They met once a year to celebrate losing a collective one-ton accumulation of fatness. It was hard to believe but once in their lives the friends had achieved a horrid extreme of obesity. Back then they had beautiful souls. Now they were "beautiful people" living in accordance with the going standards of physical aesthetics. They enjoyed life. They laughed. Had girlfriends and boyfriends. At their annual picnic they performed an odd ritual, staged a symbolic feast of all the culinary sins they had failed to partake of during the past year. Piled high on the empty plates were imaginations of steak and sausage smothered in the richest gravies. They laughed and frolicked like twenty-somethings in a Coke commercial as they savored their illusion. One member of the group took a final photograph before all order degenerated. Fortunately the dog evaded their efforts to capture and roast it, intelligently running to the station house to bark for the police. When help arrived they found the gorged gourmands moaning on the ground, sated, bellies bloated with the bark and saps of the trees which sadly did not survive the debaucherous onslaught.

Story #93