Brad stared at his computer screen, eyes red, smoking another cigarette. It all seemed too hopeless at the moment. During college, on acid, he'd briefly met God. Or maybe one of God's regional sales managers. Whatever the case, he'd been offered a choice as to how his life was going to turn out. He remembered that part. It had involved sitting over this sort of holographic or glass-floored room, with four different paths to follow. God had sort of shrugged and let him pick the one he wanted. He had.

So how in the hell was this the life Brad picked for himself? What were the other choices: flipping burgers, retail sales, or quadriplegic? Because at the time, Brad vaguely recollected, they'd been fairly momentous choices, really interesting lives. In the intervening space, he'd come to believe that the whole thing had probably been what reason said it was: a truly intense hallucination brought on by way, way, way too much LSD.

Still, a part of him had come away from it all convinced that he was meant for Truly Great Things. When the choice was to believe that either: (a) he was meant for truly great things, or (b) he was in a dead-end job going nowhere, looking forward to the kind of life of quiet, desperate misery most Americans enjoyed, it was easy to see which choice held the most appeal.

It'd be pretty awesome if it turned out that hallucination had been the Real Deal. He'd very much like to leave behind the Civil Service and start a new career path, drug-wise. Obviously, anything psychedelic was ruled out. In spite of his hopeful optimism about the "choose-your-own-adventure" encounter with God, there had been other, less pleasant aspects to that particular drug trip, not the least of which was the way that smoking weed could now trigger acid flashbacks for him – bad ones.

There was also the vaguely recollected notion that, along with the choose-your-own-path thing, there was some kinda price to be paid later, like, enjoy life, because your ass is mine come the afterlife. This bothered Brad to a certain extent. However, the closer he came to remembering the nature of his ordained punishment, the more unpleasant his thoughts and memories became. Whatever it was that lurked behind door number three, it was bad, REAL bad. He didn't want to
go there. So he thought about it as little as possible and focused, instead, on the notion that he would never die (because he sort of hoped he wouldn't), and that he'd picked a really kick-ass life for himself, even if it was a little slow to develop.

Mid-level clerical worker seemed an odd deal to have struck with the devil, or with any deity, for that matter. Brad looked forward to the true payoff and, as always, resolved to be a really great guy when he achieved it: Buy a private island, stay high all the time, and donate lots of money to good causes.

Personal doctor: that would be dream-level success. Dial up the drug; let the professional handle mixing the fix, like a drunk owning his own bar.

Brad felt the need to fart. Leaning his body sideways in his chair, he gave it free clearance. It had a throaty volume to it, yet Brad was a bit disappointed when he still hadn't smelled anything thirty seconds later. A dud, then.

Farting in your own office was like pissing on the fence for a dog. It marked one's own territory.

Every so often, Brad liked to leak one out in someone else's office, but he was careful to only do so when there was a crowd present. There was no better way to be labeled weird than to perform such a blatant affront to the senses while visiting a coworker in her own space. The only way to recover from such a faux pas was to release a highly audible fart and then claim loud, apologetic ownership for the same. Something like, "Good Lord, excuse me! I'm so, so sorry! What's wrong with me today?"

Sure, passing gas loudly enough that it could be heard the next office over if the doors were open was a laudable accomplishment…but Brad had always preferred to measure his success in terms of scent, not sound.

A follow-up bubbled down from within, and Brad once again tilted sideways. So far, they all felt "dry," so he wasn't too worried about streakage. Even if you did your own laundry, there was nothing more disgusting than finding your boxer shorts were sticky, particularly front and back, simultaneously. That was almost worth taking a half-day of unpaid leave, and Brad wasn't about to take unpaid on such a low-intensity week.

Sometimes, the only way to be sure was to check for yourself. Brad leaned forward, shoved his hand down the back of his boxer shorts, and felt around for any sort of moist, sticky deposit.

Nice, dry cotton. He sat back down, relieved, the chair making its customary "whoosh" noise as his tremendous weight drove the air out of the cushion material. A faint but distinctive fart odor finally reached him – perhaps it had been trapped within the tent-like folds of his boxer shorts and slacks, and the hand-check had freed it. Whatever the cause, smelling his own creation brought a small smile to Brad's face. He'd made that, all on his own.

Another urge, another side-lean, another fart. Three in less than a minute? Something was playing havoc with his gastrointestinal tract. Should he take this show on the road, go leave a cloud in the break room or something?

"Kinda loud for publicity," Brad muttered, deciding against it. "And I'm not sure these are up to World War I standards." As the only major conflict to include the widespread use of poison gas, Brad liked to think of phosgene in a trench as his gold standard. Everyone needed a goal to shoot for.

The office smelled of smoke, now with the faint taint of brimstone. Brad hunched his shoulders, rotated them a few times, and then nodded in satisfaction, his daily workout complete. Just to make sure he turned buff sooner than otherwise, he also alternately tensed one leg, then the other, for a few minutes.

Being morbidly obese had been an adulthood development for Brad, and he wasn't very fond of it. He was fairly certain it was some sort of passing thing, and he'd get it under control soon.

As a child, he'd run everywhere, been very skinny. Since getting his driver's license, not so much. Combined with a love of delicious food, he was like a pig fattened for slaughter. The unpleasant food at college had kept his weight down (not to mention the occasional exercise as he walked from class to class), but now that he was away from the hallowed halls, he had plumped up with remarkable speed. Along with the smoking, he figured he'd have his first stroke or heart attack in his late thirties…in other words, in the pointlessly distant future.

Still, it'd been a while since he'd gotten laid, and that interval was weighing more heavily on him than the rolls of blubber that now graced his form like some over-zealous, soft-serve, body armor design. Nor could he fix it the way he had as a kid. You didn't run places in Louisiana. Even during winter, you'd overheat fairly quickly if you tried. The few joggers Brad had seen out and about puzzled him, like finding bacteria in the boiling acid pools of Yellowstone.

Those joggers proved the wide variability and adaptability of life – life's ability to fill every niche. But Brad knew full well, whatever those joggers might be, they certainly weren't ofhis species. His, attempting their feat, would die a hideous, sweaty death.

"Maybe buy a bicycle on craigslist," Brad said. He didn't believe it, though. Nobody wanted to see someone his size trying to ride a bike. He'd be a stomach-turning joke on wheels, kind of like the H2. With his semi-jaundiced pallor, he even had the yellow paint job matched.

In spite of his best dirty fantasies, he knew he wasn't going to win any prizes – or bed any women – unless his appearance improved. It wasn't like he was brimming with personality, after all. He wasn't one of those fat guys who somehow made it seem like the lard just didn't matter. Brad knew that he got along reasonably well with the fairer sex, but his ability to close the deal, as it were, had proved inversely proportional to his own weight. In other words, the heftier he became, the slimmer his chances.