Population Zero

Chapter One

Todd could not understand how some of these people had the nerve to come into his cubicle, begging for welfare and food stamps, claiming that they couldn't afford to buy food on their own, when they were clearly 50 or 60 or even 100 pounds overweight. It took a lack of humility that he simply did not possess.

He watched the corpulent woman, a cascade of chins hanging down her neck and disappearing somewhere under her T-shirt. Breasts twice the size of his own head bobbling about under her shirt in a bra that was unequal to the task of containing them. Her titanic arms jiggled even more than her mammoth tits as she filled out the paperwork. Her litter of unwashed, unruly children ran around his office, fighting and whining. Todd's stomach turned. She was morbidly obese. At least a hundred pounds over what even the most liberal physician would consider a healthy weight. Her body fat percentage had to have been in the high eighties. Todd imagined that, at 5'6" tall, her entire skeletal and muscular system, organs and all, probably weighed no more than a hundred pounds, yet she was well over 250 or 260 pounds, maybe even more. That meant that there was at least 150 pounds of fat on her body. There had to be a foot between her muscle and her skin. Just thinking about it was beginning to make Todd ill.

When she walked into his work-area it had taken a Herculean effort just for her to cross the floor. Coming to the Welfare Department was probably the most exercise she had gotten all month. Her breathing was labored from the weight of the fat on her chest. Todd could scarcely imagine what agony her heart was going through, trying to force blood through those clogged arteries and capillaries. The heavy rattling wheeze coming out of her suffocating lungs made Todd terrified that she would die right there in the chair and everyone would expect him to perform CPR on her.

He didn't think he had it in him. He imagined himself staring down at her as she slowly turned blue, her kids wailing and crying, begging him to help, his coworkers rushing into his cubicle to see what the commotion was about and finding him just standing there doing nothing, their accusatory glares as one of them clamped their mouth onto her pie-hole to breathe life into her overburdened lungs and the other fished in between those impossibly big flabby tits for a ribcage and began chest compressions which would only make those big fat sweaty breasts jiggle more while Todd secretly hoped that she wouldn't recover. Todd was still immersed in his fantasy, his facial expression no doubt betraying his revulsion, when she said something that almost made him walk out of the office.

"I'm going to need to get on that Women and Children's program. I'm pregnant again."

"Excuse me?"

He must have heard her wrong, Todd thought. Surely she was not stupid enough to be having more kids when she couldn't feed and clothe the four unfortunate heathens she had already given birth to? Whatever happened to birth control? Who the hell keeps fucking this obese monstrosity of a woman? If she can't afford to feed herself why the hell does she keep having kids?

"I'm pregnant. I need an application for WIC."

"Why don't you have an abortion? We would be happy to pay for it."

The woman's jaw dropped.

Todd could not believe he had just said that. It had just slipped out. The job had gotten to him. Now she would tell his bosses and he would either get suspended or fired.

Unless I can convince her to do it. I'm probably going to get my ass fired anyway so why not try to do some good in my last few minutes of employment?

The woman was still staring at him wide-eyed with her expression slowly changing from shock to outrage. He had to say something. Todd leaned over his desk and spoke to her in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Look, if you abort that baby and don't bring another kid that you can't afford into the world for the taxpayers to support then I'll see that the entire procedure is covered by the state and if you go ahead and get your tubes tied at the same time, I'll personally see to it that you never have to come into this office again. No more job hunting, no more interviews, no more paperwork. You will get your food stamps and your check every month and you'll never have to see my face again."

The woman's mouth opened and then she paused. She paused! She was considering it. She looked down at the mewling infant in her lap with his face stained with baby food and juice, the two-year-old in the stroller beside her reeked from a diaper that needed to be changed an hour ago, the four and five-year-olds still fought over a toy one of them had stolen from the grocery store, and a look of exhaustion and resignation began to take over her face. Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked helpless and confused. Todd was surprised that he wasn't touched by it at all. For some reason, the plight of a single human never seemed to have the power to move him, not when there were 50,000 species of plant and animal life going extinct every year as we cleared rainforests and turned them into cattle farms so that fat whores like this could get cheeseburgers. He wanted to look away but he knew that he had to look sympathetic if he wanted to save his job.

"What do I have to sign?"

"I'll get you a medical hardship form. I'll fill out everything. You just sign the bottom of it. You are doing the right thing."

It took a supreme effort for him to keep the smile off of his face. He looked at the long line standing outside the door of his cubicle and for the first time he didn't feel the usual anxiety. He didn't feel the desire to hide under the desk or flee the building or take an AR15 rifle and mow down everyone in sight and then burn the place to the ground. For the first time in his nine years working for the Welfare Department, Todd Hammerstein actually felt like he had done some good.