A story about the power of food.

From childhood I have been overweight. This is not a defining characteristic for most people; however, I have been blessed with a gracious appetite. I do not feel satiated; rather, my stomach begins to feel full to bursting long before I could possibly be finished. Indeed, many times I have eaten until I was sick. The prodigious volume and speed of my eating is a thing of pride for me; I do not know a single man that could eat more than me in a single sitting, or two men in two sittings. At one point I considered eating competitions; however, I soon realised that they were not to my taste. Eating is truly a personal, hedonic and holistic experience. It is an integral part of life and yet it is so much more.


I cannot say that my appetite nor my weight have led to any reduction in the quality of my life. In fact, I have become the CEO of a very successful company that produces medical supplies. I have a wife and kids, and we are very happy together. I am very large, but not large enough to be restricted in mobility; I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I also do not find myself judged on my corpulence; I am told that my charming and jovial looks give me a youthful and almost cherubic appearance.

With all of this in mind, one thing continues to frustrate and drive me. That is, my insatiability. I simply cannot eat enough; I am constantly hungry, and the pain my stomach causes me sometimes brings me to my knees. I have been to many doctors, and none of them can find anything physically wrong with me; in fact, besides my high body weight, I am at the peak of physical health. I have seen psychologists, who have attempted and failed to link my condition with any sort of underlying mental phenomenon. In desperation I have even seen dieticians and trainers; this, too, has been fruitless. This leads me to my most recent turn of events.

It was late at night, and I had been woken from my sleep again, by my gasps for air, my palpitating heart, my incredible hunger. I carefully crept downstairs, and succeeded without waking my wife or children; I have been told that I have an unusually light and graceful step for my size. Thus, I snuck to the kitchen, to prepare myself a meal.

Of course, for my taste in food I have become quite an adequate chef. At first I decided that I would prepare myself a full bird, home-made salad dressing, fresh bread, a bottle of vintage wine, a cheesecake. Normally I would have had no difficulty doing this, as I am one of the finest home cooks I know, and my family would not need to check on me since they are fully accustomed to my clanging around in the middle of the night in search of a meal. Moreover, I always keep the pantry stocked in case of such an emergency. However, today I struggled through it, for these were no ordinary pangs of hunger; It flooded my mind and made it impossible to concentrate. I immediately started on the cookies I had baked the night before, and neglected to finish. However, I finished them too quickly, and was still too hungry. I ordered five pizzas while cooking, each from a different store. While I was waiting for them to be delivered I uncovered the snack food I had hidden from my family, and proceeded to devour my entire cache of chips and candy. I finished the pizzas, and finally began to start on the ingredients of my meal. I ate all of my biscuits and cream cheese; then, the spring water dough that had only started to rise; then, I chugged the entire bottle of wine; and I got to to the raw bird. I had barely started to gnaw on it when I realised what had already begun to happen. I had become critically bloated, and my gut could not take any more food. I gagged violently, struggling to keep my meal all in one place.

In one last fit of desperation, I grabbed the nearest implement that I could find, a butter knife. I stared at my reflection in the blade, and saw my face that had been struck with illness, where there had been so much vitality before. I took the handle in both hands, pointed it towards my stomach, and jabbed it into my abdomen.

I felt a blinding flash of pain; I felt the implement in my body, and the warm wetness that soaked my hands and nightshirt. I barely kept myself from screaming, as I have excellent self-control. I ripped open my clothes to gaze at the wound; at first the redness of my shirt had led me to believe that the wound was severe, but in fact under closer inspection it was quite superficial. I was bleeding quite a bit, but it was not deep enough to penetrate anything but the most external layer of flesh. I realised that if I were to finally end my suffering, this was the only way. I took my shirt off and prepared myself for the next blow.

I gazed at the blade yet again; this time, it had been stained with blood and I could no longer see anything in it. The shine of steel had been replaced with the glistening of fluid. I took numerous, shallow breaths, to regain my composure and build the confidence I needed to strike again. Finally I grasped the blade before, and laid the tip where I had cut myself initially; it stung like alcohol, and I had to force myself to keep it in place. I pressed into myself. The weapon moved deeper into myself, and I gasped for air. Then, I pushed the blade down with all of my strength.

For how weak I had become, the wound was a success; I felt the extremes of agony running through my entire body, as if my self-infliction had become secondary to the condition that had spread throughout me. As I drew the knife out, shaking, I gazed down at my body; my bulbous gut was obviously open, however aside from that there was no change, nor any relief in my pain. I dropped the knife to the ground with a clatter, and felt at my body. This prodding seemed to do the trick, however; and my entrails spilt forward onto the floor, in plain sight. I gazed down at them, and tried to feel them; however, they had already been cut loose. I could not sense them in the least. They were no longer a part of me. Satisfied with this final conquest, I turned, back to the raw chicken that would now become a part of me. I ripped it apart and grabbed the bird in my arms, and held it to my teeth and tore it apart, bones and all.

I heard a voice behind me, calling my name. I turned around, and my wife was staring at me, and my wound, and the bloody raw chicken in my arms. Her expression changed from confusion to outright shock; she screamed, and fell to the ground and started shrieking and sobbing uncontrollably. The children would be down soon. I was about to run over to her, my first instinct was to comfort her in some way, and then I began to wonder if I could possibly ever be of any comfort to her, my organs lying on the floor, covered in blood, eating raw chicken in my hands, and fat as it gets. She could no longer even face me, looking anywhere else to avoid seeing this horror. I opened my mouth to speak, but my words were entirely silent. I took a step forward, in the vain hopes of doing anything, anything at all, that would ease her suffering and mine; at that moment, I slipped in the pile of blood and guts that my feet lay in. Uttering one last shout, my body tipped forward, and I landed right on my skull with all of my weight.