Back when the
story was conceived, Neil was reading a lot of Philip K. Dick and Kurt
Vonnegut. The futuristic treatment of such an indiscriminate disease owes much to those
two mighty authors.
Here are the opening scenes of the story:
Patrick Carmichael was used to people staring at him. Back
in his school days, kids routinely called him ‘the Beached Whale’ or ‘Jabba the
Hutt’. But there was something about today’s situation, that he happened to be
sitting in a modern air-conditioned waiting-room, surrounded by people of
similar size and bulk, bad skin, dated, ill-fitting clothing, and questionable
body odour, that made their stares that little bit more disconcerting.
Looking away,
Patrick picked up one of the glossy promotional magazines handed out at the
reception desk. Inside were photographs of models so slim, muscular, and
dynamic, representative of success and desirability, he couldn’t help but feel
chastened once more, that even pictures in magazines had been taken to mock and
humiliate him, to show him that he wasn’t like everybody else, that he was ugly
and repulsive, undeserving, that he had no right to do the normal things normal
people did.
Quickly
discarding the magazine, he thought back to the television commercial he saw
three weeks ago, advertising the clinic’s unique new treatment. That day had
been another tough one at the office. At lunch-time, he heard Zac from Legal
talking about him again: ‘Apparently, Patrick from Accounts is so fat that when
he goes sunbathing down by the beach, the tide has to wait for him to move
before it can come back in again’. Later, on the bus home, two school children
had teased and tormented him for the entirety of his journey. Turning around in
their seats, they puffed out their cheeks and pretended to toss vast quantities
of invisible snacks into their mouths. As soon as he got back to his apartment,
he sought solace in the one thing that had never let him down: food. And it was
there, sprawled out on the sofa, stuffing a plate of fresh cream cakes into his
own mouth, that an almost supersonic burst of sound ripped out of the
television speakers, grabbing his full attention. He looked up to see a ridiculously
tanned, well-groomed, well-dressed, white-toothed, almost pixelated apparition
of a middle-aged man appear on-screen, sat behind what looked like a desk in a
doctor’s office.
‘Do you suffer
from the most dangerous medical condition on Planet Earth? Are you one of the
millions of global citizens struggling with obesity – the single most prolific
killer in modern society – scourge of our sterling medical services? Then why
not call your local Cancer Diet Clinic today for a free consultation? Our
radical new slimming techniques, using state of the art carcinogenic
treatments, will help you shed those pounds in a matter of weeks, and help you
become the person you so desperately want to be.’
If you like what you’ve read so far, you can read the story
online here.
And if you want to learn more about more of Neil’s published work, why not check out his amazon page.
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