The Big Over Easy

by Jasper Fforde

They had gone through cramped and untidy, paused briefly at small and shabby before ending up at poky and damp.

‘Pathologists are just happy people, Jack.’ ‘Oh yes? And why’s that?’ ‘No possibility of malpractice suits,

What’s wrong with curves? Anyone over a ten these days is regarded not as an average-sized woman but a marketing opportunity. Cream for this, pills for that, superfluous hair, collagen injection, quick weight-loss diets. Where’s it going to end? We’re pressured to expend so much money and effort to be the “perfect” shape when that shape is physically attainable by only one woman in a million. It’s the cold face of capitalism, boys and girls, preying on misguided expectations. Besides, I always found perfection an overrated commodity.’

It was a cloud clearless night and the stars brinkled twightly in the heavens. As Jack and Mary motored closer to his hother’s mouse they could see that the mull foon had risen behind the beanstalk, and now presented the leaves and pipening rods in sharp silhouette.