Charlie always had a problem with his weight. It got in the way of all the things he wanted to do and say. He had always felt left out–all the sports he couldn’t play because of how slow he was, all the girls he couldn’t ask out because of how ugly he felt, all the friendships he couldn’t keep because of how off-putting he felt to everyone. It all felt very bleak and unwavering to him.
It was around this time that it reached a boiling point in Charlie’s heart. He was the fattest he’d ever been, and he had just gotten laid off from his job at a marketing firm due to what he thinks were complaints from his coworkers. The whole situation didn’t help much with his spending and eating habits, and Charlie was beginning to grow desperate.
On a fateful Thursday afternoon, an ad came on the television. A buttery, booming voice shouted, “DO YOU WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT FAST?”
It caught Charlie’s attention almost immediately. In a series of motions that left him out of breath, he grabbed his phone and dialed the number onscreen, which weirdly had a lot of sevens in it.
“Hello?” asked the voice on the receiving end. The owner of the voice sounded tired and a little out of it, possibly higher than a kite.
“Hi, I saw your ad on TV?” Charlie said.
“Oh yeah, the Miracle Drug. I assume you’re interested in it?”
“Yeah, trust me, man, I really need it. I’ve been struggling with my weight for a while. I’m as desperate as a man dying of thirst.”
“Uh huh.” The voice owner began typing away on a mechanical keyboard. “Are you busy this Friday? Does 3 p.m. work?”
“My schedule is pretty open,” Charlie said, checking his calendar. “That could work.”
“Great, see you then.”
The voice hung up on Charlie before he had a chance to reconsider. He sat on his couch and began to think about the call. The phone rang again. Confused, Charlie answered it to find it was the same person calling.
“Hey, um, I forgot to give you the address, do you have a pen and paper?”
Charlie audibly groaned as he pulled himself off of the couch and to a cabinet where he kept his papers and such.
“Yeah, I got it,” he said with a pen cap in his mouth.
Charlie could almost hear the smirk coming from the man on the other end. “I heard you huffing and puffing. You really do need this, don’t you?” he said with concern.
Charlie sighed. “Yeah.”
“Hey man, it’s chill, that’s why you called right?”
“It is.”
“I can’t blame ya. Anyway, can you scribe down ‘2800 Terrence Rd’ for me?”
Charlie quickly wrote down the address. “Got it!” he shouted before the voice on the other side was gone again.
Charlie pulled out the paper and looked over it for a bit before quickly shoving it back into his pocket. “This must be the place,” he said to himself.
He walked up to the front door and pressed a button that rattled, the kind you’d hear instead of one that rang. He stood there waiting for a while. Before he could leave, a hiss came over the intercom.
“Who is it? What do ya want?” exclaimed a voice over a megaphone tied above the door. It sounded way different from the guy on the phone, more gravelly and strict.
“Hi, I’m Charlie, I called you guys yesterday about your ‘miracle drug’ advertisement?”
“Oh yes, yes, come, come in,” uttered the gravelly-voiced man as the door unlocked with another buzz.
The interior of the facility was strangely well-made, despite the exterior looking like a rusty tin can. Charlie was greeted by beige walls with dark oak baseboards, a picture frame with a watercolor lake, the latest magazines containing blossoming celebrity gossip on a little oak table with a dingy lamp to match, and most importantly, the receptionist’s desk with a sign reading “out to lunch.”
Charlie took a seat on the rough yet comfortable fabric and waited. He waited for so long that he fell asleep and was jolted awake by the feeling of someone tapping on his shoulder.
“Are you Charlie?” inquired a man in a navy blue lab coat. He noticeably had the same smoky voice as the man on the intercom. His face was wrinkly and sunken in. His hair, although taken care of, was extremely messy and white.
“Yeah,” Charlie mumbled, half-awake, “I’m assuming you’re the guy that has the drug?”
“Follow me,” the raspy man said as he led Charlie past the receptionist’s desk and down a hallway that felt cramped thanks to the monotonous paint.
The man opened a door to a blindingly white examination room. Charlie looked over to his left and saw a man in a similar lab coat, only it was maroon. This second man had long brown hair that seeped through the bottom of a maroon beanie. He was hunched over a table with various pills, needles, and other medical equipment strewn about.
“Hey!” cried the navy man as he slapped the maroon man’s back. “Get up, he’s here!”
“Who’s here?” mumbled the maroon man, whose legs nearly gave out from his position. His voice was the same as the one Charlie spoke to on the phone.
“Him! The guy you spoke to on the phone! I can’t believe you’ve forgotten, I told you to get off of that shit!” The navy man began a coughing fit as the maroon man looked up from his workstation and locked eyes with Charlie.
“Him?” the maroon man asked.
“Yes, him!” the navy blue man shouted in between coughing fits.
“Oh… gimme a sec.”
The maroon man pushed himself off of the countertop and stumbled back onto his feet holding a small baggie with red and purple pills in them. The way he was holding it made it feel like it was poisonous.
“Take these once a day over the next seven days. I hope you get something out of it,” he said, placing the pills into Charlie’s coat pocket. “Call us if you feel like your skin’s thinning.”
Before Charlie could question the honesty or legality of what was going on, he was quickly ushered out of the building and into the cold and frigid February night.
Three months went by, andCharlie had dropped a sizable 250 pounds and his confidence was higher than it had ever been. He managed to hold onto his relationships with friends and co-workers. He donated most of the snacks he kept in his fridge and cupboards and replaced them with various dietary supplements and protein-based foods.
He even managed to bring up the courage to ask out a girl named Starla, who worked at a coffee shop down the road from his apartment. She had these glowing green eyes and flowing red hair, looking like she belonged alongside sprawling Celtic tapestries. The two were celebrating their three-month anniversary at a decently fancy restaurant.
The interior of the place had gold lining, white silk tablecloths, and in the middle of it all was Charlie, who held his head in his hand, looking extremely bored. He was picking at his plate as Starla enjoyed the cacio e pepe in front of her.
“Charlie?” she asked in between bites. “Are you doing okay?”
Charlie looked up from his steak and potatoes. “Hmm? Oh yeah, I’m fine, it’s just a lot of food.”
“You know you can just save it for later, dear.”
“Yeah, I could, but I’m probably just going to throw it out when we get home.”
“Why? What’s gotten you so down, dear?”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I see no reason to eat anymore?”
Starla placed her utensils on the table and looked at Charlie. “Why? You need food to live, and it tastes so delicious too!”
“Yeah, but I don’t see the need for it.” Charlie sat up straight. “If anything, why don’t we just substitute a diet consisting of various pills? Like a fiber pill, a protein pill, various other pills for flavor. Actually, just skip the flavor, it’s not needed.”
“But that isn’t living, is it? Like, when we’re going to go road tripping in the fall, do you not want to sample the local cuisine?”
“What about the culture? The music?”
“You can tell a lot from a culture’s food. The spices, the juices–”
“I think I need to use the bathroom.”
Charlie got up from his seat, stiff as a board, and wandered toward the bathroom with an awkward gait. Luckily, the only person staring was Starla, with tired and concerned eyes. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the faucet.
As he stared at himself in the mirror, hunched over the bathroom sink, Charlie could see his brown eyes. How they shined so bright and felt so dull. He thought that, despite his skinniness, the weight would eventually come back to him, rendering him fat and unlovable.
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed the number he thought would bring him salvation.
“Charlie, I’m home,” Starla called out as she entered the foyer. There was no response. “Charlie?” She called again.
Starla set her bag onto the kitchen table before a ghostly groan echoed past the paper thin walls of the next room over. She figured it was Charlie waking up from a nap, so she went to check on him. Inside their room lay Charlie, who looked like a skeleton with airtight skin and no muscle definition. His breathing was ragged and arrhythmic.
“Good lord!” Starla shouted before she ran over to the pseudo-corpse. Tears began to well up in her eyes as Charlie lay there gasping for breath. He was holding onto a notecard.
“Take it,” he gasped. “They’ll know.”
Starla, reluctantly, took the notecard and dialed the number on it quickly. It was the number of the outsourced clinic that Charlie went to. The navy blue man picked up the phone and hacked up a lung before asking, “hello?”
“Um, hi?” said Starla. Her introduction was slow, she was unsure who this man was.
The navy blue man sat up from his chair. “Who is this?”
“Listen, my boyfriend gave me this notecard saying ‘they’ll know,’ I don’t know what he’s talking about. Can you help him?”
“What’s his name?”
“Charlie.”
Starla could hear a creak as the navy blue man leaned back in his chair. “Uhh,” was all he could get out before another coughing fit. He quickly hung up the phone before Starla could get any answer from him. Without anything else to do, she called for an ambulance.
Starla sat near Charlie’s hospital bed with her chin firmly in her hands as she stared at him with concern. The heart monitor kept beeping inconsistently. A nurse walked into the room, checked his IV, and wrote something down on a clipboard.
“He’s lucky to be alive,” they said. “I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but good lord, how did this happen?”
“I- I don’t know,” mumbled Starla. “He was always a bit reserved about his weight but… I didn’t think it was this bad.”
A voice crackled over the intercom, beginning to spit and sputter as the nurse and Starla looked up at it.
“That’s for me, I’ll be back in a few,” said the nurse before placing their clipboard onto a counter walking out of the room.
Starla watched as the nurse bumped into two men coming to visit Charlie. Starla watched as the three talked for what felt like minutes, only getting half of the conversation due to the soundproofed walls. The nurse gave them one last nod before walking past them. The two then walked in, revealing themselves to be the people that sold the drug to Charlie initially.
“Hello,” said the maroon man. “I, uh… I’m Mr. Maroon, and this is my friend, Mr. Navy.”
“I prefer to be called this man’s colleague,” said Mr. Navy. “I don’t think I’ve ever willingly conversed with him past work hours.”
“Aw, man.”
“But that’s beside the point. What in God’s name happened to you?” Mr. Navy pointed at Charlie, who looked up at the “doctor” with sunken eyes and hesitation in his throat.
“Oh, it’s no use. ” Mr. Navy lowered his hand. “His larynx must be shriveled and crushed by now. How could this happen? I was so careful with my planning. This was supposed to be a scientific breakthrough!”
“Yeah, if only you knew how good you had it, man. I mean, I’d kill to have a girlfriend like yours!”
Mr. Navy turned to Mr. Maroon. “What the hell could you possibly be talking about?”
Mr. Maroon wiped his nose as the realization set in. “Well, I… oh shit, could this be my fault?”
Mr. Navy grabbed his upper arms and shook him. “What the hell did you do?!”
“I, uh, I might’ve sold him another batch of seven to help with our finances.”
Mr. Navy let go of Mr. Maroon’s shoulders, letting him fall to the floor. “Jesus Christ,” he shouted, “and you didn’t even bother to tell me? What kind of shit have you been getting into?! How many did he even take?”
“I think all seven by the looks of it.”
“At once?”
Charlie barely shifted his head up and down. Mr. Navy let out an angered yelp before storming out of the room. Mr. Maroon looked up at Starla with his reddish eyes holding tears, not from his smoking habits, but from remorse. “I’m sorry,” he muttered before running after his friend.
Starla looked down at Charlie, who had his sunken head turned toward her like a puppet. A slow tear ran down his cheek as he took Starla’s hand and caressed it with his thumb.
“If you knew the pain that I had kept inside,” he sputtered, “then maybe the weight upon my chest would seem less heavy. Oh, I wish I told you sooner. Forgive me.”
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