Jovial Fatso

He returns to consciousness.
He opens his eyelids carefully, half-expecting someone to be there, standing over him. No-one is there. What a relief, he says inwardly. He contemplates rolling out of bed and then realises that the word fits perfectly, horribly. Roll. Like a marble. A meatball. A four-hundred-pound man-dumpling.
Slowly and with considerable effort, he lifts himself, his eyes tangentially scouting the curvature of his body. He thinks, any more and he'll start looking like a planet. He'll start attracting other masses. He'll have his own gravitational pull.
Every cough an earthquake. Every day a repetitive rotation around his miserable self.
A woman enters the bedroom.Thin, unkempt, with the look of people that look after others. She looks like she's part of the house, a piece of furniture. An old family heirloom.
'Good morning dear' she says in a compromising voice.
Ugh, he thinks. He smiles the smile of fakes and madmen. An imitated smile. 'Good morning love'.
He hates himself. For being a hypocrite. For being forced to be a hypocrite. But most of all, he hates himself because he does it too well. And he pushes it all down with a joke.
She helps him get dressed with the patience of a saint and the efficiency of a retired accountant. His very own Saint Bureaucrat. And for that he can't stand her. But he hides it well behind buffoonery.
She packs him a lunch and kisses him goodbye in the same way she has for the past century and in the same way she will in those still to come. And for that he abhors her. But he drowns it all in light-hearted witticisms.
He gingerly shuts the door, almost sarcastically, and mentally prepares his affable camouflage for the day.