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A hand clasped the handle of the half-melted spatula and poked at seven greasy strips of bacon sizzling on the oven range. Sizzling along with the bacon were three sunny-side, grade-A eggs, as well as a half-can of hash-browns along the edge. Breakfast as usual.

Off to the side of the oven the timer rang and four slices of Texas toast sprung up from the electric toaster lying on the counter like a small, eyeless creature with a twisty nose and a sloping forehead. A second hand appeared and swooped over to the appliance, pulled the toast away from the fiery hot grasp of the heated filaments and placed it on a paper plate. Off in the distance a voice called, “Adam? Is something burning?”

Adam, the only soul in the building who could lay claim to the massive breakfast-making hands quickly turned his attention to the giant griddle on the oven range. Sure enough, the hash-browns were emitting thick black smoke as the greasy bits of potato succumbed to the heat of the fire. “Oh no!” screamed Adam.

Harold, one of several souls who could have laid claim to the inquisitive voice, stumbled into the kitchen while he adjusted the knot on his black tie and then fell over a chair trying to put on his left shoe. “What the– Adam, did you burn the hash-browns again?”

To say Adam was big would have been an understatement. At six feet three inches, Adam weighed in at just over 400 pounds and could barely squeeze into the tiny space he was required by lease agreement to call a kitchen. Turning the oven range off, he gradually shifted over to the right to face Harold. “Yes. Yes I did burn the hash-browns.”

Harold covered his nose and mouth, “Jesus, open the window! I don’t want it to smell in here again. That stuff smells awful.”

Harold pulled out a creaky, wooden chair from under the table and propped his foot on it so he could pull up his socks. Looking over to Adam, he noticed that he was still wearing his dirty, green bathrobe that most-likely had not been washed in well over two weeks. It had an assortment of different-color stains on the front and back, and was currently missing the tie that was meant to go around the waist.

Why aren’t you dressed yet? Don’t you have to work today?”

“Sure I do. But it’s casual Friday. I was just gonna go to work in this. It’s casual, don’t you think?”

“You’re kidding me…” Harold tied his shoes.

Adam reached out his thick arms to pull open the window. It was a bit of a struggle, but the pane soon gave way and slid open, the quick movement sending a shock-wave down through his arm and subsiding somewhere in his backside. “Yes, I’m kidding you. My clothes are still in the dryer. Something’s wrong with it, I think, because they were still wet this morning when I woke up.”

Adam scooped up the bacon and eggs from the griddle and placed them on his plate, next to the mound of toast. “You want any of this?”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry. That stuff isn’t very healthy, anyway.”

Harold sat down. His khaki pants were creased perfectly down the leg, and his white shirt was tucked in so the buttons perfectly aligned with his belt buckle. His polished, black dress shoes gleaned in the morning sunlight that shined in through the opened window. For the longest time Adam used to make fun of Harold for dressing up every morning. Working in an office supply store didn’t usually require a shirt and tie. But this morning Adam didn’t even care to notice what Harold was wearing. Instead he sighed heavily and sat down at the table on another creaky chair barely strong enough to support his enormous girth. He plopped his giant breakfast buffet on the table. “This stuff may not be good for me, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna eat a grapefruit or something stupid like that and then go hungry for the rest of the morning.

“You wouldn’t be so hungry if you didn’t eat so much all the time. You’re not a slave to your stomach, Adam. Just because you’re hungry doesn’t mean you have to eat more.” Harold looked pretty serious in his button-down shirt and tie, but he couldn’t fool Adam. “See, I trained myself so that I can just have a glass of orange juice or something and then I’m fine. It’s all about the will power, Adam. I used to want to eat the entire fridge in the morning, but now I just tell myself I don’t need it and I’m fine. Like I said I’m not even hungry right now.”

Adam looked up at Harold. “How can you be so smug. It isn’t that simple!”

“It can be. See, you’ve already made a good start by burning the hash-browns. That stuff is just grease and fat; you don’t need that.”

A sudden flood of old memories broke upon the rocks in Adam’s head; memories of his father beating him with a belt every time he caught him sneaking food from the kitchen, and memories of his mother reminding him very morning before school that no self-respecting woman was ever going to fall in love with her pig of a son. And then came the memories of daily taunts on the playground and the several desks and chairs that had collapsed under his weight during class and the laughs and the remarks and the jokes and the torture and the pain and the anguish and the countless other experiences that made up the first 27 years of Adam’s life. All of it came back in an instant, and all of these memories could only serve one purpose anymore, and that was to make Adam angry. Angry at the food he’d devour and the resulting fat that saturated his body. And it even made him angry at Harold, who was, deep down he believed, only trying to help. Still, Harold continued with his lecture, “Three eggs… What are you doing to yourself? Two should be enough for anyone. Here, I’ll just take that one.” Harold reached over and plucked the egg off of Adam’s plate and threw it into the trash can. “There you go!”

“You asshole! You just threw away a perfectly good egg.”

“No. You did. You shouldn’t have cooked it in the first place.”

“Hey, don’t try to tell me what I should or shouldn’t be eating. You’re my roommate, not my father! You’ve never had to deal with this shit, so mind your own damn business.” Adam’s eyes sharpened on Harold.

“Yea, you’re right. I’m not your father. I’m only trying to help. But hey, what do I know?”

“You know what you can do to help? You can get the hell off my back!” Adam raised his voice a little too loudly.

Harold stood up from the chair, “Adam… I just want you to think about what you’re doing sometimes. You sit and complain about how goddamn fat you are, and you’re doing nothing to help your cause except stuffing your face and feeling sorry for yourself. What good is that ever gonna do you. What good has it done anyone?” Harold stared back at Adam, waiting for an answer.

Harold looked down to the floor, his way of giving up on the argument. What good could anything have done him?

“Right, and don’t you tell me the dryer is on the fritz,” Harold continued. “You didn’t do any laundry last night because I was doing mine. You called in sick again, and you and I both know it. I heard you talking to your supervisor when I was getting dressed.” Harold stopped to take a deep breath, which he only took in through his nostrils like an grunting bull. “You need to keep working, Adam, or we can’t pay the rent. And if we can’t pay the rent,” Harold grabbed the plate of food in front of Adam and hurled it into the trash can, “then there’s no more food for fatso.”

Adam sat at the table quietly, concentrating carefully on the cracks in the floor, imagining how nice it would be if he could grow small enough and slip right down in-between one to disappear forever. Harold stared at him for a few more seconds, and then he stormed off through the kitchen door. Seconds later the front door opened and shut.

Exactly ten minutes later, the door opened and shut again. Adam had dressed and bumbled out the door, making sure every step he took was as heavy and as slow as he could possibly make them. As he locked the door, he tried to come up with a good enough story for showing up to work that day.