John was fat. This was his first and only distinguishing feature. He was some kind of fat, boy. I mean, his double chins had double chins, and those double chins gave birth to quintuplets. Remember Jabba the Hut from Return of the Jedi? Yeah? Jabba’s in shape next to John. John is the only man to ever see Jabba the Hut and go, ‘yeah, with a bit of strength training I could look like that.’

But, John didn’t want to look like that, cause John loved fat. To John, fat was the most delicious thing in the world. He loved how he looked, as much of him as he could see, seeing as John was so fat, he couldn’t see where his chest stopped and his feet stood. John not only couldn’t see his feet, he couldn’t see where his belly quit. His belly had an apartment of its own, two apartments down from John’s. They were connected by this wave of cellulite washing down the hall, and flooding into its own apartment, where it hung out, watching tv.

People had to wade through the fat to get from their apartments. They complained, but, the landlord was happy to keep a guy paying for two places.

John was a professional eater. He had a webcam on him 24-7, that a user could spy on, and for $12.99 a cheese cake, you could pay to have him eat a cheese cake for you. The user even got to specify which kind of cheese cake.

John made a lot of money and ate a lot of cheese cake. He was the most famous eater in the world, even more famous than the legendary, Kobayashi, from Japan. What Kobayashi had in speed, John had in stamina; the man could keep on eating!

John could even eat in his sleep, he was incredible. He would fall asleep on a mattress of cookies, sweeping cookies into his mouth with every yawn.

If there was one thing John admired about Jabba, it was his mobility. The only part of John that moved were his arms and the glacial-like expansion of his fat. Even his face was layered in fat. John used hair clips to clip back the stalagtite cellulite that hung over his eyes. He removed these clips to sleep. The only way to find his face in the night was the sound of his chewing. Some people snored loudly in their sleep, John chewed.

And, he kept on eating! And with every cheese cake swallowed whole, his girth grew like the universe itself. And the ceiling got closer and closer.

Besides the people on other side of the webcam, and Neda, his housekeeper, John was alone. He was lonely. All women turned him off. They were too thin. John, like most men, idealized his dream girl as a gorgeous female version of himself. Gorgeous meant girth, and tons of it.

Then one day he met her. Well, he didn’t meet her in person, but, there she was, on the other side of the webcam. She was the fattest thing he had ever seen. It was love at first sight.

“Hello, there,” John said to the woman on the webcam.

“Hi. Wow, you’re fat!” Doris said to him.

“Thank you! You’re pretty fat yourself!” John paid her compliment.

Doris blushed, putting her ho-ho sized fingers over her mouth. “You’re just saying that.”

“No, I mean it, you’re really fat.”

“I think you’re fatter. I want to see you eat two buckets of lard.”

“For you? I’d love to.”

“Oh, I guess you say that to all the girls.”

“For you, I’ll eat an extra bucket, on the house.”

John pressed the button on his cellphone that was pretuned to alert Nora that he needed something. Nora was quick to the scene. “Yes?” She asked obediently.

“I need three buckets of lard- the big buckets.” And with that, Nora was gone. John made small talk. “What do you do to keep busy?”

“I eat. I’m a shut-in. I can’t get out, like you, I guess.”

John realized, unless one of them got mobile, they would never meet. That was when he decided to lose weight. That was also the moment that Neda returned with the buckets of lard. “Actually, Neda. Could you get me a salad, and go light on the dressing.” Neda laughed, thinking it was a joke. “I’m serious, Neda. A salad. Please.”

“I don’t think you own a single vegetable. The only thing green you own is relish.”

“So, please go get some.”

“But, who is going to wipe you?”

“I’m fine, Neda, please, salad.”

Neda left, shaking her head.

“Ok, let’s see you eat. I hear you’re the best.”

“I’m alright,” John said modestly, though, he knew he was the greatest eater that ever lived. It killed him to think he had to give up the one thing he could truly say he was the greatest at. He was terrible at everything else in life, especially life itself. But, for her, he would give dieting a try.

‘After I eat these buckets for her. I owe her that. I want her to see me at my best,’ He thought, picking up the first bucket. And after he’d gulped down those buckets in seconds, without so much as spilling a drop, he turned to a beaming Doris.

“Wow. That was amazing. You’re the greatest eater I’ve ever- I’ve seen thousands eat, but, you, you are incredible.” Doris had a crush. The man on the other side of the webcam was delicious.

But, when he lost all the weight, and turned the web-cam eat-fest into a web-cam, workout-fest, (where for $1.99, you could get the fat guy to do a pushup,) he turned off Doris, who stopped watching. And two years later, when John showed up at her door with flowers, she never recognized him as the man she had had the webcam crush on a couple years before.