Comfort Eating

Jacob was a chubby child.

Mar 25, 2026

Jacob waited while his tormentors fished the turd from the toilet.

Another boy might have run but he winced at the thought of how he jiggled when he tried.

‘Ready for your special mini roll, you fat fucking fridge?’ Callum asked, head popping round the cubicle.

Outside the toilets, the screeching of first break showed no signs of abating; there would be no saving by the bell for Jacob and he knew it.

One of Callum’s minions proffered the sweet treat on a piece of single ply toilet paper, so thin and transparent the special truffle may as well have been resting directly on his palm—he wasn’t best pleased about being the courier.

‘Hurry up. Make him eat it, Cal. It pongs,’ a boy with a budding unibrow insisted.

As Jacob pinched it between thumb and index finger it gave a little, like chocolate at room temperature. The pong was indeed pungent somewhere between the dung horses left in the street and sharp cheese.

Cal with his school tie over his nose flapped an arm at his army, ‘Let the man savour his meal, god. Manners.’ And then to Jacob, ‘Think of it like a starter. It’s pizza Tuesday in the canteen as well. Double helpings for you.’

Jacob knew that, of course. His life revolved around the next meal. The next snack, morsel or bite he could snaffle away.

The depressing truth was that his stomach grumbled, even now, holding the bobbled poo in his hand. He saw Cal ball his fist and knew it was time.

The bullies lost interest after Jacob polished it off in a couple of bites. Not so much as a retch or watery eyes.

‘Freak,’ Cal spat at him as they slinked off back into the daylight, back into the jungle of high school.

Of course it tasted of shit. Rotten, turgid, putrid, deep, tragic and rancid filth. Coating Jacob’s mouth like glue and staining the back of his teeth as he swallowed. The taste lingered even after attaching himself to a rusty faucet in the bathroom for a good five minutes.

The slab of concrete that masqueraded as the playground was deserted. Such was Jacob’s infallible, unending hunger his mind was already focused on the toppings at lunch. He would start with pepperoni and finish with the five cheese feast. Or perhaps the vegetable supreme might be preferable.

Miles away, dissociating from the reality around him, he did not notice—not at first—the shadow that crept from the dilapidated climbing frame. Speckled blue from peeling paint chips it sat like a metal spider in the corner of the playground.

From the corner of his eye Jacob now saw a shadow shift from one of the spindles and then another and then another. The shadows became fingers and hands and a leg. Before he could blink twice a figure that had not been there now stood, unfurled in front of him. Adorned in a ruby red cloak and dripping with some sort of vapour that hit the playground and evaporated with a sizzle.

Jacob thought of fajitas. Shadowy savant fajitas.

‘You’re hungry, Jacob, aren’t you?’

He nodded. Always.

‘Thought as much. I have something for you. The gift to your curse, if you like.’

‘Who—’

‘I’m up against it here. I’m a purveyor of the menagerie most cosmic. You’ll have not heard of it being . . . fleshy,’ a wisp of a finger appeared at the end of his robed arm and poked at Jacob’s belly. It rippled satisfactorily. ‘I dispense traits to those who need a leg up. Answer a question correctly, get a premium animal pick.’

Jacob was certain he was experiencing a hallucination brought on by ingesting a parasite in the poo.

‘You’re not,’ the figure’s voice spoke direct in his mind. He gestured to the climbing frame and at once appeared on top. Jacob took a couple of steps towards him.

‘What lives in the sea, has rows of teeth, and never stops moving?’

Jacob thought of fish fingers.

‘Wrong,’ the figure boomed.

‘I didn’t say anything!’ Jacob protested.

‘Have to take your first answer and I can read minds. That’s shark gone. Don’t worry, plenty of good animals left. Next question. What has a mane, rules the plains and its claws inflict pain?’

Jacob hesitated. The rhyme confusing him. He pictured the canteen again. The trays. The queues. The pushing.

‘Dog,’ he thought, too quickly.

‘Incorrect.’

Jacob felt something shift behind his cheeks. Something stretching inward rather than out.

The figure’s tone softened, almost amused.

‘Lion was the answer. But you don’t think like that, do you Jacob?’

Jacob swallowed. His jaw felt wider. He reached up. His cheeks had begun to round, not outward like fat, but fuller inside, as though something had been placed behind them.

‘Final question,’ the figure said, now sitting cross-legged on the climbing frame as if it were a throne. ‘What stores food for later?’

Jacob smiled. This one he knew.

‘Me,’ he said, out loud this time.

The figure clapped once.

‘Close enough, I guess.’

Jacob’s cheeks shifted again. The space inside them expanded, soft but structured, forming compartments he could feel rather than see. His face remained recognisable, but the volume of his cheeks ballooned, pushing gently outward, as if they had been designed for holding rather than speaking.

‘Hamster,’ the figure said. ‘A fine choice for someone like you.’

Jacob blinked.

‘A what?’

‘Hamster,’ it repeated. ‘Look it’s bottom of the bargain bin but hey they’re small, hungry and can store what they take. Keep it safe.’

Jacob tried to speak, but his cheeks resisted, as though something within them had weight now.

‘You’ll find,’ the figure continued, rising now and stepping down from the frame, ‘that you have room for more than you did before.’

The figure drifted closer to the playground edge.

‘The boy who can’t stop eating, can now eat his problems away,’ it said. ‘If you catch my meaning, of course.’

Jacob turned as footsteps approached from behind the building. Callum and his crew.

‘Oi,’ Callum’s voice rang out. ‘Still here, fridge?’

Jacob looked at the figure, but it was gone, leaving only the faint smell of something metallic and sweet.

‘You look weird,’ one of the boys said.

Jacob didn’t answer.

He could feel his cheeks now. Could feel the capacity.

Callum stepped forward.

‘Say something, then.’

Jacob opened his mouth and something took over. That simple movement was enough. His cheeks shifted. Expanded. Not outward in a simple way, but inwardly first—then outward, like something was unfurling from inside him.

‘What the hell—’

Jacob’s cheeks opened further than seemed possible, not tearing but getting ready to welcome something—Callum.

He tried to turn on his heels too late. Jacob’s cheeks closed around him and he felt his nightmare come to rest on the inside of his cheek stretching all the way to just above his shoulder blades.

The others froze.

There was no gore, no further noise. Callum had been inhaled and stored for later.

‘Freak,’ someone whispered.

Jacob turned.

Another step.

Another.

The space inside his cheeks shifted again, ready.

The playground fell silent as Jacob headed for maths.

He thought that was the end of all his worries. If any new ones should pop up he could just pop them in his mouth. But there was a sting in the tail—rattlesnake, another animal he had missed out on.

See, five years passed without much ceremony. Jacob did not grow taller, but his cheeks did not return to normal.

Until one morning, he did not wake up.

Just stillness, the way small creatures end when their time runs out.

The space in his cheeks had long since emptied.

The figure returned once, briefly, standing where the climbing frame used to be.

It looked down at the place Jacob had occupied.

‘Short-lived, hamsters,’ it said, almost kindly.

Then it moved on, already thinking of the next kid standing alone at the edge of the playground, looking for that special something to help them through the day.

By Louis Urbanowski