Fat Chance

 The dark clouds slowly rolled over Maria hid a bright sun, but it gave Maria an excuse to close her eyes again.  Her favorite android made her a strong brew of coffee.  It traveled through the air on a special disk to Maria. She enjoyed how the hot sand soothed her desire to lie back in the covers and not get anything done.

She focused on her surroundings in her small unit with one large window and stair escape.  She believed the hard rails would drop her down to the street below, oozing with blood and having a crappy grave on the moon.

Don’t get me wrong, she thought.  I would like a fancy grave, as I would love a fancy 

wedding with the man of my dreams.

I’m kidding myself, myself, she thought. Who would want to date Mari?  Her pallid face and boring green eyes, the color of swamp water no Planet 2, did not entice men.  Not only, but she owned the title of being a criminal, as she tipped the scale at two hundred pounds. The fact she had avoided fate for so long was lost to her as well.  

She looked at the beautiful women across the street, a giant full of light, beauty, and love.  

You know, she thought, that picture and I have something in common. We aren’t real.  

“Maria, you’re going to be late,” Becky said as she hit the door.  The metal door sounded like a trash can gong on an old movie channel.

“Becky!”  Maria put her coffee down and ran to the door. The cold floor grabbed at her petite feet.  Her long, blonde hair caught the light.  

Becky’s sober eyes met Maria’s green and ugly gaze.  

Becky could have been a movie star, Maria thought. Her jet black hair and height made a bold statement wherever she went.  The two mirrored each other, much in the way life does opposites. 

She did have a past. She went to a disciplinarian school as a kid and rebelled in every degree against the heavy wooden doors with angry spikes on them.  

“You can’t hold a soul,” she once told Maria. “A soul only owns a soul.  That’s the problem. Only a few people possess souls.” 

“You have to feed a soul or it becomes emaciated and dies.”

Maria enjoyed listening to Becky in the breeze and harsh climate.  In their generations, dusty amd crippled, people tried to control the weather and the world gained a frosty layer of oppression as punishment.  

“So are you ready?” Becky asked.

“I don’t know.  What if I fail?” 

“Uh, I don’t think you will. Remember to take off everything, bra, underwear, it all.”

Maria’s eyes let go of a tear.  

“Don’t worry so much.  What can we do about it now?  We have to do the best we can. 

Maria arrived at the clinic, a sterile place with yellow and red walls. It reminded her of adipose tissue.  

Oh, please, any invisible being, don’t let today be the day.  

The doctors wore loose clothes to help with their flexibility.  

And one boy still ate an ice cream cone.  His mother sobbed.  She put her hand on the boy’s flabby tummy. His eyes met hers, and the blame jumped back and forth.  

“Ms. Stone, are you here?”

“Yes, sir,” Maria said.

“Come on back.”

They strolled through two electric fences and to his room.  In the chilly place, Maria’s fear came up and sweat rolled down all over her body, as if the tears knew.  She remembered what Becky said.  Her crime was so much less than Maria’s, as she wasn’t responsible of such a sin.

Maria  pulled her bra off, her azure underwear off, everything, she folded her arms and each moment carved her emotions.  

Well, if I die, at least it’s for a good cause, she thought. Someone else will have

a chance.  

The doctor came in with big eyes, taking in her fat rolls and rough, blonde hair. 

Meanwhile, Maria let her life flash before her swamp eyes.  The doctor’s gaze dropped away.  

You can’t steal seconds, Maria thought.  

“You are 200 pounds, Maria. You haven’t made your quota, and I must say, you have denied so many with your gluttony.  Now you must pay the price of eating too much food.  

Maria cried as he opened the back door.  Four small skin and bone children came down, in pain, so small, all hungry.  

The first one slowly walked over to Maria and carved her breasts off, the delicious fat filled him up.  The other children came up and inner fluids splattered all over them like the devil’s finger-painting.  Some dropped their meat and ate her eyes.  

Maria screamed as she died, begging the children for forgiveness.  Her tongue came out, and her eyes closed for the last time.