A Short, Very Short Story

He had never married. She was the single mother of a boy who needed a father's steady hand. They both worked as civil servants, specializing in computer programming. He found her attractive, and she thought of him as potentially suitable as a partner. Perhaps a solution to her son's growing, juvenile distance from her, the problems she was being informed of by the school administration.

They married and he became the very image of the doting husband. He was glad at last to have someone to share his life with and so was his father, happy to wave his son off to a good match, even if it came with a ready-made grandson. They never did have children together. And the boy resented his stepfather, so that didn't turn out much of a solution in that area. The boy continued to wreak havoc at home and at school.

But the pair was happy, content to live their lives together, despite the episodic irritations that were raised when the stepfather's patience was worn too thin, and his man-to-boy talks were ignored as though his efforts meant nothing. But life went on and as time passed, the mother who was always pleasingly plump become more and more rotund, while her son went into his mid-teens, and little events like a housefire deliberately set but put out on time, and pleas from the school administration to convince the son that his huge size placed him at a decided advantage when a confrontation took place between him and one of his peers failed to hit their mark.

The son eventually graduated, and the mother had in the meantime become so obese that her doctor for want of anything better to prescribe, put her on anti-depression medication. Her husband remained true to his pledge to love, honour and respect his wife, a truly uxorious man. Time came that her immense girth prevented her from from walking about with anything approximating ease. Truth was, she was sick and tired of people gawking at her, disbelieving their very eyes.

She was still attractive if one's gaze lingered on her pretty face framed with blonde hair, her complexion that of a young girl, her eyes sky-blue and appearing as though her appeal was entirely justified, just so long as eyes weren't lowered to take in the incomprehensible size of the rest of the woman. A size that made her as maneuverable as a whale out of its depths. And so she left work, and spent her time at home. Not all of it in her house, mind, since she loved nature.

So she would sit out on their porch on an especially wide rattan loveseat, watch her three cats tease area squirrels, enjoy looking at the greenery about her and people walking by. The people who lived on the street knew of her, but did not know her. There was a cool restraint about knowing one's neighbour, and although some neighbours did become friendly, she found no friends among them.

Her husband did the shopping, went up the street to retrieve the mail from the group mailbox, and rarely spoke to anyone. He was, in any event, often away for days at a time after leaving the public service and taking up contract jobs that paid more but required that he travel abroad from time to time.

The son had long since left to live in a house of his own which his mother financed. His employment was sporadic, like his mother and his stepfather he was a software engineer, mostly self-taught and since he knew so much more than did the people whose employ he was in, he never lasted too long in any one position.

Needless to say, the woman was physically, functionally incapable of performing rude household tasks, and the house began to acquire a thick layer of soil over everything, and though the furnishings were carefully chosen in a classical, even exquisite demonstration of good taste, there was no one to dust and to clean, much less wash floors. An unsavoury odour rose, from the basement to the upper floors. She became less and less able to climb those stairs from the ground to the second floor where their bedroom was located.

Still, when she sat out-of-doors, enjoying the fresh air, not lingering overmuch on the thought of how she detested the very thought of undergoing any type of treatment for her obesity, which wasn't her fault, but obviously genetically determined, her husband, when he was home, would cater to her, bringing out to her cups of tea on her bone china teacups.

On one of the occasions when he was away, on a sunny winter's afternoon, out she came with her cats, leaving the front door slightly ajar as usual so the cats could enter and exit as they wished since it was too onerous for her to rise from that seating arrangement to satisfy their needs. As a matter of fact, she never did rise again. It was a shocked passerby who realized that some huge dark form was seated, immobile, on the lighted porch as he passed late at night.