Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Sometimes I don't want kindness or inspiration. I just want to understand the situation so that I can make a decision. That's when I look at the 1983 patent for a stomach stapler, in particular pages 6 and 7, where you can see how the device puts staples through the lining, leaving just a tiny pouch for the food (page 6, #150). After the surgery you get to eat a half-cup, maybe a cup, of food--any food--before you feel uncomfortable.

I imagine myself passed out on a table, chin hanging down, my floppy gut smeared with yellow iodine. Some asshole 29-year-old who probably never ate an extra slice of cake in his life and who is still paying off his med school loans is going to split me open with a scalpel, locate the stomach under layers of sludge, slot in the device shown in the patent, then punch, or grind, not one, not two, but nine sterilized surgical staples through the gore. After that: forced malnutrition and a surprisingly good chance of death, and all the money gone to pay the bills. Ten years later 80 percent of those who've had the surgery have gained back all the weight they lost.

I used to think: not me. But yes, the doctors kept saying, yes, you. You're a perfect candidate.

Give me a year, I said.

They shrugged. To them I'm a chart. One of thirty charts they'll see today. My entire year is ten minutes of their time. I think about waking up in recovery with those staples in my stomach and my wife by my side. It would be a decision we made together. I know she would be afraid and sympathetic in equal portions. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream, but I will abdicate; I have abdicated to marry an 80-calorie popsicle.

Weight: 317 lbs