Ed Sortoson

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Ed Sortoson was fat. Too fat, with cheeks that bulged as though filled with handfuls of caramel popping corn and a belly that quivered viciously as he walked briskly about the grounds of the offices where he worked, at a pace too fast for his build and his face in a scowl that prompted his employees to laugh behind cupped hands and to whisper fat jokes quietly through their straight white teeth into paper cups over thin bent frames at the water cooler- the boss, and though they respected him enough to his face they snickered at him behind his broad, cushioned back, to which he pretended not to see or to hear but which he saw and he heard as plain and as clear as the nose buried into his puffy face, which is why he scowled so, and he muttered under his breath important dates of meetings and deadlines and accounts for the people in Japan or in Argentina, who trusted him fat or not to deliver their goods and make their promises no matter how he looked or how fast his heart pumped as he hurried across the office building´s courtyard with its cool fountains and palm trees and snack machines that vended him full of hydrogenated vegetable oils and sucroses and fructoses several times a day, everyday.