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FEED THE HUNGRY
"Did you bring it?" Jerry asked, his cheeks bulging as he chewed. He clutched a half-eaten sandwich in one hand.
Bill gaped at his friend. Jerry was practically a skeleton. How had he shed almost two hundred pounds so quickly?
"Hello to you, too," Bill said as he shuffled into the apartment. Jerry grabbed the paper bag from him and shut the door. He swallowed the last of the sandwich then looked inside the bag.
"Yes! You brought it. Good man." He headed for the kitchen area of the studio. Bill followed, taking in the squalor: food wrappers decorated every inch of floor, pizza cartons were piled high in corners, and dishes and silverware littered the furniture. By the time Bill joined him, Jerry had already unwrapped the roasted chicken and was systematically eviscerating it into bite-sized chunks.
"Listen, Jerry," Bill began. "I just spoke to Samantha. She's really upset."
"She's upset?" Jerry swallowed a mouthful of chicken. "She dumped me, and she's upset?"
"She didn't dump you. She just couldn't deal with . . ." Bill swept a hand across the room. "With this anymore. You need help."
"I'm just really hungry."
"You've been eating nonstop for six days. Have you even slept?" Jerry shrugged then chugged a can of Coke. "There's something wrong with you."
"I'm perfectly fine. I just have a big appetite." He popped open another can of soda.
"Sam says you were eating tacos while you two—"
"Lots of people like to mix food and sex."
"Yeah, but—"
"Look, I don't see the problem. She said I needed to lose weight, and now look at me. She should be happy." He shoveled mashed potatoes into his mouth.
"But why can't you stop eating? Maybe you have a tapeworm or something. You should see a doctor."
"I like it. I can eat as much as I want, and I don't gain a pound. It's what I've always wanted."
"I thought Sam was what you always wanted. She misses you, Jerry."
Jerry put down his fork with a sigh. "I miss her too."
Bill couldn't stand to look at his friend that way, so he stared at the table instead. Something caught his attention.
"Hey, what's this?" He held up a creased envelope. "'Feed the Hungry,'" he read aloud. He tore the envelope open.
"What? Oh, yeah. Sam is always saying I should give to charity."
"Did you sign up for this?" Bill asked.
"Yeah. Last week. It's like thirty cents a day, something like that. Right?"
Bill shook his head. "You should have read this. Jerry, you don't have a worm. You have a wormhole."
"A what?"
"A wormhole. One end is anchored in your stomach, and the other is directed to the stomachs of needy children in third world nations. Jerry, you're feeding the hungry." He put down the pamphlet and looked at his friend. "What are we going to do?"
Jerry looked back at Bill and thought for a moment. "Could you pass the salt?"
E. C. Myers considers his writing an ongoing experiment in sleep deprivation, the products of which have been sold to publications such as flashquake, Son and Foe, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers' Workshop and a member of the excellent writing groups Altered Fluid and Fangs of God. You can learn more about him and his work at www.ecmyers.net.
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