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“Hey, what’s up sis?” Madison walks in to see her sister crying.

“I’m fat” Sally-Anne bawls

“Well durrr” Madison said, to mild laughs. Even the canned laughter was struggling to find the show amusing at this point.

“I asked some boy out and he said he wouldn’t go out with me cos I’m fat! And look at me, I look like The Hindenburg” Sally-Anne said with pity.

“Hey, I’ve got a plan that will fix everything” Madison said

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Pathetic fallacy. That’s the term. When the weather in a story reflects the mood of a story, it’s called pathetic fallacy. Sweeney remembered it from college. She minored in literature. She majored in regret. Pathetic fallacy. And Sweeney could look outside the classroom window and see storm clouds brewing. April showers. Overdue downpours after a seasonal cessation. Portentous billowing of clouds undercoated with menacing dark hues. The sign that the weather was about to turn for the worse. Pathetic fallacy.

Because she had been finally found out. After a brief foray into the sunshine of indulgence and relief, there were storm clouds on the horizon of her career. Principal Iashvilli had warned her that she needed to sort herself out, and she reciprocated the kind offer by doing the exact opposite. By diving head first into each unsustainable whim and fancy. Her jam tomorrow attitude of not worrying about the future while she was enjoying the present had caught up to her, along with the eating habits that had brought 40lbs onto her previously withered body. Looking at her now, you would never have guessed just how thin she was and just how recently that was. But it had all come home to roost, regardless of the denial. The idea that she could just enjoy life without repercussions was just embarrassing. Pathetic. A pathetic fallacy.

And it wasn’t just upon this front that Sweeney’s world showed signs of crumbling. Back at the flat, the over-watched VHS videotape was showing wear and tear for a while. But now she couldn’t watch the end of it, the tape had simply worn. Her life-force had finally relented to the same passage of time that was blighting Sweeney, and Burgermania’s ending was lost forever. She would still come home and still switch it on and still recline in her chair, and still sit there still. But, without an ending, it all seemed curbed. Stymied. Thwarted. The thrill never reached the point of eruption. Burgermania was broken and her opportunity for relentless sexual gratification was broken with it.

Her appetite was about the only thing that wasn’t broken. It was the only thing keeping Sweeney afloat. The current, otherwise, would have swallowed her, and her breaths would have been garbles and her lungs would have been flooded. But the eating buoyed her. The cake in the morning coaxed residual pep from her, the subway at midday elicited a sliver of hope, the burger in the evening provided flickers of warmth, the potato chips at night gave just the hint of contentment. And calories rained down upon her like the rain did from those storm clouds, hammering against the windows and flooding the roads. A diluvial deluge that kept her from drowning.

And so the consequences continued their march onto her form. By the end of April, her chin was nearly two and her thighs found companionship in one another, and the scales said 156lbs. By mid-May, her ass jiggled as she walked and her stomach was wider than her chest, and the scales said 161lbs. And by the end of May, she had her meeting with Georgi Iashvilli.

She was fat. Look at her, she was like the Hindenburg. Sweeney began crying. Her meeting was this afternoon and this was the image she was going to present. A stomach that sat down when she did, that slipped under the plain white blouse every time her posture deteriorated. Arms as wide as her legs used to be, and legs encumbered with an insulating layer of fat. An ass that needed to be more compact and a face that needed a compact. A face blotchy with spots and hair that looked suitable for nesting. She was given the chance to clean up, and she had only gotten dirtier.

But Sweeney had a plan. A plan that will fix everything.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Gee Madison, all this exercise is exhausting, can we have a break to catch our breath” Sally-Anne said.

“But Sally-Anne, you haven’t done anything yet, you’ve only just tied your laces” Madison argues and the laughter tracks kicks in.

“But my laces were sooo far away” Sally-Anne whined.

“No, we’re going to make you thin, and we’re gonna do that by running” Madison insisted and Sally-Anne sulked.

“But can’t we do it tomorrow instead? All good problems can be solved by lying or putting them off” Sally-Anne said to canned laughter.

“No, we do it now. We’re gonna get you outside the front door for exercise while you still fit!” Madison said and the laughter resumed once more

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Don’t worry, I have a plan” she said, before Principal Iashvilli could have a break to catch his breath.

“I’m not sure...” he looked confused, but it was probably just a ruse. He knew. He knew what she was doing. He must have done. She had piled upon herself 50lbs in 9 months. That was an extraordinary amount. Whatever pretence that he concocted, she knew why he wanted to see her. His eyes will have been drawn to the way her stomach began its outward march from below the zipper, causing her pants to swell outwardly too. Or the way that even her shoulders seemed broader with fat. Yes, that’s why he wanted her here.

“I’m going to sort it out over Summer. Lose all the weight” she lied gleefully, staring him straight in the eyes as she did. Her plan was simple and stupid and glorious and awful. She had swore to her boss that she would lose the weight by the end of September, and then she intended to do the inverse. For, if she had, as previously noted, found herself 50lbs to the good in three quarter’s of a year, how much car-crash destruction could she muster unto herself in the remaining quarter? To what end? She didn’t know. What would happen when she finally did show up, post-summer? That was a problem for tomorrow. I mean, it’s not like he wouldn’t fire her. Not with immediate effect. They wouldn’t replace her right at the start of term. So, she would still have another year of teaching, no matter what. No, she was sticking to the same idea, that all good problems can be solved by lying or putting them off.

“Look Sweeney, I don’t know what’s going on, but my first concern is you. I’m worried” he said, and she braced herself again for his sweeping eyes, taking in her measurements with an intake of breath. She knew he was doing that, even if she couldn’t actually see him doing it.

“Like I say, I’ll sort it. Trust me. I don’t… I wouldn’t lie about such a thing” she lied. And the thrill of it compounded the thrill of being caught. Lying about eating. Putting the dish into dishonesty. It was enough to coat Sweeney in a tingle. She left his office with a smile on her lips and the reignition of embers that stoked her libido.

Back in her flat, back in her reclining chair, back in front of a videotape that was fraying. Back with one hand satisfying one urge, and back with the other in a packet of potato chips so as to satisfy another. And the thought of all the condescending things Georgi Iashvilli probably thought about her.

“You used to be so pretty” he probably thought as she sat down in his office. A fragile beauty before the burgers took their toll. He probably thought nothing of it when it first started. A pound here, a tightening there. Maybe she looked even better in his eyes. But what will he have thought about her now, wielding 50lbs of blubber smeared across her carcass.

“I can’t believe what you’ve done to yourself” might be something else he thought about her, as she plunged her hand back in the bag of potato chips and grabbed a smattering of them. A girl afraid of eating in the evenings and barely eating during the day, now reaching for a second packet of potato chips. Sweeney grunted at the thought. He can’t believe what she’s done to herself now, just wait to see what she does to herself after an entire Summer with nothing but this to do. With just Beatrice, Sally-Anne and an insatiable appetite for company.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Where were you, Sally-Anne? You were really close behind and then I just lost you when we went pass that ice cream truck… wait, did you stop running to grab ice cream?” Madison asked sternly to her sister, while the canned laughter hooted.

“I mean, I wanted an All-American Softy so bad!” Sally-Anne bleated

“You already are an all American softy… softy.” Madison teased, and the fake audience laughed.

“Well, plan A didn’t work, you don’t happen to have a plan B do you...” and at this point, the tape cuts out, tired from over-use.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Sweeney got up in a panic, and looked at the videotape. She got a pencil and tried to unspool the tape and start again. But each time, it cut out. Ugly clunking sounds and scratched images as the tape wore out. Without avail, she slammed the broken tape on the floor, unloading all the emotional turbulence that she’d been stocking up on. Her sheer overuse of it had seen it finally suuccumb, and left Sweeney stranded and adrift, in a world without Burgermania.

She had watched the show as a re-run as a kid, and had been transfixed. Her foster carers at the time thought nothing of it, oblivious to it being the birth of her deviancy. But it clung like a barnacle in her memory. And for such a long time, finding a copy of this episode had been her white whale. Youtube couldn’t unearth it, and nobody on the internet forums could recall it. It might as well have been a show that never even existed, laid to waste by the passing of zeitgeists. Locating it had been a passion of Sweeney’s that quickly devolved into an obsession that quickly devolved into a fixation, as she tested the very bandwidth of Google to find trace records of this elusive episode of this elusive show. It took ages for her to unearth it, available on eBay as some sort of collector’s item. The high price that the seller enforced and the accommodation of an actual tape player where low barriers for a woman as committed as Sweeney Stallone. It completed her. And now she was left without it. Incomplete.

She paced around her apartment in a fluster. Was her heart racing because of the panic, or was it from the sudden uptick in exertion on a long-idling body? Either way, she paced until she was breathless, running her hand through her strained scalp again and digging her nails in. She hoped she’d draw blood. The world could have been tipping on its axis right now, human bodies falling into the sky, and Sweeney would have been oblivious. Her mind was a smog of distress and the dissolution of a videotape that had long been her lighthouse.

She only knew one place where she could go. The diner. The only luminescence were from the diner’s quietly humming neon sign outside. She would go there and maybe her friend Beatrice would know what to do. Yeah, Beatrice will know. Maybe she’ll stroke her hair, massage that bloodied scalp and tell her everything will be all right. Yeah, that would be nice. That’s what Sweeney wanted. Just the elderly lady running her hand through Sweeney’s stressed hair, an emollient to her tortured scalp.

She didn’t even get changed into something casual. The thought couldn’t get access to her preoccupied mind, there was simply no room at the inn for it. So, she went there in the same short skirt that writhed to handle her figure, the same white blouse whose buttons squealed in exertion, bar the ones left undone to present her cleavage. Her skin wanted to crawl out from the confines of her tight clothing, to squidge out like a child’s artwork when they can’t colour in between the lines. It strangled her insides and starved her internal organs of oxygen, but Sweeney didn’t even notice. All she had on her mind was her broken videotape.

“Ummm… sorry, has anyone seen Beatrice? Is she in today?” Sweeney asked nervously, her hand guiltily climbing up towards her head again to acupuncture with her own talons.

“Beatrice? Oh, um… I think she left? Changed jobs or retired or something… I don’t know. Is there anything I can help you with?” said the friendly girl at the diner. Whoever she was. But Sweeney didn’t just want help. She wanted Beatrice’s help. Why would her friend leave, without telling her? Not a mention. Sweeney didn’t want the foster care of this new employee, she wanted Beatrice. She was in crisis and she wanted Beatrice.

“Are you sure?” Sweeney asked, aware that it was a stupid question, but it was all her logjammed brain could summon. First the videotape and now this. Her two friends, Sally-Anne and Beatrice, both gone now, leaving her all alone? It was dizzying. It was head-spinning. The diner felt like a carousel, the world spinning so fast and her mind so static that the inertia charred across her matter.

“Yeah, I mean, I think so. Why? Did you know her or something?” the new girl asked.

“Yeah. We were best friends” Sweeney said, and the pendulum of emotions clattered into her, breaching the dam that held back her tears. The new girl just looked at her with concern as Sweeney sobbed, trapped several steps away from her, afraid to move further or nearer to prompt further despair.

“Maybe an order will help?” was all she could offer. And in this warren of confusion and despair, maybe an order would help.

“Yeah, two burgers, two fries and a sundae please?” she said in a mousey whisper.

“To eat in or to go?”

“To go, I guess”

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Sweeney would normally be watching Burgermania at this point. But instead, all she had was static. These three months were supposed to be the chance to live untethered to all the emotional flotsam and jetsam that had come to define her. But here she was, back at her apartment and with nowhere to go, bawling and alone. Alone again. Marooned in the middle of a bustling town. Never more lonely than when hemmed in by people.

Still, there was always food. So much food. And without the handcuffs of work restricting her movement, there was more food than ever. Each day could be an exercise in outdoing the previous day, and that day would always be followed by the same again. Sometimes it was out of sadness and loss, other times out of lust and yearning. But there was always food, and she was always eating it. No school, no reason to stop.

No 6:47am alarm either. No reason to get up at that egregiously early hour. No thrash from her saber at her sleep, interrupting it when it was at its most enticing. And her late awakening could be followed by no shower, not cold nor brusque, and without beads of cold water arrowing venomously to her bodily cage. Then, no clothes, for she had no reason to leave the apartment most days and no desire to leave it on all days. Then breakfast, though no banana or other lifeless and drab fruit offering. Instead, chocolate cake, in whatever quantities she liked, since there was never no reason to not eat more. And then teeth, smeared in cacao and sugar, would see no brushing since there was no person in her life to hide the brown residue between incisors. Nor would her hair see no brush, since no circumstances in her life gave her reason to not lose knots, all ragged and threadbare. And finally no make-up to mitigate the wasteland of misplaced food and mishandled outbreaks, just her face in all of its natural inglory.

And this torpid malaise left just one witness to its crime, and that was the fact that she was still gaining. While every other wheel in Sweeney’s life had fallen off, this one just kept on spinning. It only took a couple of weeks in this vacuum of an existence for another 6lbs to charm its way onboard her physique. A week later and another four. Sweeney would morbidly rub her hand across her stretchmarked skin, seeking scant sanctuary in the red lightning bolts on the underside of her stomach. The 173lb price that she was paying was everywhere on her skin. And still she wanted to pay more.

But it was all so empty without somebody to share it. Without Beatrice, without Sally-Anne. Just four walls in dystopia grey, and the quiet hum of a well-stocked fridge. With just loneliness for company. Just the sound of her bare feet padding on the carpet floor as she grabs another course. Burgermania was no more, and it broke Sweeney’s heart.

“I don’t understand, surely you know the entire story off by heart now?” Beatrice would have asked. She would tilted her head and offered a sympathetic smile as she struggled to grasp the dense forest of psychology by which Sweeney was plagued. Sweeney’s thoughts would have felt lighter and her body would have felt heavier and everything would have felt better, better, better.

“Yes, but it’s not the same” Sweeney sulked, replying to her even though she wasn’t there. Nobody understood, nobody could understand. Burgermania was a lung. Burgermania was a lung and now that lung had been removed. It was no wonder Sweeney was left without breath.

“Tell me then, tell me how it goes” Beatrice might have then offered, with a motherly hand on Sweeney’s shoulder for comfort. It would have felt nice. It would have felt like security and belonging, of understanding and compassion. The tightness in her shoulders, always scrunched together like she was bracing for an impact that never came, would have gradually relinquished their tightness. It would have been lovely.

“So, Sally-Anne and Madison sneak off to the new diner called Burgermania. Madison, she’s only there for the companionship, one of the waiters is a guy called Lucas. But Sally-Anne, she’s only there for the food. And they start skipping school to go to it, and spending more and more time there. And then eventually they get called out on it. But it doesn’t stop them. They just keep going. And then the focus really drifts from Madison and her relationship and onto Sally-Anne more. Lucas, the waiting staff that Madison was so close to just sort of randomly disappears from the plot. And it gets more and more preoccupied with Sally-Anne and her eating and her gaining. And people start noticing and boys start acting differently around her, so she wonders about maybe losing weight” Sweeney regaled, to herself since Beatrice wasn’t there. But it felt good to get those thoughts out into the open even if there was nobody there to listen. Because if a tree falls over and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it even make a noise. Sweeney wanted to exist, Sweeney wanted to make a noise.

“And then what, how does it end?” Beatrice would have asked. Because Beatrice always knew what to ask. She would have been wise and thoughtful, bringing in knowledge and understanding of the world and all of its weird and wacky machinations, and coalesced all that knowledge into saying just the right thing. Just the thing Sweeney needed to hear. Just the thing Sweeney wanted to hear. The words that Sweeney herself would have chosen if she had the choice.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“Plan B is just accept who you are and love yourself, regardless of your size. It’s what’s on the inside that counts” Madison said to her sister, sympathetically.

“And what’s on the inside is ice cream” Sally-Anne giggles, and the laughter track giggles too, until the credits roll.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“I mean, it’s kinda cheesy, but I just like that the solution to the problem is to ignore the problem. As long as she’s happy, that’s what matters” Sweeney shrugs to herself in her empty apartment. It didn’t make a lot of sense when uttered out loud, but within the rolling cement mixer of Sweeney’s mind, it felt perfectly logical. Her words echoed quietly across the unadorned walls, re-telling her what she had just said. It was quiet and alone in her flat.

“So, you don’t need Burgermania then?” Beatrice might have asked at this point. She might have observed that since Sweeney knew the story off by heart, that it served no purpose. It just regurgitated what Sweeney already knew. After all, how many times does a girl need to watch a show before she knows what happens next. But that wasn’t quite right either. That didn’t do justice to how she felt about it. It wasn’t just the lines of dialogue and the beats of the story. It was the impulse.

“You see, I need to see the pictures of Sally-Anne growing. I know it’s only a fat suit, and it doesn’t look real, but it feels real to me. It’s what I… god this feels weird admitting it out loud… it’s what I masturbate to” Sweeney confessed to the empty walls of her apartment. Because this was never just about spiritual attachment and emotional support. It was about what she craved. Those spikes of chemical production, those bursts of endorphins, those firings of synapses. It was the chemical addiction she had to it. And she was without her primary stimulus.

“But, you don’t need Sally-Anne? You have the real thing. You are the real thing” Beatrice would have commented, pointing to the fact that Sweeney was having to hoist around a further 62lbs of self with her, everywhere she went. Some of it went on that softly sinking stomach, some of it went on those gelatinous cushions of ass, some of it went on hips that heaved to the side, and some of it went on legs bandaged with fat.

She was never as big as Sally-Anne, because that story was fictional. She didn’t waddle like Sally-Anne, she had the mobility that Sally-Anne didn’t, and she could reach her food without her stomach getting in the way like Sally-Anne. But she could still be the Sally-Anne of her personal story. And all she had to do was eat. It was the easiest epiphany in the world, and Beatrice had told it her without even being there.

All she had to do was eat chocolate cake for breakfast, staining her fingers with brown icing and staining her stomach with calories. All she had to do was eat Subway for lunch, a footlong always, and with five cookies please. All she had to do was work through packets of potato chips, one after the other in conveyor belt fashion. All she had to do was visit the diner where her best friend used to work, and order her meal. Two burgers, no three burgers, so she could finally outdo even Sally-Anne. Two fries. One sundae. Regardless of the day of the week.

And over the summer holiday, she continued to fill the air around her, expand into it like lava oozing into the sea. Habits ingrained and reinforced, and then added to. A lifestyle of decadence and laziness, and an ante that was always being upped. And a parting of the ways between Miss Witchy, the neurotic teacher with crippling anxiety and a tendency to live inside her own head a little too much, and Sweeney Stallone, the libidinous fat fetishist riding the crest of a tsunami of food always and forever, until too much was simply not enough.

Was it the cake that brought her 180lbs, and brought a little companion chin to her face? It couldn’t have helped as two slices in the morning gradually morphed into three. And what was three if not an opportunity to have four? She could wake up from her sleep, in the recliner that had brought about her sleep, at an hour more appropriate for lunch, and reach over to the table next to her and know there was a festival of sugar and cocoa and cream just waiting for her. Waiting for her to crumble in her hands as she pours it into her throat, to flake down her chest and to smudge across her face.

Was it the Subways that delivered her to 187lbs, and that came at the cost of a second stomach roll? Twelve inches of meatball marinara, on hearty italian, with double cheese and melted, with everything apart from the olives, draped in mayonnaise and ranch was a hallmark of Sweeney’s midday. Even if her midday was later than most. With a large Coke and 5 cookies, because a girl’s gotta eat. The rotating staff probably didn’t realise it was the same girl each day, but if they did, they’d have marvelled at her growth. They would have delighted themselves with the increasing tightness of growing clothes. The delight was all Sweeney’s however, and she ran her hand across herself as she wondered where each bite would be deposited.

Was it the potato chips that took her to 192lbs, and altered her posture? The way she lay as she lazed with Leys, the hand instinctively to her back as she pulled herself up to get another packet. The way she shuffled from foot to foot, replacing her elegant steps with a heavy footed heave. The care that she took when she sat back down again, and the way her legs drifted to the side, her feet further apart as she sat without even realising it.

Was it the burgers that took her to 199lbs, and brought a little droop to her stomach? Even without Beatrice there to greet her with friendliness and reliability, her quotidian pilgrimage to the dusty diner down the street abated none. And she saw the scathing looks from staff who just saw a fat girl ordering too much, oblivious to the fact that she was once a thin girl, a collection of bones held together by fibrous sinews. They saw her order three burgers and three fries, and they didn’t even suppress the upturned lips of disdain on their faces when they saw it was just for one. The disparagement when the condiments squirted out on her clothes or when the grease dribbled down her fingers.

Was it the sundaes that tipped her up to 206lbs, and widened her hips to the fullness of a chair. The booths at the diner felt tight, just as the stools at Subway felt insufficient, just as her recliner felt narrow, just as her bed creaked as she lay on it. She was over 200lbs now and it influenced the way that items interacted with her. Tables would collide with her ass as she walked around the apartment, and worktop counters would push her away from what she needed to grab, pressing against the outward march of her stomach. Showers gave her less room to navigate, just as her body gave her more body to clean. The bigger that she got, the smaller the world felt by comparison.

And as the clouds of term time began to gather, 219lbs had already gathered on her. She was plush-sized. Miss Witchy was 106lbs more venerable. And she didn’t need Sally-Anne now. She didn’t need pillows down her top. She didn’t need an imagination or a videotape of a girl doubling in size. She had the real thing. From her existence, all framed around the worship of something fictional, Sweeney Stallone had finally found something real. Herself. Her body. Every billow and roll, every sag and saddlebag. She was Sally-Anne, and her life was finally the Burgermania that she wanted it to be. She was huge, but she didn’t care.

Because it was what was on the inside that counted.

“And what’s on the inside is ice cream” Sweeney giggled to herself. And if there was a laughter track, it would have laughed too. But the credits wouldn’t roll. Because this wasn’t fiction, and her story wouldn’t just reset after the break. No, Sweeney’s world would continue spinning, away from cameras. For Sweeney, this was real. For Sweeney, this was flesh. For Sweeney had another term time ahead of her to indulge her terrible fancies, to indulge her vertiginous scaling, to indulge her Burgermania.