Health

He thinks about health as the clock ticks round. About how he should
go out to the gym instead of heading straight home, play football
instead of watch it or maybe just cut down on the snacks. But he likes
the taste, doesn't like feeling empty, enjoys watching the game and the
comforts of home.
He bites into his Twix, relishing the chocolate and caramel, the smooth
and the hard. Oh yes, this is pleasure: to consider the options of
survival at the same time as bloody mindedly moving forward to the
heart attack that would kill him in five hundred and nine days
time.
In the intervening time he would once pick up a gym membership pack and
receive a general information pamphlet about healthy eating. Neither
would impact on him. His width, he considered, was no more startling
than most men's his age and, in fact, he thought he hid his expanse
quite well. So he sweated a little more and stairs gave him a
problem?
As he chomps the Twix, 509 days before the tremor that would take him
there doesn't seem to be much to debate. The chocolate is satisfying as
usual and the thought of doing without it doesn't seem to be a choice
at all. Besides he is drinking a diet coke and surely that redresses
the issue at least in some way.
Exercise would come later - when he was prepared for it. Maybe he would
run down the street or buy a bike. Neither option is as appealing as
lying in on the weekend or keeping warm on the inside on a winter
evening. He thinks some more as he takes the last bite and scrunches
the wrapper and chucks it in the direction of the wire bin at the end
of the bench.
He pats his stomach and smiles broadly at a female runner in a figure
hugging kit as she scampers by. The smile is not returned. Too focused,
he thinks, some people take it all too seriously. Won't catch me
thinking like that, he says. You've got to see the wider picture.
But he's not talking to anyone. He's just addressing the air in front
of him. And he stands up, unaware that in 509 days time he will
collapse to the ground in this park and his wife will hear of his death
when her boss calls her into his office and say that he has some bad
news. Or that he reaction will be, "Stupid fucker, you stupid, stupid
fucker" or that she will break down and later will sit sedated in the
front room of their home with the paid-off mortgage and look at a photo
of him on their wedding day.
It's the earliest one she has of him and it will be the only one she
will be able to look at without seeing her husband's painful death
spelt out in full on his over-ample frame.