Game 2Game 2 Outline| Game 2 |
Game 2 Outline |
Reluctantly, you pull over one of the cardboard boxes and setttle it atop the built-in table that is your belly. I'll just have one, you reason. One won't hurt. Tearing open the loosely stapled top, you immediately smell chocolate, your mouth watering at the aroma. It's too shadowy to read the ingredients list (or even the label), but the smell is that of a favorite all-chocolate candy bar you used to eat when you were little. No wonder the store ordered too many, you sigh to yourself. They smell delicious!
Unwrapping the first one you grab, you take a small bite ... and wonder where it went. Oh, of course, you realize. If my mouth is as big as a hippo's, I'll need to take bigger bites.
One square, then two ... half the bar finally makes an impression. You savor the delectable taste of chocolate on your tongue, the taste fading quickly inside your cavernous mouth. You hesitate ... and reach for another. They're so small, you think hungrily. One more won't hurt.
One bar ... and another ... and another ... Bar after bar vanishes into your ravening gullet, swallowed whole by your broad snout. Your craving grows as you try to fill your mouth with the taste of chocolate, the candy disintegrating between your broad, flat teeth with far too much speed to assuage your hunger. Voraciously, you tear open a second box when the first is finished. And a third. And a fourth ...
Hours pass, box by box, bar by bar, until you finally feel the truck beginning to slow and turn, the boxes gently shifting beside you as the empty ones slide to the rear. You have long since lost count of the amount you have consumed, but Surely, you think, it can't be that much ...
As soon as the truck stops, you begin struggling to your feet, rolling to your left as your muscles strain to move your legs beneath you. After what seems like a sizable chunk of eternity, you finally roll onto your belly and begin hoisting yourself upward. Your arms pushing hard against the metal floor, you drag your knees forward ... only to fall with a grunt as your weight throws your arms out of position, your snout hitting the cold metal with a loud smack.
I knew this might happen, you think morosely, but I had to at least try to get up. It's pretty obvious that you're too heavy to rise unaided ... the pills must have put more weight on you than you thought. The candy bars couldn't have anything to do with it, of course ...
Some time later, the burly trucker opens the doors and raises himself in on the freight lift. "Whoa, Hoss!", he cries as he sees your prostrate form. "You okay?"
"Fine", you wheeze from where you lie on your belly. "Just can't get up. Could you give me a hand?"
No light weight himself, the trucker (whose name patch reveals his name as Bubba, to your complete lack of surprise) grabs you by the shoulders and slowly works you back into a sitting position. "Whoo", he gasps as you settle back against the side of the trailer. "You're a big'un. Good thing I got dinner for both of us."
"Dinner?" You look back at the freight lift, and sure enough, there are two trays there, each piled high with plates filled with classic truck stop food ... chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes drowning in gravy, and a soup bowl filled up with meringue-topped banana pudding. It all looks and smells delicious. And after all, you've hardly eaten anything for hours ...
You and Bubba talk about a lot of things, though you decide not to bring up how you became a hippo-person in the first place. Life on the road, good fast food, bad fast food, lousy movies ... finally, you ask the question you've been wanting to ask for a while.
"Say, Bubba, why'd you pick me up in the first place?"
"Well", he drawls, "you looked like you could use some help, bein' stuck out there and all. 'Sides", he adds with a grin, "us big guys gotta stick together, right?"
You smile back at him, somewhat reluctantly accepting the "brotherhood". Then, looking down at your tray, resting atop the swell of your gut, you blink.
It's empty!
"Looks like dinner's over", grunts Bubba as he opens the button on his jeans and hoists himself to his feet. "I'll just get the trays in an' we'll be headed for the last few stops. Oh, and here", he adds as he shoves a stack of three boxes over to you, "have some dessert."
You stare at the boxes as Bubba leaves the trailer, the sheer volume of food you've consumed finally hitting you. All those candy bars ... a tray piled high with fattening food ...
No, you tell yourself. It's the pills. Just the pills. I'll be fine once I get to Weightdevisions. Satisfied, you settle back to eating candy bars as you wait to arrive at your destination.
Finally, an uncounted number of candy bars later, Bubba comes back into the trailer. "We're here", he grunts as he grabs you under the arms and starts trying to lift you to your feet. "Time ... for you ... to ... go ... oof!" Bubba rubs his back as you settle once more against the side of the trailer. "You are a big'un. Put some muscle on it, Hoss."
In the end, your legs screaming in protest, you descend the groaning lift and find yourself ...
Written by Wanderer