text: It’s a late thursday. Derek has finished half a chicken parm, quick. Still hungry, he goes for the pantry. No thought, bowl of cereal. Something colorful. He devours it, pours a second. After that, he has a third. Cartoon mascot on the box watches on in frozen glee. Bowl fills with sugary dust, not enough for a fourth. Undeterred, Derek drives to the local mart. He buys a box of that same brand, but family size. Now he’s back at home. Less hungry. A full has set in. Decides to have a sit. Wakes up the next day, has a fourth bowl, first thing. After that he has a fifth. Now he’s out of milk. He’s also late for work. Derek attends work and forgets to pick up milk on the way home. He goes back out to get milk. At the grocery he meets someone who may turn out to be the love of his life. He returns home, has a sixth bowl. Then two more. The shakes begin. He’s diabetic. Only a little, but every betic has their break. Derek desperately searches for an old prescription of life saving insulin. He finds it. He drives to the pharmacy to get it filled. There’s a line. Derek dies. Now Derek is in heaven, his every wish is instantly granted. He has a ninth bowl of cereal, the best yet. Eternity stretches as Derek devours bowl after bowl until he has reached his billionth bowl. The bowl after that takes literal hours. Derek reaches down at a deathly slow pace, each spoonful of sugar is a tortuous task. As he finally finishes bowl one billion and one it dawns on Derek that he might be in hell, in literal hell brought on by a lifetime of general apathy toward social causes and an overconsumption of the popular culture of his time. Derek orders another cereal from the celestial cereal makers that be. He has forgotten all other words and wants. He has become a titanic sized blob, Derek’s former face just a smudge in comparison, slurping up cereal like slop from a trough. Suddenly a beam of light breaks through the dark abyss that the gargantuan Derek calls his home. He squints his beady, now pure black eyes at the light and sees it is a woman, the woman from the grocery, floating naked in radiant light. Derek moves toward her at a terrifying speed, wriggling like a chinese dragon across the pitch black sky. Ever closer, Derek’s human sized mouth begins to grow to the width of his impossibly massive body, revealing row after row of razor sharp fangs. The floating, glowing woman opens her eyes, they glow even brighter than the blinding aura that surrounds her. With a flick of her wrist a sword of pure light spawns from her hand as she dives down below. Derek is sliced right open, his innards rain bright, colorful flakes and puffs like a city sized piñata. He lands with a solid thud, sweating and dying as the ethereal woman slowly approaches him. She bends down and kisses his forehead, dissolving him in light, extinguishing his being from all realities.