LIW&B Prologue

The fat man lay in bed nauseous and short of breath. He was alone in the room as he would prefer it, thinking he was fortunate rather than foul. Other patients had to be considered as well as the faculty. The fat man couldn't smell his own yellow jaundiced skin.

He had been unattended since lunch hours ago. The fat man had been constipated for days so he could wait. But he needed to get up from his bed. Sixteen hours in bed proved too much for even this boorish creature. The mammoth struggled to grab the hanger bar and get a firm grip then struggled more to lift himself high enough to move his waist. He tastes the sizzling sweetness of bourbon in the back of his throat and wishes he had a bottle to guzzle. He always tastes this after such a struggle.

When his feet touch the ground the fat man almost tumbles stupidly to the floor. He catches the guest chair and steadied himself, saving any commotion or shame. The fat man had always been fat but never so obese to be unbalanced. His liver was failing. There wasn't much time left, certainly not much out of pain. The fat man tells himself he knows this, but he still refuses to die. He's too young to die. It seems like just yesterday he had a son.

The fat man realized he's got nowhere to go. If the faculty wasn't checking on him they sure as hell don't want him bothering them. And walking is just too hard. His massive stomach boiled with acid sending shivers and smoke through his veins. He wished he could vomit but he couldn't. The fat man grabbed the guest chair and rested his body on top of the armrests since he couldn't squeeze between them.

The fat closed his eyes and breathed quickly, but soon the breathing slowed. The room went back to complete silence. The only sounds came from the adjoining room. The fat man decided to listen.

It was a family, a father and son and an old aunt or grandmother from what he could tell. He listened hard and damned any passing orderly while he tried. The conversation was intriguing from a world he once dreamed to share.

The father had a mission to care for his son. His life counted in days and the boy had no one else. Enter the old woman that cussed and gristled so loud it brought a smile to the fat man's pea colored cheeks. The fat man wanted badly to hobble next door and meet them all.

The fat man adored the show he was hearing. Tragedy, Comedy, Death, Love all moved with grace and respect, reality presented on a dull, worn platter serving its millionth meal. It was family, defined and glorious, strength in which the fat man never believed.

But he tried to find it. He tried to find it for his son. He cast his infant son into a sea of humanity and gave his best prayer to find a life preserver his father couldn't throw. Dreams of drowned children tormented the fat man forever, but he believed he did the right thing. The fat man believed his child had a better chance of survival with anyone besides himself.

Sitting in the lonely hospital room, the fat man listened to the talk of a family in the room next door. He laughed and cried like any great play. He thought about his past mistakes and the fleeting thievery of time.

The fat man would soon be dead. Hearing the casual speak of family lifted his despair of that haunting afternoon twelve years earlier. If his son found such love the fat man could die content. He wanted to walk over and meet them but he didn't.

Different demons pushed and prodded the fat man. A different road he chose to walk. He sat leaning on the chair in the hospital room, sweating from the effort to stand. The fat man heard his son's name and discarded it as misunderstood, impossible to be the answer to his prayer. His condition improved and he lived a bit longer, but the episode plagued him until the end.

The fat man thought about the child named Happy a lot in his last year. He thought of all that could be kind and gentle and died full of piercing regret.