer to the floor. Her mounds of mountainous flesh revolting against any strides to stand. She couldn't see her feet, hadn't seen them in years now, but she made the plunge anyway. The floorboards groaned and shook beneath her protesting the enormous weight.

"Harold!!! Did you call the boys home about that nasty boy?"

She paused only for a moment knowing Harold's reply wouldn't come, or if it did would not be the answer she was hoping for. Harold had a propensity to turtle. Never wanting to stir things up he would rather Edith be tormented day after day, pelted by horrible words, sticks, and even the occasional rock, than lodge a complaint about a young juvenile delinquent making her life hell. Harold was not a knight in shining armor.

As she piled her plate with last nights ravioli adding more and more until noodles slid off the mound and spilled over onto the countertop she turned on the small space-saver television and plopped herself onto the shaking wooden kitchen chair at the table. Commercials rolled across the screen and Edith reached out her right hand to grab the remote only to find an empty space. Her eyes scanned the kitchen as her jowls worked to hold the shovels of pasta trying to escape her smacking lips.

"Harold!! You moved the dang remote again!!"

Edith positioned herself to get up for the remote while her eyes longingly scanned the rest of the leftover pasta, realizing it was much more enticing than changing the channel.

The energized man shouting on the television caught her attention as he clapped and cheered for the women on the stage. She found herself mesmerized by the amount of emotion being shared.

The first woman, looking trendy in a modern day dress and flawless skin and makeup filled the screen as she began her emotional testimony:

"It's incredible really. I lost 200 pounds just by taking this pill and eating only meat!  200 pounds! I can move, I can dance! For the first time in twenty years my husband finds me sexy again. We've started going on trips and the girls in the office have lost the joy of talking behind my back!"

Edith looks at her last few remaining bits of pasta and pushes the plate away. She grabs her handbag and heads for the door.

"Harold!! I'm heading to the butcher. I'll be back."

Stepping off the porch carefully and with the added difficulty of not being able to see her feet or the steps because of her enormous girth, she pauses to scan the neighborhood. Seeing a quiet empty street and having successfully mounted the task of getting down the steps she keeps moving toward main street. As she rounds the corner she stops abruptly like a trapped rabbit as she hears a voice echo her footsteps.

"Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.  Earthquake!!! Hide your babies. Fatzilla is on the loose again."

Edith quickens her steps doing her best to ignore the boy. Another few steps and her body shudders as a small rough stone smacks against her left cheek. Her hand lifts to caress the reddening whelp but she drops it quickly to tug on her shirt that is now riding up her round bulging middle.

With an exasperated sigh of relief she forcefully plows her way into the butcher shop, taking a mental note of the sour expression the butcher's face reveals as she takes a small paper number from the machine on the counter.   As she waits in line trying not to notice the states and whispers, she finds a happy place in looking at the meats and imagining her meals. Today, she thinks, I'll start the program. I'll eat meats, meats, meats, and I'll loose the weight. I'm better than all these haughty harlots they just don't know it yet."