New Flash Fiction: One Hundred Pounds

Seriously overweight and no social life? What if a visiting alien were to make you an offer you couldn't refuse? In today's story – One Hundred Pounds – Cincinnati-based Mark Mills explores the possibilities, as well as some of the fringe benefits. Mark is an English Instructor at Northern Kentucky University and have been published in Tor.com, Short Story America, Pill Hill Press, RuneWright, Aurora Wolf Press, Bards and Sages Quarterly and other publications. 


One Hundred Pounds
by Mark Mills


Cassius sucked a mouthful of orangish goo off his chip then scooped up another load. He glanced to the list of ingredients on the jar–unadulterated unnatural chemicals of many syllables and no nutritional value. Every night he told himself that tomorrow he’d start to exercise and eat right – he’d gained over a hundred pounds since high school, precious little of it muscle. One day, he swore, he’d lose that weight. But despite his intentions, he went on swallowing loads of amalgamated non-food. His were lips that knew no fruit.

Tonight was no exception, but just as he’d promised to try another diet, the television went dead. Cassius glanced around. It wasn’t the electricity, was it? The lights were flickering but the clocks! The clocks were running backwards. 

“Oh, now I get it,” he said when the alien walked in.

“Cassius Linwood,” said the bug-eyed twerp. “How would you like to make yourself useful and come with me?”

“No chance, Ace! I know what you do once you get humans in space.”

“For crying out loud,” the alien snapped. “That anal probe stuff is completely out of context. It’s virtually always consensual.”

“Well, why me?”

“Look at you – loafing on your bountiful buttocks, gorging on high-calorie snack foods while you’re morbidly overweight. You’re doing something that you know is harmful but do it nonetheless. Unless you get off this planet, you’ll be dead in a matter of months.”

Cassius hung his head and gazed across the gulf of his lap. “I guess you’re right.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it.” The alien patted his shoulder. “Self-destructive behavior is the one sure sign of a sentient race.”

“Really?” Cassius eyed the alien. “So, do you smoke?”

“Oh God no! But my race continues to create industrial waste at such a rate that not even our technology can deal with it. Our very civilization is on the fringe of drowning in our own hideous orange filth.”

“Well that’s bum luck. Anything you can do?”

“Actually there is. We began manipulating your species a few hundred years ago, evolving you to perform valuable services. That’s no time at all if you factor in relativity.”

Cassius looked at the list of ingredients on the cheese dip again. He should have guessed this gunk was alien in origin. “So, how much of the stuff is there?”

“You can have a landfill to yourself with all the chips you desire. And with medical procedures that will keep you alive indefinitely.”

“Uh, what about women?”

“We’ve got incredible simulations, and face it, Stud, that’s better than you’re getting here.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Cassius pulled himself off the couch. “So what’s your planet like?”

“It’s a small yellow world. Only about half the surface gravity of Earth.”

Cassius grinned. Half-gravity. At least one of his promises was coming true.