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Story: 'Fat Man' By Redrobbo


Mantaspook

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My thanks again to Mantaspook for his technical help in getting my second story published on SF.

 

My thanks too for the favourable responses.

 

I have often observed how people sit apart from each other at doctor's surgeries, the dentists, and especially on busses. We don't like the company of strangers do we - even if it is on a short bus journey?

 

So based on my observations, I mused on what would it be like if you were forced to sit next to someone on the bus? Maybe someone like a Fat Man. A stranger who you knew nothing about, but who you judged solely by his appearance. A stranger who forced you into conversation with him, but through which he began to reveal himself to be a human being. Someone with a wife and children, though he has a severe weight problem - which, despite his fears, he is desperate to do something about for the sake of his family.

 

As Fat Man reveals his human nature, the narrator gets sucked into the conversation, and eventually begins to see his fellow bus passenger in a different light. Indeed, did you notice my device towards the end when he stops referring to him as Fat Man?

 

The twist at the end of the story is of course that just when the narrator has stopped thinking about this guy solely in terms of him being a Fat Man, his fellow bus passenger uses those very two words to describe himself, before collapsing and dying.

 

I like this writing stuff. It's fun!

 

You've encouraged me again, and so I'm now going to polish up my third story, Global Warning. I'm not sure if I've got the time to polish it sufficiently before my self-imposed exile from SF begins any day now. If not, I'll email it to Mantaspook in my absence, or when I'm back on SF sometime in May. And just like Clean Shoes and Fat Man, it's also got a twist at the end of the story!

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That was a really good piece of writing, red.

 

Human nature being what it is, we seem to judge strangers on how they look and dress, don't we?

 

It can be a surprise when we actually get into a conversation with them, be they young or old, rich or seemingly poor.

 

The surprise of course being they are, in the main, pleasant people.....in fact they really are just like us!

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