In a dystopian society where slimness is engineered, fat shaming is brought to extremes, and gaining weight is considered punishment for criticizing the government.
CW: fat shaming and fatphobia play, humiliation, dystopia, force feeding
You trot down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched. You try to disappear, to be invisible, to shrink - which is really ironic, given the circumstances. The government is making sure you won't shrink. Not if you keep opposing them.
Your efforts don't help much. People still turn their heads as you pass them. Perfectly slim people with bodies and faces engineered and augmented according to the beauty ideals promoted by the government. Everyone nowadays, no matter the starting appearance, has the same proportional face, and the same lean body. It's terrifying, and it makes it very easy to spot "revolutionary element".
You don't look like those people. Whenever someone gets caught on criticizing the government - it doesn't have to be anything extreme, a joke said to the wrong people at the wrong time is enough - support for any body augmentation and procedures is withdrawn. This is the first step, ensuring that the offender is easy to pick from the crowd, with their imperfect body. From then on, they are monitored closely, scanned for any repeated offences.
And the punishment for repeated offences is a bit more extreme.
This morning, your scale said you weigh 250 pounds. You were punished several times already, bringing you up a total of 100 pounds from your starting weight. Your round belly hangs out of the biggest t-shirt you own. You cling to your clothes desperately, because in this new society, they are the largest clothes you can buy at a regular store. If you outgrow them, you'll have to wear clothes for repeated offenders.
You don't even want to think about that.
In the old world, you'd be seen as chubby or even fat at 250, but you wouldn't be so easily picked out from the crowd. But here and now, surrounded by slim models, you feel and look like a whale. People give you a wide berth as you walk slowly to the government office, thighs rubbing and belly jiggling slightly.
To receive your next punishment.
"Let me see..." The bored official looks at your file on their computer screen. "Number one, commented on the fact that augmented bodies are 'dystopian' to a neighbor."
Your mouth hangs open. You'd been sure that your neighbor was on your side! After all, their body also wasn't augmented. Perhaps they were trying to weasel their way back into the government's good graces by telling on you? Sometimes people were able to better their status by doing that.
"Number two," the official continues. "Destroyed a poster with our illustrious leaders' faces. A security camera caught you. Number three, refuses to wear appropriate clothing for their size, thus breaking the indecency law."
You gulp. You look down on your hanging belly. You thought you could still get away with it.
"Given all the offences combined, the punishment would be... let me consult the manual... fifty pounds."
Your stomach drops. That's the biggest punishment you've gotten all at once. The difference will be extreme.
And it also means another thing - a clothing trip immediately after. There is a shop for offenders attached to the government building - anticipating the needs of the newly punished.
"Please proceed to the punishing room," the official dictates. A guard beckons you to your feet. You try to walk slowly, to postpone this for as long as you can, but you know it's no use.
You know the punishing room very well. The large chair, slightly resembling that of a dentist chair. The funnel hanging from the ceiling. The bare walls.
Resigned, you sit in the chair. The guard places the funnel in your mouth. When the sickly sweet, dense sludge hits your mouth, you can't help but wince. It always takes you by surprise just how heavy the feeding liquid is.
And no wonder. It's a special formula designed to contain thousands upon thousands of calories, plus enzymes that convert those calories to fat immediately within the body. That way, the punishment still lasts a couple hours, but that's nothing compared to older methods. In the olden times, people would be put in jail for months until they gained the required amount of weight.
You close your eyes. Resisting is futile. As you gulp down the substance, you feel your body expanding, your belly pressing into your thighs. You feel your thighs thickening and straining, then breaking the confines of your sweatpants. You wince as you hear the band of your pants snap and break. You feel the pressure of your thickening double chin on your neck; your bulging cheeks squeezing your lips.
Finally, it's done. You look down on yourself, your expanded belly covered in stretch marks. It rests heavily in your lap; your t-shirt is a crop top now and it's pinching your arms. You feel newly developed side rolls pushing those arms at an angle. Your pants are broken at the seams.
"The punishment is complete," the guard announces. "Please proceed to the clothing store to avoid further indecency charges."
You heave yourself to a standing position. Oh, fuck. So heavy. Your belly, now with a considerable overhang, droops as you stand, covering your crotch. You take a step and realize that the added 50 pounds have changed your walk into a waddle. You blush, thinking with trepidation of your walk home. You won't be able to shrink yourself. The world isn't made for you even more than it hadn't been before the new order was established. People over 200 pounds are not allowed to have a car, so you won't be able to escape public scrutiny hiding behind a wheel. You are destined to slowly waddle along, attracting stares and attention of the police.
And then, you think of the clothes you'll be wearing while you do so...
You look at your options.
A large pink t-shirt with a cartoon drawing of a pig.
A t-shirt announcing to the world: "I weigh 300 lbs!"
Another tee with a motto: I LOVE TO STUFF MY FACE
And, as a cherry on top, a shirt with what at a first glance looks like a pattern, but then turns out to be interlocked words: "fatty tubby fatso lardass" written over and over again.
You still choose the last t-shirt, in the vain hope that the words at least aren't that visible. To complete the look, you take a pair of skin-tight leggins which emphasize every roll on your legs. Before the new order, plus size clothing used to be often unflattering; now, the humiliation is part of the punishment.
You look at yourself in the mirror. You look fat and uncomfortable. The t-shirt is pinching you in weird spots, covering your body but still bulging out at your belly. Your face is red from the exertion of feeding and stuffing yourself into new clothes. Your neck is slowly starting to merge with your chin. Your new pants are especially designed for the worst possible fit, splitting your belly in half and giving it an even chubbier look.
You leave the shop at a slow, jiggling pace. Your body tires quickly, unused to the additional 50 pounds of weight. Outside, someone whistles at you. You are extremely visible. A multiple offender in a shirt that announces their fatness to the world. You have two choices: either you beg the government for forgiveness by committing despicable things in their name and maybe they will let you slim down and augment your body; or you are on a slippery slope, forever supervised, punished for every offence, growing fatter and fatter.
It's not much of a choice. It's time to accept your fate of a social pariah. Proudly waddle as you wear a t-shirt that says "Just one more bite..."
As you waddle past a poster about a new program for body augmentations, you show a middle finger to the nearest security camera.
That will probably be 5 more pounds.
