He was up before dawn, the gurgle and rasp of his breathing engulfing the room. Hoisting himself from the sagging bed, he slipped on his dirty XXXL overalls, the only piece of clothing that could still accommodate his girth. They were stretched to the limit, clinging to his torso like a sausage casing. A few more pounds and he wouldn’t even be able to get the top past the unruly bulge of his gut.
As he clambered down the stairs, the steps creaked like an ancient wooden crypt opening for the first time in centuries. He was panting midway down, making it obvious that his days of using the stairs were numbered. At the rate he was going, he would soon be restricted to the first floor and, eventually, to the couch in the living room. Would he become one of those freakish morbidly obese people that can barely lift a limb and need to be sponge-bathed? No, it would never come to that, because he would not let it. He would not relinquish what meager shred of dignity he had left.
Waddling into the filthy kitchen, he was unaffected by the wretched odors. The foulness of the rotting mounds of garbage would have made a visitor vomit upon entering, but since there were never any visitors, there was no need to worry about it. Standing amid the debris, he debated for a moment about even bothering with breakfast, but since it was going to be his last meal, he decided to indulge himself. Besides, he was always hungry in the morning.
He put on a pot of coffee and began the ritual of gluttony, cracking and frying a dozen eggs in one skillet and a pack of bacon in another. If there was one benefit that came from the accident, it was the out-of-court cash settlement, ensuring that eggs and bacon would always be in good supply. As it all sizzled, he toasted half a loaf of bread and slathered the slices in “fresh farm-churned butter.” At least that’s what it said on the folksy packaging. It gave him some comfort, if only illusory, conjuring up those long ago days when he actually did churn his own butter.
By the time he was done cooking, the morning sun tore through the flimsy stained curtain on the window above the sink, bathing the kitchen in hard light. He dumped everything onto an oval serving platter, with the bacon, eggs and toast neatly segregated in their own sections – as if presentation mattered. As if there was a family sitting around the table to present it to.
He cleared a space for himself amid the clutter, stacking and sliding aside a mini-landfill of dirty dishes, utensils, glasses and containers. In the shuffle, a few pieces of Tupperware containing unidentifiable mold-covered food dropped to the floor in a flurry of dull thumps. With an adequate berth before him, he set the platter down and took a seat, his enormity spilling out over the sides of his chair, making it look doll-sized. Though the legs wobbled and croaked, they somehow managed to stay intact and support him, as if even the chair knew that it would all mercifully be over soon.
He used to say grace before every meal, leading the family in prayer from the head of the table, but those days were as removed as Moses on the mountain. Now, he simply poured himself a mug of black coffee – just like he took it when he used to fill his thermos and head out to work the fields – and began to gorge himself. Usually, he cleared the entire spread in ten minutes, but this morning he went about it a little more slowly. He separated the egg whites from the yolks and used the toast to sop up the runny yellow pools. He consumed the meal with precise order, alternating between strips of bacon, chunks of egg white and pieces of yolk-laden toast, licking his fingers as he popped the soggy pieces into his reeking mouth.
His face glistened with the sheen of bacon grease, and the corners of his mouth were smeared with yolk. He began to sweat raisin-sized beads, which he licked away as they rolled down his swollen ham-colored cheeks, their salty taste mixing in with everything else. Soon, all that was left on the platter was a constellation of crumbs. His hunger sated, he reached across the table for a dishtowel, spat on it to moisten the crusted fabric and wiped his face clean, relatively speaking. He eased back against the rickety chair, eliciting more agonized pleas from its thin shaky legs. As his stomach churned like a factory production line, emitting various digestive noises, he closed his eyes and tried to quell the pulse pounding in his head.
