It’s common knowledge that obesity is bad; there’s not going to be anyone with two brain cells to rub together that will disagree with you. Hell, walk up to and talk to anyone in your general vicinity and ask them, and barring the small chance they don’t simply mug you on sight for being a nosy claude, they’ll agree with me. So yeah, common knowledge. And yet, despite knowing this, the obesity problem in America is so severe that all the bandwagoner news and media outlets under the sun have labeled it an ‘epidemic of massive proportions’. I’m not quoting anyone exactly, but you know the type of point I’m trying to make. And, despite this commercialized hyperbole making its rounds in and out of the numerous ogre and troll caves and trash heaps and picture-perfect scoff-worthy nuclear families of Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter, and all the outcry for social change people are supposedly hearing (probably, I live under a rock,) no one really… cares. Or at least, seems to care. And I do understand it, I do. Hell, I certainly wouldn’t care much, if I wasn’t a hot mess of worry and anxiety. [sorry lads and ladies, they’re my best and only qualities.]

And so, one fateful March 27th, as I wasted my life away pondering my limited time here on Earth, I stumbled upon a dangerous thought that any thinking human eventually does wander upon in the inner recesses of their Sanctum of Mind:

Hm….. I’m really fat, aren't I?

Let it be known that I am no recognized schizophrenic; I can distinguish my waking hours from my sleeping ones well enough by my habitual masturbation routines— crank the hog 1-7 times, sleep, and have the horror of what I gazed upon as I pleasured myself this time hit me in full force from last night’s unused Post-Nut Clarity; allowing me temporary escape from the incessant pressures and expectations placed upon me by both myself and my society.

But this time, something was different. This time, something changed, if not for a moment or two. For this time, dear readers, as my own personal veil of depression shrouded my senses, as the colors lost their vibrance, returning to washed-out ugly grays; as once again life's very meaning was remembered and subsequently comprehended; before rendering my ill and, in retrospect, humorously squishy mind a prisoner of its own machinations, my baser needs were brought to the front of my consciousness, and thus, my attentions. I looked down and observed where from the feeling had originated.

285. My weight, in pounds.

It had never bothered me overly much (well, that’s a lie, but a common one we all take comfort in), but this morn, I quivered. I trembled, dear readers. My fat rolls wiggling like oh-so-many gelatin constructs, my eyes pleading with my brain for mercy from the intrusive thoughts surely incoming.

But did I not mention that this time was different?

Taking advantage of my momentary distraction, an intrusive thought forced its way inside; Oh Mauy Gawd, Look Out! A shadowy, long-limbed, oily-looking demonesque creature jumped out from the ample space behind my headboard and wall used to access the corner of the room beyond, catching me wholly unawares.

Oh noes!

I nervously turn to look, and despite seeing nothing there, realize my mistake almost immediately; as metaphorical alarm bells ring soundlessly in my head, I attribute the blunder to my groggy awakening. After all, who could forget that old horror movie guarantee, that the second you turn around to no avail, the creepy crawlies of the Friday Family Horror Movie Night of the week make their move? Stopping halfway through turning, I nevertheless manage to confirm nothing blocking the door to my room, banishing whatever anxiety-induced compulsion panic-ritual the apparition would have made me do. OCD at bay, alive another day, I brainstorm my options.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The door?

I glance with wistful eyes at the door, its tempting allure unable to overpower my superior mental capacities in regards to paranoid horror movie survival tactics. No door! Bad door, no! Your glistening golden knob shall tempt me no longer!

… Circling back, my door has no lock, is shoddily hinged, over two decades old, and has inch-wide gaps at the top and bottom where the door doesn’t bother to adhere to proper carpentry rules, being the chad that he is. And yes, bro, I just gendered and anthropomorphized my door. Deal.

And yet despite the vertical crack that doubles as a crappy peephole caused by some fellow Ugly Bastard tm with an axe, Chad Door is also regrettably 1½, maybe 2” thicc, narrowly beating both a bowl of oatmeal and your mom. Boom!

Wait, did I just name him? Uh-oh. Maybe I’m not as sane as I thought.

“Famous last words,” I think to myself ruefully, before snapping out of the introspection-bullet time that seems to manifest in life and death situations like this one.

Back to the races.

Horror movie rules and laws dictate that the second I lunge and fumble for the previously barely-latched knob, it will Wake Up Inside and become harder than me in an all-boys locker room. Not that I wouldn’t be hard in an all-girls locker room, or in—god forbid, do mixed locker rooms even exist? Not if everyone’s perverted as I am, they don’t. Or at least, not in public.

My anxiety and depression meds are in the medicine cupboard in the kitchen, though… Ah, well. Worth a try. Probably needless delusional paranoia one; gentle, humble and innocent soul Gavin zero. And I’m not desperate or patient enough just yet to pull the air conditioner out of my window, jump through it The Girl Who Leapt Through Time-style, and somehow survive the cold hard reality of the Pauli Exclusion Principle when my flesh, bone, muscle tissue and gray matter is put to the tried and true test of advanced physics and material constructions. I’ve never trained for such a thing anyway, although I’m reasonably sure you don’t get better at jumping through five story windows. It’s the kind of thing you try once, and then never again.

I’m sure the thrill is incredible though.

All dark jokes aside, I do believe I’m somewhat special in that regard. My views on suicide, I mean. Severely depressed as I am, I’d never do it, barring some classic commit die via hereditary stupidity or not-so-secret hero complex. I’ve considered it, we all consider it— but there’s a huge difference between thought and action, no matter what anyone else tells you. Suicide is for cowards and stupid people. Controversial? Ah well, guess I'll die then. You’ve convinced me my views were wrong, how silly of me! Let me get my noose. But really, suicide is kinda like the circle of life, like all circles; dubiously and suspiciously pointless. It is also meaningless, unless you decided to show you how bad you were suffering by destroying any attempt anyone had of helping you while you were alive. There’s no afterlife here yet, The Matrix being as improbable as it is, we never would’ve made it that far as a species, wake up. You’re not going to a better place, despite what the Egyptians led you to believe, or a worse one if you’re born wrong, which is what the Christian prudes that raised me led me to believe until I grew a brain and hightailed it before they could make me hate me for being myself. Not that it would’ve stuck, angsty little twat I was/am. I'm somewhat self-aware. And I’m already doing a bang-up job of hating myself, thank you, very, much. Besides, if it’s not only for cowards and stupid people, then I…

I…

…I- got you! I did get you, didn’t I? Ha ha! Ah, the joys of continued existence. No, I’m quite fine with my life, as fucked as it is. I fear death like a proper sane man.

I also heavily dislike pain in large amounts, but I wouldn’t mind having a little funti—

What- the- FUCK- is that?

…

..!

?!?!?!?!?

!!!?!!....

…

Ow.