TV Dinner

    The birds perched on the great tree outside formed a chirping chorus, their  song hanging in the fresh morning air. Kimberly had left school five weeks, three days and six hours ago. As she sat on the sofa that morning, she thought back over her recent history. The first few days following her departure had, unsurprisingly, been one long celebration, one which many of her friends had joined. All she wanted to do from that day onwards was to relax, to make up for the long, gruelling hours of torturous boredom. When she sat on the sofa that morning, she wished that she would never have to leave again. She phoned her friends, curious as to how they were spending their time, but she received no responses. Each second she passed seemed to last longer, and soon she was uncomfortably bored. She turned on the TV. Never being much of a television fan, Kim hadn't made enough time to truly find out what the large black screen in the living room had to offer. At present, there wasn't much. She flicked through the channels, dissatisfaction painted all over each new picture. Gardening shows, quiz shows, panel shows. All seemed to form one large time-wasting ball that she didn't want to catch. Yet, her boredom was only growing worse. She decided to go back to the basics; cartoons. It was hardly the most mature choice, but the simple thrills were enough to occupy her until Mum came home, hopefully with some exciting news or a solution worthy of her attention. The funny little characters danced around the screen, accompanied by stings of jazzy music. Vibrant flashes and abstract faces, reaching out and pulling at her brain. After twenty minutes of inactivity, Kim was startled by the sound of the door. It was Mum, tugging behind her a couple of carrier bags. She saw her daughter, and her words spilled forth.

    "You should be out looking for a job, never mind wasting your time with cartoons."

A job, Kim thought. A solution, but not one she would ever consider in such a state of boredom. Her eyes never left the screen.

"I'll get a job when I feel like it, okay?" The irritation was ripe in her words.

"Whatever," Mum replied, and set down her shopping, "but I wouldn't sit in front of the TV for so long, it'll rot your brain."

The word "brain" immediately sent Kim back again to when she left school. This time four words were stapled to the front of her vision. "Able, but not exceptional." She remembered those as the words she took away with her as she left the institution for the final time. Her friends had been rated no better, but they remained a very harsh condemnation. It was essentially the most polite way of stating that her future was bleak. She knew that she would be destined only for the average, bland jobs that nobody dreams of. This idea only demotivated her further, so the prospect of a "job" was far from desirable.
     Mum left as abruptly as she had arrived, leaving her purchases waiting attentively on the kitchen counter. Kimberly didn't have to turn and look to know they were there, or that her Mum had left. She slowly blocked out her surroundings, her troubles, her needs, until she was fixated on the television. When the cartoons finished she reached down and switched to a film, one she remembered fondly from her childhood. She could almost recite the dialogue word for word, but it was as good a way to waste time as any. It had only just started, and she watched it through to the end, her eyes never wandering and her mind never awakening. When it had finished, she had passed almost four hours in front of the screen, and hunger crept up upon her. She realised then that she had forgotten her breakfast. As the credits rolled she stood up, and sauntered over to the kitchen counter. She could feel a slight twitch in her left eye, but it was nothing serious. Rummaging through the bags she found a surprise; a large bag of cookies. It was unlike Mum to buy anything so sweet, or indeed tasty. It was for that reason, Kim decided, that the cookies must have been intended for her. She took them out, and opened the bag. She sat back on the sofa, and the screen progressed into a quiz show; alive with music, studio sounds and a suave presenting voice. With the bag on her lap she ate, yet her eyes remained glued. She bit hard into the first cookie, and the chocolate chips melted quickly on her tongue. She was never a fond eater of such treats, but she had to admit that their tastes were incomparable. The second cookie went as quickly as the first, and more followed swiftly. As her hand slowly descended to the bottom of the bag the eating became almost completely subconscious. She knew why she was eating, but the process of eating itself no longer required any thought. She watched contestants battle with their nerves, and their brains, as she laid waste to the bag's contents, and just after the presenter announced an ad break, Kim realised that she had finished the bag. "Well," she said aloud, "that was breakfast." Her stomach was well filled, but she was in no mood to help it's digestion by exercising. The quiz show was surprisingly enchanting, and throughout the entire advert break she merely sat, eagerly anticipating it's return.  Of course none of the questions made sense, but the sight of others struggling to answer them was good enough for her.
    Kim spent the rest of the morning, right up until lunchtime, in her comfortable position. She was spread out nicely on the cushioned leather, completely engrossed by the flaring pictures. A sitcom followed the quiz show, and a medical drama followed that. When each show finished, she would do nothing but wait for the next.
    It was lunchtime. Left alone to work, Kim's stomach had seen off the cookies, and was now anxiously awaiting more. She stood up again, only to find a sharp pain coursing up her legs. After spending almost half a day in the same position her joints were slightly stiff, especially her knees. She practically limped over to the kitchen, so to save herself the expense of a third trip she made sure that she took more back. She loaded her arms with a sausage roll, a can of spray cream and a two litre bottle of coke. Of course this was a ridiculously unhealthy set of choices, but for Kim the type of food was near-irrelevant. All she was concerned about was being back in front of the screen before the next show started. She hurried back to her seat, almost dropping the whipped cream, but returned with plenty of time to spare. She arranged herself, and positioned her food within reach. The bottle stood propped against the arm rest, whilst the whipped cream lay in her lap. The sausage roll didn't last long enough to be placed anywhere. She ate with the fury of a girl forced to run a thousand miles, and she almost choked on the last mouthful of meat and pastry. After shaking the bottle, she proceeded to fill her mouth with the thick white cream, until she had barely enough space to breath. When she swallowed the hard mass lodged in her throat, and she spluttered and coughed. With great effort she managed to force it down her throat, so she squirted more. The can became lighter, and eventually it was reduced to a metal shell. Satisfied, she reached for the coke bottle.
   By this point the afternoon film had started; an action blockbuster that had only just left the cinema. Kim was gripped by it's visuals and enchanted by it's smooth dialogue. She spilt some of the murky brown liquid down her chin, but never stopped to wipe herself.

     It was evening, and all of the birds were silent, sleeping. Kim however was not.
She was painfully hungry, but she no longer had  the energy to stand and her mother was still nowhere to be seen. She was stuck…unless…unlocked…enough…

She reached for her phone.



    Ned's raspy breath condensed against the visor of his helmet. His hands were numb, so he struggled to balance his scooter as it rattled down the road. Behind him, perched on the back of the vehicle, a large stack of pizzas baked in their shared heat. Even his back felt warm. He reached the destination scribbled into his head, and silenced his scooter. Pizzas in hand, he ventured up the empty driveway towards the front door. Already he could hear the sounds of an impressive television set, and through the closed curtains peered a glimmer of flashing light.

He rang the bell.

Silence for a while.

"Come in." The voice was faint but hoarse. He put one hand on the knob and turned. The house was large, open plan and ugly. To his right he could immediately see the sofa, and it's occupant.

"Bring them here, if you don't mind."

Odd, but manageable. As she fished out some money, he noticed the empty bag, bottle and can, and small brown specks on her shirt. Depression? Not his business, he concluded. He handed over the boxes, and without another word said he left. Kim listened to the sound of his scooter kick into life again, and then turned to her bounty. She had ordered thee large pizzas, thick with cheese, meat and soft doughy bread. There was enough salt to stop a heart, and she could probably fill up half of the coke bottle with the grease dripping from the sides, but the smell was too enriching for her to refuse. Her eyes connecting with the television once more, she started her first pizza. This went, and so did the second. Grease and flesh-like cheese accumulated on her chin and her shirt, but she didn't notice. Slices were slapped into her maw, barely giving herself enough chance to swallow properly, but she had to eat that quickly, it was a rhythm that she had imposed upon herself now, aligned perfectly to the fast pace of the programmes she was watching. During advert breaks, of which there were many, she would occasionally bend down and lick food stains on her shirt, or collect fragments of food that had managed to fall off on the way up to her mouth. However, when the adverts ceased she snapped back into her chance with an inaudible click. Finally, at 2:01am the next morning, Kim's body turned off. Her eyes, bulging and veiny, struggled to keep going, forced open by her persistent desire, but there was not enough energy to keep them open. Her head sagged, her vision blurred, and she went limp. The pizza boxes were at her feet, at one with the graveyard of food packets that had formed around her.

The shrill call of the phone was the sound that awoke Kim. It was not her mobile, but the wall phone over by the fridge. She didn't even attempt to get up and answer it. If she had, she would have found out that her Mum was at her friend's, after a party the previous night. It was 9 o'clock. There was a great pain behind Kim's eyes, a gnawing, scratching pain that made her furrow her brow and squeeze her eyelids shut. It was the sunlight, cutting through the gap in the curtains, that was falling upon her face and reacting badly with her vision. The television was still on, but she didn't look at it straightaway. No, for she was at this point distracted by something else. Something on her, or, as she found, a part of her. Her shirt poked out further than she thought possible, and after a brief hand examination she discovered that her belly was pushing it outwards. Although, like a hangover of sorts, she remembered nothing of the previous night, she knew that she must have overloaded her body with food. She struggled to try and stand, panic pushing her upwards. However, there was no room for movement, and her belly kept her pinned down on the sofa. She wriggled and struggled, but her hideously bloated potbelly refused to budge. Sweat dripped from her brow, and her blood boiled. She was frightened, lost in a nightmare. She was supposed to be thin, supposed to…

The television. Her eyes locked with it again. Soothing. Pretty pictures, swirling, consoling, stroking her troubled soul. Her tight, emotional face melted away, leaving a simple, hapless stare. Her body relaxed, and she sank back on the sofa, into the dent she had made in her sleep. Her belly was alive with gas, and it shuddered when she moved it back. There was, once again, a perfect equilibrium between her body and the television. She blinked infrequently, but the real movement was present in her arms, which were instinctively caressing the flab on her front, kneading it and stroking it, as if it were a pet. Again, like her eating, it was inadvertent, or at least extemporaneous.



    When Kim's Mum arrived home later that day, she found something sitting on the sofa. It was a girl, but it was not her daughter. This girl had emptied pizza boxes, bottles, cans, and most noticeable of all, over half a dozen tubs of ice cream. They had been kept at the back of the freezer, untouched for months, but without hesitation they had been emptied and licked clean. There was a strong blend of putrid smells; the sweat under her arms, the palette of food messes on her clothes and a considerably strong stench wafting up from her lower area. The lower buttons on her shirt had given way to a ridiculously rotund ball. Despite all of this indecency the girl looked frighteningly at ease. Her face was a clean slate, wiped clean of all worry, or any acknowledgement at all. It was if she had been reset, her face resembling a default expression, baring no discernment, marked only with the remains of food clinging to her chin. This was not her daughter. No, for her daughter, Kim, had vanished long ago. When her mother turned off the television after repeatedly attempting to make contact, nothing happened. One would have expected her to react violently, or collapse into a fit of tears. Instead, she remained inanimate, the only movement being the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She no longer blinked, responded, moved, thought. A fat vegetable, it's mind slowly corroded.

Her mother would feed her, a manifestation of her grief, but no more could be done. No medical advice could be given, nothing could be prescribed. She would be left on the sofa, as she was too heavy to carry around. The sight of blank eyes staring at nothing would discomfort her mother, so the television was left on, even overnight, as it was now the only sound that she could associate with Kim's existence.

So, as a ball of fat she sat, for the remainder of her years, forever in harmony with the screen that ate her.