Obesity

"How's the diet coming along?" Frank asked as he waddled over to the cafeteria table at which his friend Lolly was sitting. "We haven't much time to waste." He plumped himself down in the chair next to Lolly and leaned back. The chair creaked. Lolly smiled to herself, and began eating the rest of her banana sandwich. "In about three weeks we have to be inside our official safe weight or else they will arrest us for being fatter than the state regulated norm."

Lolly dropped her sandwich and began to cry. "I can't do this, Frank," she said. "I can't lose any weight. I've tried everything, pills, starving myself, I even thought about liposuction but the queue for operations has a three year waiting list."

"I know, dear. We are just too fat to be free. We'll be locked up with the rest of obese humanity in huge camps. Well, they would have to be really huge to acommodate us all. Everyone is fat, it's just that some are fatter than others."

"Frank, was it always like this?"

"No, Lolly. Once there was a time when being fat was, ah, not prohibited. I recall a time when I could eat from morning to night and not have to worry about counting calories. Now I am constantly hungry."

"It's worse when I am walking down the street and the Thin Youth start shouting at me and telling me how fat I am. I can't believe they can do this and nobody, nobody at all, seems to care."

"The Thin Youth, yes, they do, don't they? I hate them. I hate everyone who is really, really thin. With a high metabolism so they can eat what they like... you know I haven't had a decent fry up in weeks. I daren't."

"I heard that in America, the situation has gotten so bad that gangs of fat and thin people fight each other. The Thins shoot at the Fats and the Fats shoot at the Thins."

"And nobody wins," Frank added morosely staring at his sandwich. The small turkey on rye stared back. "We have to lose weight or else."

There was a chime, and the huge television screen that hung on one wall of the cafeteria showed a thin, almost gaunt face with a tiny Errol Flynn below the nose. It was time for an announcement from Little Brother.

"I hate Little Brother!" Frank shouted, standing suddenly. "I want to be fat!"

Lolly screamed as the Thin Men entered the dining hall, and hurried over to their table. Frank had said too much. Little Brother was displeased. and now Frank would be taken to a Fitness Camp where he would be dieted.

Lolly sat there, speachless, unable to even finish her banana sandwich, Frank was going away. He would never be the same again.

Maybe a little thinner though.