Try to Run

Joshua Green

Description

For those classified as morbidly obese, it has always been their body, choice, and life. If others don’t like it, that is their business—except it is their business now. Sadly, times have changed for those who appear unable to care for themselves and deemed to be a drain on the system.
Growing pressure to galvanize the population for the harsh conditions of a new world has led to changes in laws. Those who cannot reduce their bulk to the government-ordained targets are imprisoned in life centers where they must remain until they are deemed healthy again. Naturally this decision prompts outrage and furious debate about freedom and life choices. Feeders, normally labeled as caring enablers, are now classified as abusers and treated as criminals. As the brave stand up to outrageous new laws on behalf of their partners, they must go underground or on the run to evade the law. But will they find a way around all their obstacles?
In this science fiction novel, death and loss surround a changed world as its inhabitants battle a principle worth fighting for amid hunger, illness, guilt, past demons, and a heatwave.

Sujets

• Fiction
• Dark
• Science Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 20 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781728373966
• Langue: English

Extrait

TRY TO RUN
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JOSH GREEN
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™ UK
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403  USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)
UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2022 Josh Green. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse  07/12/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7397-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7398-0 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7396-6 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
DEDICATION
Julie … … xxx.
Karl, Becky, Nurse Sarah, Dave and Mike.
Jess Green art design xx
To the big women that I have known. You make the rockin’ world go round.
MENU
Dedication
 
Clear!
How Dare They!
The Triple D
Distant Rumblings
Weight Expectations
Sixty Days
Forty-Five Days
Abuser?
Twenty-One Days
Sixteen Days
Fourteen Days
Seven Days
Provisioning
Internment Day
Chubby Chaser
Happy To Be …
Gone
Supporation Anxiety
Pointless Butterballs
Freedom
The Pod
Bogged Down
There She Blows!
Haven
The Full Weight Of It All
Mudfish
‘S A Crowd
Will
Sounding
The Jonah
Cookie Jar
Grilled Shrimp
The Cookie Crumbles
He Ain’t Heavy
Spitting
It Ain’t Pretty
Fumbling
That’s A Wrap
Fat Tuesday
Free Becky
Coming Down Hard
Lucky For You, It’s Me
Gaining
Delivered
Three Years Later
 
MASS (Movement against the Sizist State): Pressure group created with the purpose of protecting the rights of obese people.
Wah! (pun on the word Fatwah): Terror group. Known to use intimidation and even violence against people deemed an enemy to large people.
Galvanise : Pressure/lobbying group pressing governmental change for a healthier nation in times of change.
HS 2.0 (Homo sapiens mark 2): Terror branch associated with Galvanise. Known to use intimidation and violence against people of size and those supporting the lifestyle.
WoMASS: Woman’s splinter group of MASS. Created by women who were fed up with yet more men controlling the agenda and lives of supersized women. For true empowerment and choice.
The Lean Times: A period of starvation crisis. Two successive years of global crop failures. It took several years to change and re-establish reliable food production.
A-Hab (Automated Habitat Droid): Semi-sentient robot used for all mundane domestic tasks.
Life Centre: A detention centre for enforced dieting and healthier living.
Superlite: A health food company also branching into more areas of the health sector.
Regalia: Ellis family fine foods company.
Chubby Fantastic : Niche titillation films for the discerning consumer.
CLEAR!
“Clear!”
The medical staff stood back as the paddles shocked the patient’s body.
The staff all held their breath and willed the monitor to show a response.
“Still no pulse. Adrenaline mix, quickly!”
“Oxygen levels are dropping.”
“There’s too much neck fat. We are going to pre-oxygenate for intubation. Remember: this is a risk. If we are going to intubate her, she will need to be ramped. I need help moving the patient. You four, lift on four. One … two … three … lift.”
Four of the medical team braced then strained to raise the patient’s torso so she was half sitting, and then padding was positioned to hold her up. It left them all panting from the effort.
“Still can’t find a pulse. Stay with us, Mindy!”
The surgeon intubated the patient’s throat and nodded for the nurse to oxygenate.
“I can’t find a bloody vein!”
“Clear!”
The team stood back. The monitor showed a limp response.
“It’s back but weak. Adrenaline?”
“Still can’t find a vein!”
“Mindy!” The patient’s eyes were opened and checked for a response. “Yes! I’ve got one! Administering adrenaline mix.”
The heart responded with a flutter, and the patient bucked. She was vaguely aware of a commotion in the room, and with it, fear surged through her.
“That’s it, Mindy! That’s it!”
Voices around her sounded urgent. Everything was a blur.
The adrenaline mix and the seriousness of her condition flooded her mind with so many thoughts: the people she loved and might never see again, the opportunities missed, and choices she had made and regretted. Regret loomed over it all. None of what had happened to her was a surprise—it was fate. Fate was like a ship voyaging to its purpose. It was that turn in the tide that brought its harpoon to bear upon her.
It was a turn in the tide that left her floundering, belly-up, and vulnerable.
The door opened, and a head looked in. “Erm … She’s not actually called Mindy.” The head looked embarrassed.
The patient did not care what they called her; she was lost in contemplation. Her cluttered mind settled at the single point of memory, where it had all started to come apart—the point at which the tide had turned.
HOW DARE THEY!
It was damp. One could breathe the humidity.
Becky had heard Benedict out in the road, screaming for several minutes.
“If you dare come near my gate, I will set my dog on you!”
She had been almost able to block it out, but he was getting shrill, and that was always harder to ignore. It happened this way from time to time, another one of his foibles that she needed to manage or ignore.
Moisture collected in her hanging valleys, and rivulets ran into the central valley, unencumbered by the smooth landscape allowing lazy, wet trickles to flow into the puddle that had formed in the small of her back. From this puddle, runnels of sweat escaped and oozed into the deeper folds. Where back fat met stomach fat, the body spread out with crevasses at her sides.
Benedict slammed the door and stomped into the house like an angry toddler. He took up his towel, whip-cracked it industriously, lifted a fold of her back fat, and began to swab and caress away the dampness. He worked on her like a craftsman, careful to protect the softer skin on her inner folds, rougher on the tougher hide. He powdered her skin where the prolonged dampness was starting to make her skin sting, and he placed a dry towel at the small of her back.
The heat was becoming harder to bear, and it had doubled Benedict’s daily workload.
He had a prickle of sweat popping out on his brow, but not just from the heat. He muttered through his tight jaw.
“How dare they!” It was not a question but a statement. “How dare they!”
She did her best to ignore him and focused on her dessert.
Raspberry sauce was running a slick channel down the smooth glacier of amaretto whip. Becky savoured the coolness and the texture, lying prone against the large cushions as Benedict wiped her.
“I like this version better. The raspberry is sharper than it was, but it needed to be. The ice cream melts too quickly. Do you think a harder ice cream would be better than a whip? And maybe toast the almonds.”
But she couldn’t distract him.
“I should have known … I should have bloody well known the minute that empathy monster simpered ‘Hi-err. Mr. Ellis? Is this 18 Asphodel Meadows?’” His impression of the woman in question dripped with over-sweetened disgust. He ran through his recollection of the conversation aloud, as though Becky was not even in the room. His anger-soused post-mortem incensed him all the more. He stopped swabbing and glared out the window, towel swinging beside him. His eyes narrowed, and his jaw tightened.
Without a word, he left the room, dropping the towel and slamming the door after him.
Half of a minute passed in warm peace. She picked up her book, Them Kids Called They . The literary world had slobbered it with mellifluous gush. “Misery lit is back.” It was probably a sign of the times. There was a hunger for tales of hardship. Even though living conditions had improved, people liked to remind themselves that times could be worse.
Becky settled into the ghoulish escapism of it.
I remember that Da’ used to live in the pub. We would see him Fridays when he came round to beat us, impregnate Ma, an’ take our money.
He’d often beat up Ma and leave, saying, “What’s it comin’ to when a man’s being asked to sober up?”
“Do you even think about what your job amounts to?” Benedict’s screaming had started up again, breaking Becky’s concentration. “I mean … how can you …? Really! Don’t you even …?” A tight pique squeezed in his throat.
Becky sighed and put away the book.
“What in the world is it coming to? I ask you. What in the world is it coming to? You might be working for the government, but this … this ? … I mean, really? Is this the best use of my taxes?”
The woman’s shaky reply came as a cautioning that she was filming him from her car. She warned him of the fine that he faced and a further fine for threatening a government worker. She reversed her car a few feet in order to drive around him and then away with some haste.
He stood in the s