Dear Sir or Madam,

Such a man I saw to-day, it is not to be believed. Exacerbating this condition of incredulity was the fact that he could scarcely be seen all at once, save from a great distance, as I was, and remained for a time, out of fear of being eaten. Needless to say, this fellow was fat. Needless to say, yet quite enjoyable to say, this fellow was extravagantly corpulent in a drippy, sloppy, did-somebody-say-McDonald’s? sort of way. I immediately made an afternoon of him.

He was as big as a horse, if a horse was the size of a goddamn bus, but the bus is filled with horsemeat, and does smell like something that had been ridden all day. He was fairly tall, but imperceptibly so, as he had the appearance of being stacked, not unlike pancakes — you are what you eat after all. Also, manure. This appearance of cheeseburger Jenga telegraphed to his manner of walking as well. The thunder of his footsteps comically jarred the protrusion from his chins that passed for his head from side to side, as if he were vacillating between buffet lines. He almost had the appearance of one making their way through a blizzard, and I suppose there is a hint of truth in that. The ghost of his skeleton eternally trudging through an endless winter of adiposity, the unmitigated warmth of his subcutaneous upholstery masking a deeper coldness of the soul. It would be sad, if it were not so very, very funny.

And why not laugh? The most horrendous things in world have involved skinny people: concentration camps, children starving in third world countries, anything Tyra Banks has touched. It’s only logical that things involving the obese are funny, and, let me tell you, this guy — this hillock of a pillock — was bloody quadruple bypass hysterical.

This was the best part. I swear, by the diamonds in my cufflinks, that clutched in his chubby paw, as plain as he was planar, was a bucket of fried chicken. How gastronomically astronomical! You know, I’ve always thought it apropos that most conventional fast food fried chicken (for those establishments that are still legally allowed to refer to their bird by that name) comes in a bucket, and this event just sinks that right home. It should come with a little shovel too, or eyeholes so you can put it on over your greasy mess shameface. Better yet, the empty vessel should be used for vomiting. For you or for me, Mr. Creosote? Let’s not be too hesitant. After that display of frenzied gourmandism, one of us is definitely going to be very ill very soon.

After I accepted that this man of magnitude was not going to fall down for me no matter how I wished otherwise, I let him go, and it seemed the appropriate velocity to escape his gravitational pull needn’t be more than my wistful shuffle. I reflected on how he had brightened my day though he eclipsed the sun, and thought deep thoughts, deeper than his navel. Though I’ve never had much interest in Christmas, the fat man did remind me of Santa Claus. Minus the jolliness, but twice the size, as his presents were in his presence. A reminder that life is not to be slipped through, but devoured; that greatness comes in all forms; and that no matter how little self esteem you may have, you may take heart that you’ll never be as terrifically, despicably, ri-goddamn-diculously gluttonacious as he. Probably.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site