How to Lose 900 Pounds in 10 Weeks

Steve Groening knew that today was a very important day in his life. He was going to run away. He was running away from a life of snide comments behind his back, as well as to his face. He was running away from parents who hated him for what he was, and for no other reason; running away from people who sided completely with his parents, and then added in a few reasons of their own.
You see, Steve was an odd boy. He weighed approximately one thousand pounds. When he was born, he looked exactly the same as every other newborn baby. However, as he grew up, he developed a condition that no one had ever seen before, and that condition caused him to be overweight. His parents consulted doctor after doctor, but no one could find an answer, let alone a cure. In the sense that he weighed one thousand pounds and was still alive, he was a medical miracle – nobody had ever weighed that much, while at the same time, nobody that far overweight had ever survived – it was too stressful on the heart, as well as other parts of the body. So, because of his uncontrollable weight, Steve had a hard life, and decided to run away. He was a very intelligent boy, and had planned out nearly every minute of that day.
He knew his mother would come see if he was awake soon, so he got out of bed and hurriedly got dressed, then asked his computer if it could please print up the homework that he had done last night. Steve then rushed out of his first floor room and straight into the kitchen for breakfast. As usual, he had tiny portions of everything, both to try futilely to watch his weight and because it was hard for him to reach his mouth with his chubby arms. His father, as usual, totally ignored him, while his mother, also as usual, looked at him throughout the entire meal with great pity, sometimes almost disgust. Sometimes Steve wondered if his father even knew that he existed. For as long as Steve could remember, his father hadn’t spoken to him. He only heard his father speak when he was talking to his mother or to somebody on the phone. Nobody was ever invited to the house for fear they would see Steve and think that his parents were horrible parents. Everything that was said about Steve hurt him very deeply, but lately it had just become a dull ache.
After breakfast, Steve quietly gathered his schoolbooks and left the house, through the wide front door, to ride to school on the traffic belt. School was much worse than home, especially at recess. All of his classmates, except for the few decent girls, threw rocks, sticks, and mud at him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart, because he was a genius. He was at the top of the class for nearly everything, and he had actually built a few useful little gadgets. He was even at the top of the entire school when it came to piloting. He could pilot air carriers, single-person skyships, and was working on the latest model of the shuttlecraft. It was just because of how enormous he was that they seemed to enjoy bothering him. Most times he would just get them in trouble with a teacher, but today he did nothing of the sort. He just stood there and took it all, even when a kid climbed onto his back and pretended that he was riding an elephant.
When school finally ended, Steve collected all of the books he thought he might want, and then rode quietly home. He turned his plan over and over again in his head. He was going to go home and eat dinner as usual, and then go to his room, under the mask of doing homework. There he would collect a few books and some food that he had stowed away in his closet. After that, he would just have to be creative and find a way out of the house, without his parents noticing his absence. All that was left after that was for him to get to the top-secret lab in the government building three blocks away, then get to the starship orbiting Earth. The ship and its crew were to be the first ones going on a deep-space mission.
He was home. Since he had been lost in his thoughts, he had taken a wrong turn and had to backtrack. Dinner was already on the table. They ate in silence, as usual, and finished quickly. However, Mrs. Groening asked him to wash the dishes, because she and his father were going to a meeting. Steve hurried through them – they were taking up some of his precious little time. However, the fact that his parents had a meeting would save him some time in getting out of the house – it nearly evened out.
He hurried to his room as fast as his chubby little legs would let him go, and collected all of the stuff that he was taking with him. Then he paused, looking around, taking in his home of twelve years for what he thought to be the last time. Steve was slightly sad, but he knew that a life away from there would be much better. He quickly wiped a tear from his eye, remembering the time when he was four years old – before his weight problem – when he had sat down in the middle of the hallway and showed off all of his toys to his parents. He had then started to do a tumbling show, until he fell down the stairs and broke his arm. Steve started to leave, then went back and took his miniature communicator with him for good luck. As he left, he made sure to turn off the lights and close the wide front door.
Once he was down the block, he started second-guessing his plan. He could be sentenced to life in prison for breaking as many laws as he was about to, even though he was only twelve years old, and that didn’t sound like much fun. He was trespassing onto government property, using something that wasn’t even known to most of the world, and stowing away on a starship. That could land him in a lot of trouble. He would probably be stuck in prison with a bunch of serial killers, or people who had hacked into all of the government’s top-secret information, and were considered to be extremely dangerous to Earth and the rest of the universe.
As Steve walked on to where he could transport himself to the starship orbiting Earth, he thought about his life. As he thought and thought, he realized that he really did want to run away. He convinced himself that no matter what anybody might say, he was doing the right thing, and had nothing to fear – they wouldn’t put him in prison, and they would just let him do what he wanted to do, because he was in the right.
He finally came to the correct building. Now just to get inside without tripping the alarms – and without being seen – and he would be all right.
The security was lax, and he had no trouble knocking out the guards at the front door and using one of their security badges to get in. However, the room that he wanted to get into had slightly tighter security, and he hid in a storage room for a few moments to figure out his strategy. He hadn’t been sure how many guards there would be, but now that he knew, he would have to revise his plan.
He heard footsteps getting nearer and nearer to his position. He quickly looked around the dark room and saw that there was only the door he had come through. Steve squeezed himself into a corner behind some big storage boxes, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen.
A guard came in on his rounds of the building – Steve had expected this and had built in extra time for it. The guard didn’t do much, just glance around the storage room once and leave. He crept out after the guard, being careful to take very soft steps. The guard turned to the left; Steve turned to the right, and immediately came upon the door that led to all the labs, including the top-secret one that held what he wanted. Inside, he knew he would find various scientific experiments – soon, someone would discover that the space-to-Earth transporter that the top-secret scientists had been experimenting with had been used – if it worked or failed they would not know. Until Steve’s parents got home and reported him missing, they wouldn’t bother checking the transporter logs. Even after that they might not think to check them. The police would use their high-tech sensors to find him. After the police searched the whole planet, they would check everywhere for missing aircraft. They would eventually see that he had transported himself to the starship that had been orbiting Earth, and that had departed at least twelve hours earlier – no chance of calling it back.
Steve took a deep breath, and walked up to the door. He slid the guard’s security badge into the appropriate slot, and then waited for the door to open. He mentally noted that if he ever got back to Earth, he would contact the right authorities and make sure that security be upgraded. He would suggest that they require retinal scans at every access point, not just recreateable badges. He eased himself through the doorway, and looked around the corridor. He was in luck - no one was there. After walking quickly and quietly down the hall for a few minutes, Steve found the door. He found that it was kept unlocked, for some reason that he did not understand. After rummaging through the slightly unorganized room for a few minutes, he came upon the right machinery. It was really just a control panel, along with a platform that the normal city-to-city transporters had. He keyed in a few commands, stepped on the platform, and seconds later he was gone.
· · ·
Mr. and Mrs. Groening opened the door and stepped into their house. There were no lights on. Mrs. Groening went and turned on the kitchen light. The dishes were done, as she had expected. She glanced towards Steve’s room. The door was open.
“Jack?” She glanced at her husband. “Doesn’t Steve usually close his bedroom door when he goes to sleep?”
“What are you talking about, Elaine?” he answered. “Who’s Steve? I’ve never met anybody named Steve in my life.”
“Jack, you know perfectly well that Steve is our son. Even if you won’t admit it, we do have a son and Steve is his name. He’s rather hard to miss, actually. Stop pretending.”
“Have you lost your mind? We’ve never had any children, and I don’t know about you, but I never intend to have any in the future!” Mrs. Groening glared at him, then turned away and went into Steve’s bedroom. She turned on the light and looked around. Steve was not there. She searched the entire room, but could not find any trace of him.
“Jack!” she called. “Jack! He’s not here! Help me search the rest of the house – he’s not in his bedroom!” Mrs. Groening ran upstairs, threw open every door, looked in every corner. Steve was nowhere to be seen. She ran frantically through the house, searching everywhere, finding nothing.
“Where is he?” she questioned the air. “Where’s my son?” She ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. She dialed the police.
“Who are you calling?” asked her husband, slightly puzzled. “And why are you running around the house like crazy, looking under all of the furniture?”
“Jack, you know perfectly well who I’m calling and who I’m looking for. Our son is missing!” She got an answer on the other end, and started explaining the situation to the slightly rude person that answered. A police car was dispatched to come and investigate.
Five minutes after the call ended, sirens were heard down the street. Mrs. Groening glanced out the window, then ran outside. The police car turned off its sirens, and parked in front of the Groening house. Two police officers calmly got out and closed the doors behind them.
“Are you Mrs. Groening?” one of them asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “My son is missing. His name is Steve. He’s twelve years old, five feet three inches, brown hair and eyes, and weighs approximately one thousand pounds.” The officer had been calmly writing this all down, until he heard the weight measurement.
“Listen, lady,” he said. “We don’t have time to play around. Just give us all the information that you can, without any joking or tricks, and we’ll find your son. All right? Now just give us straight information, no funny stuff.”
“Officer, do you really think that I would joke about something like this?” she asked him. “My son is missing, and you think that I’m making a joke? Well, guess what. I’m not. My son weighs approximately one thousand pounds. You can check that figure anywhere. Go contact his doctor and get his medical records, for all I care. That’s how much my son weighs!”
The two officers looked at each other in doubt, then shrugged their shoulders. “All right, ma’am,” said one of them. “We need to look at your house, and ask you a few questions. Will that be all right with both you and your husband?”
“What does it matter whether or not it’s all right with my husband?” she asked. “He won’t even acknowledge that Steve exists. Please, just help me find my son!”
“Yes, ma’am,” the two officers said in unison. Mrs. Groening turned and preceded them into the house.
· · ·
Steve saw a bulkhead. He assumed that he was on the starship orbiting Earth, and confirmed this when he accessed a computer terminal. He had transported himself to a storage area on a lower deck, far enough away from everything not to attract attention. It also had wide enough doors for him to get through. With any luck, nobody would find any need to either scan the ship or walk into the room that he was in.
Steve quickly settled in. After eating a few bites, he found as comfortable a position as possible while sitting on a hard floor, and immediately started reading one of the many books he had brought aboard with him.
About fifteen minutes into his reading, the ship violently shuddered. Then it started inching forward through space, gathering speed as it went. Steve knew that nearly everything on board was new experimental technology, and that nobody really knew what all of it did, much less how to use it, but he also knew that at least he would have a fairly quick death, if it came down to that. The two most fragile systems on that ship were the engines and the environmental controls. If there was something wrong with the engines, then they would explode. If there was something wrong with the environmental controls, then they would suffocate, burn, or freeze. No matter what it was, there was always the possibility of instantaneous death.
Over the next few days, Steve finished reading all of his books. He figured that he had lost two or three pounds because of lack of food, but was not totally positive. He had become bored with life upon a starship, and nearly wanted to go home. Nearly. He figured that his parents were worried about him, at least a little bit. However, he also figured that they had given up the search after a day or two, not really wanting to find him.
There was the sickening sound of a crash to the right of Steve, and about five decks below him. He knew that the ship’s power source was right around there, as well as the engines, and started getting worried. He tried to curl up into a ball for comfort, but his extra pounds would not allow it.
Steve activated the computer console on the wall in front of him, and tapped into the ship’s sensor logs. If he was reading correctly, which we shall assume he was, then they were plunging uncontrollably towards a strangely square black hole, at about 163,452,983,091,587 kilometers per second. Now, believe it or not, Steve and everyone else on the ship turned into spaghetti. When asked what he recollects of that experience, he will simply say that he can’t remember anything, and that spaghetti has very bad memory.
Although the humans did not know it, they were in the black hole for about three days. Their ship didn’t have any logs of that time at all, and it is suspected that the computer also turned into spaghetti, or whatever the computer equivalent of spaghetti is.
Once they were back on their course, everything was going all right, when the engines completely failed. Steve felt sick to his stomach, and quickly put down the report that he was reading so that he could run to the bathroom and vomit. Once he came back, he was feeling much better. However, the computer console told him that they were now headed straight for a pink planet – bright pink like bubble gum. He could tell that the pilot, ten decks up, was trying to fall into orbit around the planet, instead of hitting it. He managed to get halfway around in an orbit, but then the downward plunge began again, this time steeper. Steve could see that this side of the planet was a chocolaty brown. This left him somewhat mystified. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but it was still the same color.
As they entered the atmosphere of the planet, Steve could feel himself being pushed down into the corner. He was starting to feel real planet gravity, not just the artificial gravity of the ship itself. However, the two types of gravity working together were having a rather unfortunate affect. Steve was hoping that someone on the ship would realize what was happening and turn off the artificial gravity, making it possible to move. Unfortunately enough, his wish didn’t come true.
There was a bone-crunching jerk, and Steve suddenly came free of the corner. He could hear some scraping and feel a little movement still, so he figured that they had just crashed, and that their speed had been so high that they hadn’t even stopped yet. Steve thought that he heard faint screams of pain, and shuddered at the thought that he might die in the crash. He also heard things exploding on the decks above and below him.
The ship stopped, with much scraping and exploding. Steve got up on unsteady legs, and had to use the wall for support. He walked to the door, but was unable to get it open. He was trapped!
· · ·
Mrs. Groening looked up at the sound of heavy footsteps. Her face was stained with tears, and her handkerchief was completely soaked through. Her entire body was trembling, and she had large circles under her eyes.
“Any news?” she asked.
“Yes, actually,” said the policeman standing in front of her. “We know where your son went. He got into the NSCC. From there he went to…well, I’m not sure if I’m authorized to tell you where he went from there.”
“What’s the NSCC?” asked Mrs. Groening.
“The National Space Control Center. It’s where starships are engineered, and where the equipment on the ships is engineered and built. It’s a very important building.”
“So then where is my Steve now? Did you arrest him?”
“No, we did not arrest him. We never found him there. I really shouldn’t tell you this, and you must promise not to repeat it to anyone. Understood?”
“Yes,” – shakily.
“We are developing an Earth-to-space transporter. It’s the same as city-to-city, just for longer distances. Steve got past all security measures, and used it to transport himself to the Mayflower. We do not know if the transport was successful, but we will find out as soon as the ship returns in a month.”
Mrs. Groening started sobbing. The policeman put an arm around her shoulder, trying rather unsuccessfully to provide some comfort. She stood up and started to pace.
“You know, Steve was the perfect child when he was younger. I was always so proud of him. Then he developed his Condition, and I was devastated. I wanted him to have the perfect life, always being a normal kid. Then I started to pity him, because I knew that he would grow up being ridiculed all the time, pushed around and shunned. And that’s exactly what’s happened.” Here she paused to take a breath and blow her nose. “He made me proud when he was at school, building useful things and excelling in his studies. I thought that maybe if I acted indifferent to it all, then I wouldn’t feel so hurt. But that didn’t work. No. That just made me seem like some treacherous monster, not even willing to put up with her own child. That’s not how I am!
“You know, Jack never wanted any children. Steve was an accident. I don’t recall Jack ever even giving Steve a glance, ever speaking a word to him. Not once! It’s as though they lived in different worlds. Jack doesn’t even acknowledge that he had – has - a son. Officer, please do whatever you can to find my son. I love him dearly, and I want him back. Please.”
“I’ll do the best I can, Mrs. Groening. Meanwhile, you should get some rest. You look as though you haven’t slept for a week.”
“That’s because I haven’t. Do you know how worried I am? If Steve doesn’t come back alive, then I won’t be able to live anymore. There are so many things that I never got to tell him.”
“I understand, Mrs. Groening. I’ll do my best. If I get any more news, then I will tell you immediately. Have a nice day, and good-bye.” He walked out the door. Mrs. Groening collapsed into a chair and was asleep five minutes later.
· · ·
Steve worked long and hard on the door, and finally forced it open. It was a good thing, since the air had been starting to thin. He walked out into the corridor very carefully, making sure not to step on the debris that seemed to be all over. He saw two dead crewmen, and turned the other way down the corridor. Walking very slowly, it started to come over Steve that he could very well be the only person that had survived the crash. The thought gave him the chills.
Finding the airlock wasn’t very hard, considering that Steve had memorized the layout of the ship, just in case he needed to abandon it. He had been going for hardly ten minutes when he had found it – ten minutes in which he got stuck three times, and nearly chopped off his hand twice. It took him twenty minutes to get it open, because one of the explosions that had obviously happened two feet away from the hatch had fused the metals together, sealing it tight. Steve found a laser cutter lying on the floor and used it to help him out. When the energy on that ran out, he used brute force.
Once outside, Steve had to blink, for it was very bright in the sunlight, especially compared to the ship, where there was no power and nearly all of the emergency lights had blown up. He surveyed the damage done to the ship, and found it to be quite extensive. There would be no hope of it ever being repaired, especially not by a twelve-year-old boy without anyone helping him.
The planet itself was very interesting. It seemed that they had landed on the pink side, for nearly everything about was pink. Steve’s eyes widened when he saw why – there were candy trees all about him, with different pink- or red-colored candies of many different kinds. Even though he wasn’t the candy type of kid, Steve’s mouth watered at the sight of so much sugar all in one place. He immediately forgot about the ship and went over to the nearest tree, which happened to be licorice. He started stuffing his face.
Over the next few days, Steve made a journey westward through the candy heaven. He never ran out of food. However, he did start getting sick of it. On the eleventh day of his journey, he came upon a place which was no longer pink, but green. There was a small shack right in the center of the thirty-foot-wide green area. Steve went up to the door of the shack and knocked, only half expecting an answer. He got one.
A leprechaun had opened the door, seemingly not at all surprised to have someone knocking on his door in a place where not very many people existed. He looked ageless, and was very short and plump. “Come in, come in,” he said to Steve in a very friendly voice. “I welcome you to this deadly world of candy. I myself call it ‘Verengon Ha’DIbaH’, but I shall not tell you what it means, for it isn’t very friendly.”
Steve stood on the wide threshold for several moments, before deciding that it was safe to go in. He wasn’t sure what to say, and was therefore silent.
“Are you hungry?” the little green man asked him. Steve shook his head vigorously, scared that the leprechaun would try and feed him some more candy. “My name is Leppy,” the man said, “and I advise you to go back where you came from. This is a very dangerous planet, especially for young humans like yourself.”
“But…what if I can’t get back to my own planet, Earth? What if I get lost here and die? Will I be stuck here forever and ever, with only candy to eat, and only you to live with? I don’t have anything against you, of course, but won’t it get a bit boring?” All of Steve’s worries came pouring out at once.
“Never fear, never fear. Smart ones like yourself are never stuck on this planet for more than a year or two,” Leppy assured the frightened boy. “Besides, there are many other children on this planet – at least there were, before they turned into candy trees. Now come on and lie down, you look very tired.” Steve lay down on the sturdy bed that was in the corner, found it very comfortable, and immediately fell asleep.
When Steve awoke the next morning, Leppy the leprechaun was gone. There wasn’t even any sign that he had ever been there. Steve wondered if it had all been a dream, and pinched himself to make sure that he was awake. After nearly ten minutes, he concluded that he was, indeed, awake.
He found some food in the cabinets, and managed to eat some of it, despite its slightly metallic taste. He wondered what it had been made out of.
When Steve finally ventured out of the house around ten o’clock in the morning, he found it to be a bright, sunny day, if a little too green for his taste. He went around the back of the house, not expecting to find anything interesting. What he did find surprised him very much. There was some sort of oddly shaped tree standing right in the middle of the back yard. As he got closer, he was able to see that it was a paper clip tree by the shape of its trunk. He picked a paper clip and cautiously tasted it. It tasted just like the food that was in the little house. All of the food must have been made with paper clips.
Steve filled up his pockets with the paper clips, aware that it could be the only non-candy food on the entire planet, and set off to continue on his westward journey. Once he came to the end of the green land, which he decided to name Greenland, he stepped into a brown land. It was a rich, creamy, chocolaty type of brown that made you want to just eat everything in sight.
When Steve looked around, he saw exactly what he had expected to see – trees with all different kinds of chocolate growing on them. He hesitated, remembering what Leppy the Leprechaun had said about children turning into candy trees, but decided to eat anyway, seeing as it was his only food. He starting eating, while at the same time walking through that wonderful land. However, his journey seemed to go on forever and ever, and he couldn’t remember when the last time was that he had seen anything but brown, or eaten much of anything at all. You see, he stopped eating after about a week, because even chocolate can be a bit too much sometimes. The very sight of it now nauseated him.
However, this did have one good side effect – Steve was slowly but surely losing all of his excess weight. He noticed this because his pants had started falling down, and he had to keep on figuring out ways to make them fit him.
After about three months of only eating when absolutely necessary, and only drinking when he came upon a stream of water, Steve had lost nearly all of his excess weight, and looked like a slightly overweight twelve-year-old kid. He was beginning to feel better about himself, too. He felt that if he was able to get back to Earth, he would be able to look everyone in the eyes, and have them ask him if they could be friends. It was the best feeling he ever had. If only he had someone to share it with.
· · ·
There was a knock at the door. Mr. Groening got up to answer it. He opened the door and found a little girl on the other side, her dirty face streaked with tears.
“Shoo!” he said. “What do you want from me? Go away, I tell you, go away!” Mrs. Groening heard all of this from her seat in the living room. She got up to see who her husband was addressing, and saw the little girl.
“Jack, why do you want her to go away?” she asked. “It’s obvious that she’s lost, and needs our help. Don’t scare her!”
“What do we need with a little brat? She probably just wants us to pity her and give her candy. Don’t you see, Elaine? Don’t you see?”
“I see perfectly,” she said. “I see that you hate children, and have the hardest heart out there. I see that you are really a bad person, only willing to put up with me because I have a lot of money. Now, if you want to stay here for even another minute, then you will do as I say, and nothing more. Understood?”
Mr. Groening stared at her, trembling with rage. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. He turned quickly on his heel and stomped away. Mrs. Groening looked over at the girl, who was now backing away, terrified.
“Come, now,” she said. “Neither of us will hurt you, so there’s nothing to be frightened of. Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” said the little girl.
“Oh, dear. Do you have a home?”
“No. Do you have food I can have?” she asked.
“Why, certainly,” replied Mrs. Groening. She brought the girl inside to the kitchen and sat her down at the table. “What would you like to eat?”
The girl got a thoughtful look on her face, then said, “Macaroni and cheese, please.” Mrs. Groening went about the kitchen to prepare a meal for the girl. Meanwhile they talked. Mrs. Groening learned that the girl’s name was Lucy, that she was four years old, that her parents had died in a car crash two months ago, and that Lucy had run away from the orphanage into which she was put, because no one liked her. She had been wandering around since then.
Mrs. Groening thought the girl adorable, and she decided to let her live with them, perhaps permanently. Lucy was perfectly fine with this arrangement, and was happy to have found a home at last.
Mr. Groening got extremely angry with his wife when he finally decided to come back downstairs. He absolutely loathed children, and thought that they were gross creatures put on the earth to annoy him. He had told himself over and over again that he had never been a child, and had come to believe it himself.
Mr. and Mrs. Groening got into a horrible fight, which ended with Mr. Groening storming out the door. Lucy was very happy when he did that. Mrs. Groening and Lucy then looked at each other, shrugged, and smiled.
· · ·
Ten months after Steve first landed on the planet, he came to a black section – there was sunlight, but everything in the area was black – the grass, the trees with their strange fruits, even the birds were black. It all looked so evil that Steve wasn’t sure whether he should trust it or not. However, he did have a strong feeling that if he entered that area, he would find a way home. He had had feelings of this sort in the past, almost like unbearable urges to go do something, because it would be good for him. He had always been right. So Steve finally decided to enter.
Steve looked around him, not sure whether or not he should try one of the strange fruits. He decided that he might as well try one. The little triangular fruit that he picked had a spicy and somewhat sour taste. He decided to call it a mintour fruit, trying to define the taste through the name. It was minty and sour all at once.
He continued his journey through the area, and came upon a bed of roses. The strange thing was, they were black roses. They had a beauty all of their own. He could feel that they were very powerful flowers, flowers that would do something good for him. He picked one and tasted it. It tasted very bad. He felt a weird tingling sensation, and the next thing he knew, he was in complete darkness.
· · ·
Lucy sat on her bedroom floor, singing quietly to herself as she put together a jigsaw puzzle. Mrs. Groening quietly watched from the doorway, remembering her own childhood. Her mind wandered, and she saw another child doing the same thing. A sharp pain rushed through her, seeing that perfect little boy that she loved so much. She sighed, and turned away.
Mrs. Groening went to her own bedroom, and pulled out a photo album. She opened it to its first page, and read it in a hushed voice. “Steve Groening, son of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Groening, was born on February twelfth, 2126. He weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and was 20 inches long. His hair and eyes were brown. He was healthy and was released from the hospital just hours after birth.” Beside this paragraph was a picture of him, all red and wrinkled, but adorable nonetheless.
Mrs. Groening turned the page, and found more baby pictures. She continued to look through the album, pausing occasionally. Tears ran down her cheeks. She absent-mindedly wiped them away with the back of her hand.
“Mommy?” came a voice from behind her. “Are you all right?”
Mrs. Groening wiped her face, then turned around and faced Lucy. “Yes,” she lied, “I’m fine. I’m just looking at some old pictures. Why don’t you go read one of your books, and then I’ll make you a snack. All right?”
“Okay. Are you sure that you’re all right?”5
“Of course I am. Run along, now.” Lucy skipped out of the room and into her own. Mrs. Groening sighed. She closed the album and looked at the calendar. It was February eleventh, just one day before her beloved son’s birthday. She sighed again, then stuck the album back on the shelf that it had come from. Mrs. Groening turned at the doorway, resting her eyes on the album. She went downstairs to bake a birthday cake.
· · ·
Steve extended his arms as far as he could, but touched nothing. The air was thin. He cautiously took a few steps, but still came upon nothing. There was suddenly a bright flash, and he was whisked out of the darkness. A bulkhead appeared right in front of his face. He looked around him. He was definitely on a starship, and the starship was definitely not the one that he had come to this strange planet on.
There was someone coming down the corridor towards him. Steve stepped into the man’s path and stopped him. “I believe that I’m a little lost,” said Steve, truthfully enough. “Could you maybe help me?”
“Since when were there children on this ship?” asked the crewman, slightly confused.
“That’s a long story. My name is Steve Groening, I’m from Earth, and I want to go home. I was just somehow transported off of a strange planet, and I don’t happen to know where I am. However, I can tell you that if you go down to that planet, you will almost certainly die. It was just by sheer luck that I survived.” Steve said all of that in one long breath. The man stared at him in amazement.
“Steve, I am Ensign Turian Gwyn, also from Earth. You are on the starship Colonial. Our mission is to find the starship Mayflower, which was lost nearly a year ago. Our mission is also to find a boy named Steve Groening,” said Turian. “However, unless something drastic happened to you, you are not Steve Groening.”
“I most assuredly am, Ensign Gwyn. I just haven’t had anything to eat for a few months. If you want me to prove that I really am Steve, then I’ll show you the wreckage of the ship that you are searching for,” Steve said. “Besides, you could do a DNA test.”
Turian brought Steve to the captain of the Colonial. The ship was actually in orbit around the pink and brown planet that Steve had left a mere ten minutes ago. Steve told his story, from start to finish, and the captain agreed to have a team of three people transport down to the wreckage.
Since he had such an excellent memory, Steve was able to tell them the exact coordinates where the ship was. They found that everyone had died on impact, or perhaps in explosions just before or after. They retrieved all of the ship’s logs, to be brought back to Earth. Then they returned to the ship.
Once aboard, Steve was given a room to stay in, and they took the ship out of orbit so that they could explore the new space around them for two months, and then they headed back to Earth. On the way back, Steve still didn’t have an appetite. He exercised every day, and was soon the size of an average thirteen-year-old. He helped the crew solve various engineering and mathematical problems, making them wonder why his parents had seemed to dislike their genius son so much. Steve developed a very close relationship with the whole crew, especially Turian and the young captain. For the first time in ten years, Steve was not ridiculed.
They reached Earth in three days time, and were welcomed royally. Steve begged that his return not be told to anyone, for he wanted to surprise his parents. They allowed him to do that.
A government car drove him to his house. He saw his mother sitting on the porch, talking with a little girl who looked to be about five years old. They seemed to just adore each other. Steve got out of the car, and uncertainly walked up the sidewalk to his house. His father didn’t seem to be anywhere, but that didn’t surprise him in the least. His mother took one look at his face and quite literally jumped out of her seat. She ran to him and gave him the hardest hug that she could.
“Where have you been?” she asked, with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I was worried sick over you. I know that you always thought that I hated you so much, but no mother can ever truly hate her own child.” She had to stop to blow her nose. “And look at you! You lost so much weight; no one would ever believe that you were the same person. Oh, Steve! How happy I am to see you.” The little girl on the porch sat, motionless, waiting to see what would happen.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mom,” said Steve. “Who’s that little girl? She looks really nice,” said Steve, referring to the girl on the porch.
“Well,” said Mrs. Groening, smiling shyly, “she knocked on our door one day. Her parents died in a car crash, and she ran away from the orphanage that she was put in. Her name is Lucy, and she’s four years old. Come, let me introduce you to her,” and with that, Mrs. Groening took her son by the elbow and led him up to the porch. He and Lucy got along perfectly, and decided that they could live together.
Steve, Lucy, and Mrs. Groening went inside. Steve, not seeing his father, inquired after him.
“Well,” said his mother, “when we found Lucy, your father got very upset. He was the one who actually hated you, Steve. When I told him that she would stay and live with us, he was livid. He stormed right out of the house, not even taking his beloved hat. It is my personal opinion that we are better off without him, but I will leave that to your judgment.”
“Yes,” said Steve after some thought, “we are better off without him. He always used to cast a dark cloud around him, making everyone in his presence get into a bad mood. We’re much better off without him.”
They were, indeed, better off. Mrs. Groening tried to make it up with Steve for all of the disgust that she had displayed earlier. Steve enjoyed having a little sister, and Lucy enjoyed having a big brother. They lived happily together for many, many years.
When Steve returned to school, that had also improved. Some of the kids had been kicked out, and the others apologized for everything that they had ever done to Steve. Steve accepted the apologies, and went on with life. The doctors found that Steve had been mysteriously cured of his Condition. They never did find the reason, but they were all happy that it didn’t involve anything too bad.
After that, Steve always made sure never to be overweight, and he lived very happily for the rest of his fairly long life.

{Note to readers: this is a fictional story, so please do not try to lose weight in this manner – I do not wish to be sued.}