Ftrain, by Paul Ford

One week down, 3,200 weeks to go. Checked the mirror; still a barrel-shaped giant. I like the diet sodas because of all the reasons they advertise--they provide a COOL REFRESHING FLAVOR BLAST. Much food is packaged as an explosion, an enormous ejaculation of flavor down your gullet. Flavor itself being a mysterious concept, hijacked by advertising to indicate a sensation overwhelming all others. Not to criticize advertisers; they can hardly say "THIS ORANGELIKE SYNTHESIS STIMULATES ATAVISTIC TASTE RECEPTORS IN A WAY THAT TICKLES THE APE." Instead the Sunkist website bills itself as the "center of awesome" and tells me that all diet products have a disturbingly short 13-week shelf life (what happens after that? Do the diet products become unaccountably enraged?). I like diet soda and movies where things blow up and drab-colored shirts; I like tits, burgers, and cats. So diet soda is ultimately a form of deception--an acknowledgment (or more, not) of competing desires, the sensation without the consequence. That's fine, of course. I won't apologize for living part of life in the soda simulacrum.