Edith leans forward in her armchair to get her feet closer to the floor. Her mounds of mountainous flesh revolting against any strides to stand. She couldn't see her feet, hadn't seen them in years now, but she made the plunge anyway. The floorboards groaned and shook beneath her protesting the enormous weight.

"Harold!!! Did you call the boys home about that nasty boy?"

She paused only for a moment knowing Harold's reply wouldn't come, or if it did would not be the answer she was hoping for. Harold had a propensity to turtle. Never wanting to stir things up he would rather Edith be tormented day after day, pelted by horrible words, sticks, and even the occasional rock, than lodge a complaint about a young juvenile delinquent making her life hell. Harold was not a knight in shining armor.

As she piled her plate with last nights ravioli adding more and more until noodles slid off the mound and spilled over onto the countertop she turned on the small space-saver television and plopped herself onto the shaking wooden kitchen chair at the table. Commercials rolled across the screen and Edith reached out her right hand to grab the remote only to find an empty space. Her eyes scanned the kitchen as her jowls worked to hold the shovels of pasta trying to escape her smacking lips.

"Harold!! You moved the dang remote again!!"

Edith positioned herself to get up for the remote while her eyes longingly scanned the rest of the leftover pasta, realizing it was much more enticing than changing the channel.

The energized man shouting on the television caught her attention as he clapped and cheered for the women on the stage. She found herself mesmerized by the amount of emotion being shared.

The first woman, looking trendy in a modern day dress and flawless skin and makeup filled the screen as she began her emotional testimony:

"It's incredible really. I lost 200 pounds just by taking this pill and eating only meat!  200 pounds! I can move, I can dance! For the first time in twenty years my husband finds me sexy again. We've started going on trips and the girls in the office have lost the joy of talking behind my back!"

Edith looks at her last few remaining bits of pasta and pushes the plate away. She grabs her handbag and heads for the door.

"Harold!! I'm heading to the butcher. I'll be back."

Stepping off the porch carefully and with the added difficulty of not being able to see her feet or the steps because of her enormous girth, she pauses to scan the neighborhood. Seeing a quiet empty street and having successfully mounted the task of getting down the steps she keeps moving toward main street. As she rounds the corner she stops abruptly like a trapped rabbit as she hears a voice echo her footsteps.

"Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom.  Earthquake!!! Hide your babies. Fatzilla is on the loose again."

Edith quickens her steps doing her best to ignore the boy. Another few steps and her body shudders as a small rough stone smacks against her left cheek. Her hand lifts to caress the reddening whelp but she drops it quickly to tug on her shirt that is now riding up her round bulging middle.

With an exasperated sigh of relief she forcefully plows her way into the butcher shop, taking a mental note of the sour expression the butcher's face reveals as she takes a small paper number from the machine on the counter.   As she waits in line trying not to notice the states and whispers, she finds a happy place in looking at the meats and imagining her meals. Today, she thinks, I'll start the program. I'll eat meats, meats, meats, and I'll loose the weight. I'm better than all these haughty harlots they just don't know it yet."

******************************************

Edith is in the kitchen early the next morning. A slab of bacon sizzles as the grease pops and juts out trying to catch her skin. When its still a moment from crisping she piles it on her plate which is already flowing over with sausage patties, sausage links, and a giant slice of ham. She takes the plate to the table and eats it all, face aglow with joy of knowing she's on a quest to start a new life.

"Harold!!  Don't be an idiot and forget to leave money on the dresser. I'm going to the butcher shop again today!"

As always, her voice is the only one heard. She smiles menacingly as she dips her hands in the warm soapy water to wash her dishes, and begins naming the meats that she could enjoy today, all guilt free.

"Pork chops, steak, meatloaf, with some ribs, Perhaps a side of fried chicken. I've always liked fried chicken. If only it didn't take so much work.  Maybe my lazy husband can cook the chicken. He's gotta be good for something!"

Edith walks to the bedroom and finds a small stack of money on the dresser. She brushes her hair and applies a layer of bright red Lipstick. She puts on a fresh set of clothes and heads off to the butcher. Her steps are purposeful and she wastes no time looking around today eager to get to the meats.

"Ba-boom. Ba-boom. I can't find my puppy. Maybe you sat on it."  The voice teases and torments and Enid turns around to scold the delinquent whose been making her life a living hell. The boy runs down the street stopping only to toss a handful of stones her way. She turns and hisses at the boy wishing she could get her hands on his spindly throat. She would teach him a thing or two about keeping quiet.

Adjusting her collar she walks into the butcher shop more confident than she had the previous day. The butcher, now aware Edith was going to start spending more money lights up at the sight of her, and is eager to help her fill her bag with meats.

That night Harold sits at the table for dinner. His plate holds a single pork chop, a rib, and a piece of bread with butter. He watches as Edith shovels mouthful after mouthful of meat in her mouth and loses his appetite watching particles fly from her open mouth as she chews.

"It's gonna be great Harold. Just meat, that's the key. The pill they were selling was hogwash. Everyone knows there's no diet pill. It's the meat!!  Just you wait and see Harold.  You're so lucky always being skinny, I'll keep watching that show though Harold. Maybe they will have something to cure laziness and lack of personality. Or a diet to make you smart, you could do with a brain and a personality." 

Harold tries to force a smile at her, knowing a comeback will only add to the onslaught of insults, but all that comes across his effort is a look of nauseas disgust.

********************************************

The following week Edith crosses another day off the diet calendar showing she has finally made it to day ten. She puts on her pants to walk to the butcher shop and looks smug when they are baggier than they used to be. She is able to stick her fingers with Just a little effort between the waistband and her skin. She's proud, and saunters out to Harold to show him as always, she was right the whole time. The meat diet was working.

"Look at this Harold!! The pants are baggy. They're gonna be falling off soon! It's the meat. What did I tell you? All those morons buying that pill. The world is filled with stupid people Harold."

Harold looks up from the paper. His face an emotionless mask. "That's great Edith. But you can't keep spending that amount of money at the butcher every day. The bills are behind."

Enid's face scowls in rage. "The bills? Pick up some overtime Harold! I'm loosing weight. I'm not giving it up now, I need more. More meat means more weight off. I'm doing this for us Harold. I'm going to live longer, feel better! You have always been such a selfish man. Thinking of yourself day after day!  A loser  Harold, that's what you are; why I married you I'll never know."

Harold puts the paper back up to its position covering his face. "You're probably losing weight because you are walking to the butchers ever day. That's the most you've moved in a year Edith. It's not the meat. And you have to cut back."

Edith grabs the small stack of money, her handbag, and heads to out to see the butcher.

"Ba-boom Ba-boom. What state is so large it has a thousand zip codes? The state of obesity!"

Edith doesn't pay attention to the boy keeping her mind on the task at hand. She worries about having less money, and is afraid of going back to her former state of sitting, eating, and growing wider by the day.

When she walks into the butcher shop, she finds the butcher waiting on a small
line of customers but is delighted when he waves his hello to her. She waves back, noticing the shop has a new top of the line meat slicer. And a longer glass case. She takes her number from the ticket machine and pricks her knuckle on the rusty old machine.

When it's her turn to order the butcher laughs and kisses her hand as he greets her. The same hand she pricked on the ticket machine. His prolonged kiss on her bloody knuckle makes her uncomfortable and she scoffs and yanks  her hand away.

The butcher's radiant smile turns to sullen anger as she orders only half her usual order. He questions her cutting her order and encourages her to get more.

When she walks out of the shop with half the bag size of her usual daily haul, the butcher is looking out the window angrily while
licking his lips, and she is looking at the bag unhappy with its abundance of room left to fill.

The week goes by with Edith's plate portion grows smaller and smaller in size. By the end of the week her pants are loose and she is wearing a stylish belt around her midsection.  She puts on a painful and forced smile and looks at the place on the dresser where the small stack of money should be.

"I'm getting there Harold!!! Today I have to wear a belt! But I'm so hungry. I need more money today!"

Harold walks into the room. "You're already costing us a fortune. It's less today. Less from now on. Meat is expensive. I'd rather have a fat mean wife than a skinny one living with me in the poorhouse. This has to stop. We can't afford it Edith."

Edith scowls at him and reminds him he is pathetic and useless. She leaves him shaking his head in shame as she walks herself to the butcher shop. She grumbles to herself clearly unhappy with her small stack of money and her knowledge that she will have only a tiny meat bag with barely enough to cover her appetite for breakfast much less three full meals.

As she steps around the corner the chanting she dreads begins. As always, it's in tune with her steps.

"Ba-boom ba-boom. The national guard has a shortage of parachutes and needs your underwear."

Edith does her best to ignore the boy. But cannot ignore the rocks pelting her as she quickens her step to get to the butcher.  She arrives relieved to walk in the door and see the fresh meats stacked in rows waiting like orphans to be chosen.  She views them all happily until she pulls the small pile of bills from her purse.  Her wide drool filled grin falters and a look of sadness replaces it.  Knowing how little she is about to buy sucks out her joy and she finds herself unhappy.

Almost as unhappy as the butcher who is now come to see Edith as his ticket to finally getting big profits and a new better freezer.

Both Edith and the butcher are aware that changes have to occur for happiness to reign.

*******************************************

Harold comes home from work to a dimly lit house. There's thumping in the bedroom and he cautiously makes his way to the back bedroom. As he cracks the door he sees the boy from the home tied to a chair. His large fear filled eyes scanning from Harold to the ropes binding him to the chair. Harold gawks for a moment and wipes his face with his sleeve hoping to make the image disappear.

"Edith! What are you doing with the boy! It's kidnapping Edith. You can't keep a child tied to a chair. The police are gonna come!! I'm letting the boy go."

As he gets close to the chair Edith barges out from the bathroom scissors in hand.

"Don't you touch that boy!!! He's mine, and I am going to teach him a lesson about making fun of people. Tormenting them, making them afraid to leave their own house. You go in about your business Harold!"

Harold grunts, gives the boy an 'I tried' look and walks out the room.

Edith measures the boy. Feeling his muscles and sniffing him. She takes the tape measure to the freezer and starts measuring the space she has in there to fill.

The next day the boy is still tied to the chair. Edith goes to the butcher and buys her small allotment of meat. The butcher is cold toward her but she barely notices in her current state of panic. She rushes home, not even able to enjoy the walk free of the deviant boy she has locked in the bedroom at home.

Edith cooks the meat sniffing and smiling  while she does, and places it on her best China. She takes it to the bedroom and feeds the boy. Each bite he takes makes her happier and she begins licking her lips and wiping her mouth to stop the gathering drool. She doesn't take a single morsel of food for herself.

As she sleeps she smirks knowing her luck is about to change and Harold can be seen exiting the room with the boy and tiptoeing back to his own room silently shutting the door.

The next day Edith gets a large white towel out of the linen closet and lays it across the kitchen table. She takes her best meat knives and lays them delicately across it. She rolls them all up together making sure to include her long yellow dishwashing gloves and puts it on a cart rolling it towards the bedroom. As she enters the room she lays the knives on the bed showing a shiny meat cleaver to the frightened  thrashing boy when suddenly the lights go out. From the hallway a river of Crimson blood is seen running across the floor from the bottom of the door.

******************************************

Harold stands at the long glass counter of the butcher shop. The counter is clean and filled to the brim with meat. The butcher is laughing with a woman and winks at her as he hands her an extra large bulky package.  He is humming and smiling as he puts the small stack of bills in the register.

When the happy customer leaves the shop the butcher walks toward Harold and hands him a large yellow envelope filled with cash and a small brown paper bag. Harold smiles, shakes the butchers hand, and exits the shop with a happy spring in his step.

The boy from the home rounds the corner with a spring in his step and catches up to Harold who puts his arm around him, handing the boy a small wad of cash.  Together they grab the suitcases curiously perched outside the butcher shop and get onto an awaiting city bus.

As they watch out the window the butcher places a sign in the window. "Overstock Sale."
Harold hands the boy a treat from the butcher, a rather large piece of jerky.

End

********************************************
Well, it looks like the butcher got a chance to buy that new deep freezer after all. And Harold, he got peace at last and a chance to start over, as a bachelor! And the boy, he finally got out of that miserable home and found someone who can teach him patience. And Edith? Well, you are what you eat. Right? Too far? Too soon?

I cannot tell a lie. I wrote this purely in case the new Tales From The Crypt is truly trolling Wattpad and is keeping any thread of it's old self. (That is, keeping it on the cheesy side). If not, I have another, more grown up story ( just in case) but this classic feel makes me truly happy. If your looking Tales From The Crypt, I'm waiting for you!!! Whether it's my story or not you are going to be awesome!!!