Deadly Part Two: Gluttony (Revelations)

For part one: Deadly Part One: Envy

 Arthur over-consumed everything. His appetite for food and drink was legendary amongst his friends. (One thing he kept to himself was his cocaine habit.) He even overindulged in luxuries like jewelry and fancy clothes, specially tailored to fit his enormous frame. Most of his substantial income went toward things like groceries and wine.

He liked to spend his Saturdays browsing through high-end shops around town, stopping only for a lunch that would put a lesser man in the hospital. This particular Saturday, he didn’t see anything he wanted that he didn’t already own. Somewhat disappointed, he climbed into his custom gold BMW with the gold rims and made his way home.

As soon as he came in the door, he went directly to the kitchen and assembled a little snack of foie gras, caviar, rack of lamb with mint jelly, and a slice of chocolate cake. He set the platter of food on the coffee table next to a small mirror piled with cocaine and an unopened bottle of Jack. He spent the next hour partaking in each of the three vices before him in turn. Dinnertime was more of the same: filet mingon wrapped in bacon, a whole lobster, and a baked potato the size of a newborn Rottweiler, everything covered in butter.

Dinner consumed and followed by more cocaine and chocolate cake, he finally took himself to bed.

The following Saturday, he was waddling down the street, headed toward his favorite lunchtime café. Something sparkly caught his eye, and he turned toward a show window in which was displayed an assortment of jewelry, gold and silver and even some platinum. He had never seen this place before, and he walked this way often. Curious, he stepped into the well-lit little shop. Diamonds twinkled everywhere like tiny stars.

Behind a counter, there was a slim man in his mid-forties, more or less average looking. He was examining something with a loupe in his eye, but looked up expectantly when Arthur entered the shop.

“Looking for something in particular?” he asked in a pleasant, customer-service voice.

“I’m not sure. Maybe a ring or another chain? What can you show me?” Arthur asked.

“We have a wide selection of rings, but I think you would like…this one.” He proffered the very ring he had been examining when Arthur walked in.

It was solid gold, shaped like a class ring but with a one-carat diamond embedded in it. The diamond was surrounded by tiny rubies, and a line of rubies encircled the band. Arthur loved it. He tried it on his left pinky, and it fit him perfectly. There was no price tag.

“How much?” he asked. He knew it didn’t matter, even if he had to buy it on credit.

“If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it. But you can, can’t you? I can tell by your suit, and the rings already on your hands. You’re also wearing a genuine Rolex, not a knockoff; I can spot a fake. I’m sure you have enough on a credit card to cover it,” the man asserted, summing Arthur up in the most calculating way he had ever heard. But he really wanted that ring. He caved, and pulled out a credit card. He tapped and signed, barely looking at the price.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” the shopkeeper said, and reached across the counter to shake his hand.

Once their palms met, the man’s grip became inescapable, and he grinned.

“We need to talk, Arthur,” he said, and suddenly everything changed. The jewelry store was gone. Now they were surrounded by nothing but blackness. The man in front of him had morphed into a man even fatter than Arthur himself, draped in the robes of an emperor and sparkling with jewelry. His skin glistened as though he were covered in lard.  A gaudy golden crown studded with gemstones sat crookedly atop his greasy head.

“I am what you have become: the essence of Gluttony. Come with me.” He waved one hand, and a door appeared beside him. Arthur recognized it as the door to his favorite five-star restaurant. The massive man -Gluttony- pushed open the door and gestured Arthur inside.

On the other side of the door was his living room. He could see himself on the oversize sofa, engaged in his usual evening activities of eating, drinking, snorting cocaine, and watching streaming videos on the internet. On the coffee table immediately in front of him was a mixing bowl full of peanuts. It was hard for Arthur to tell, but the self in front of him seemed a little bigger than he was now.

“Watch,” the apparition said.

Something funny involving a goat happened on the screen, and the Arthur watching it started to laugh, hard. Then his chortles turned to gasps as he clutched his chest. Sweat came pouring down his face. Then he fell, face-down, into the bowl of nuts.

“This is you in five years if you do not change your ways. And this is the easy part. Let me show you your own personal Hell.”

He waved a hand again, and now they stood in a large room with a table loaded with consumables of all kinds, food and drink and drugs. He could see himself again, chained to the wall and only able to brush the table with his fingertips.

“Now let me show you what will become of you if you accept this final offer of redemption,” the apparition intoned, and now they were in the stands of a stadium, watching a man who looked like him but was more fit than Arthur had ever been in his life, breaking through a ribbon with his chest. The crowd around him hollered in celebration of his accomplishment. Once everyone else had crossed the finish line, the Arthur who just won first place in an Olympic marathon had a gold medal draped around his neck, standing on a pedestal.

The scene dissolved.

“What do you say, Arthur William Daniels? Your choice,” he said, touching Arthur’s forehead with the tip of a finger.

“I couldn’t give up foie gras. Or cocaine, or good whisky. So what if it kills me? I’m going to kick off eventually, anyway, right?”

Five years later, Arthur’s body was found face-down in a bowl of peanuts. Everyone agreed it was one of the most undignified but strangely appropriate deaths they had ever seen. He spent his life with his face in a food dish, and he died the same way.