The fat of nations
Part 1 – The Convening
“I suppose someone has a compelling reason to summon an extraordinary meeting of the Collective.” Muttered Kuber Batra to himself, the current chairperson of this secretest of gatherings. He looked at his diamond studded watch. It was almost 3 am in the morning. Kuber sighed to himself. He would have to cancel his morning meeting with the presidents of various countries. All small petty men occupying big offices and holding even bigger egos. Some of them would certainly be miffed. Oh well, their problem to deal with.
He looked around the room as the other occupants of the room settled down. These were not small men, if they could be called men! And neither were they petty. These were all self-appointed, powerful leaders of their respective races.
The small room where he was seated had served as the gathering place for these hidden orchestrators of human history for centuries. The walls were filled with portraits of long gone members. There was a bookcase on one side of the room with ancient leather bound books that held untold secrets from times long forgotten. There was a central round table made of ancient polished oak with pockmarks that lent gravitas to the chamber. There were four heavy sofa-chairs around the table, one for each of the major species that together held power on Earth. The room was dimly light with flames from cressets fitted in recessed sconces. The smell of tobacco oil permeated the air.
The Collective, a secret organization in existence since, well no one knows since when as they rarely kept records, was a group of powerful individuals representing the various human-like species inhabiting Earth. Yes, you read that right, the Earth is home to not just the one kind of homo-sapiens, but rather many kinds of…us. The Collective had one goal – ensure that the balance between the various human-like species was kept.
As the clock struck 3, the occupants settled down. Each nursing a drink and smoking a pipe or a cigar. They looked at each other, waiting for Batra to start.
“Well?” Batra started without much ado. “What was so important that led to the summoning of the Collective? Which one of you called for it?”
“It was I. I called for the meeting.” The voice belonged to Mr. U. N. Dead, a representative of the Zombie clan. The Zombies were a relatively new species to inhabit the Earth. They were a direct result of human interference in the affairs of the now extinct, Mummy clan. Yes, you read that right, the Egyptian Mummies were real and ruled Egypt and surrounding areas for thousands of years. Per their official history, The Mummy Diaries, (not available on Amazon) the Mummies experienced a dramatic decline in their population after the traditional method of converting a dead human into a Mummy started failing when emerging religions dramatically changed the rituals of post – death body disposal. The moment these upstarts moved from entombing to burials and burning, it was curtains for the Mummies. The last few remaining Mummy elders decided to go into hibernation and wait for these new religions to die down and for entombing to make a comeback. They built grand monuments and tombs to protect their sleeping corpses from the ravages of time and theft. When human archaeologists discovered these tombs and disturbed their long-drawn sleep, a few of the irked Mummies bit them, thus giving birth to the Zombie clan. Since then, due to the relative ease of becoming a zombie, their clan had grown into the second largest population group on Earth after humans. Their most potent growth agents are babies that bite. Go figure!
Part 2: The problem
Kuber Batra looked at U.N.Dead. The zombies were usually the quiet sorts. Didn’t cause much trouble, and focused mostly on growing their business, and of course, their population.
He was quite surprised to see them summon a gathering. “That’s new,” he muttered to himself.
“And what is your reason?” He said out loud.
“Our population levels are falling,” the Zombie leader replied without preamble, “and it’s because of you.”
Kuber was suddenly alert. This was new. He looked around at the other participants. Duke Fang Bloodsipper of the Vampire clan and Mr. Carver Tenderbite of the Cannibal clan were looking intently at him. All three clans were parasites, dependent on the human population for growing and sustaining their populations. His grandfather, Kabir Batra, had arrived at a delicate agreement between the species after centuries of unbridled warfare and hidden atrocities had decimated their population. It followed a delicate system of quotas, conversion rates, geographical bounds and so on. It ran into three whole volumes and had taken a decade to negotiate. He did not want to be the one holding the chair when that system unraveled.
“And from looks of everyone, I assume, you all are facing the same issue?”
Duke Fang Bloodsipper and Mr. Carver nodded in assent.
“And given you all have clearly had communications in private, I assume you have identified the root cause as well?” All three nodded in assent. “Care to enlighten me? And please keep it brief,” Kabir said looking at his watch.
At this all of them looked at the Duke by default. The Vampires were among the oldest and most noble of the non- human races. Besides, Duke Bloodsipper was articulate, immaculate and, from what the human secret service said, very bitey.
Duke Fang, dressed in a cape that went out of fashion two centuries ago, held a goblet of blood wine. He swirled it, sniffed it, took a sip and prepared to speak.
“We are victims of our own success,” the Duke replied.
After a minute of silence, Batra sighed, knowing this would be a long night as he knowingly walked into a trap the verbose Duke had clearly set up for him, “Care to elaborate?”
Duke Bloodsipper still swirling his blood wine, looked at his fellow council members and launched into his second favorite activity.
” You all, well most of you, would recall the tortuous negotiations of 1945 when after months of conversations, arguments, and a few, ahem, unfortunate incidents, we arrived at the Concord, which laid the foundations of peace and continued cooperation amongst the intelligent races occupying Earth. We decided not just on quotas, but also areas of key industrial activity and associated interdependencies to ensure continued peace and prosperity for all. And of course, we found the UN in parallel to prevent a repeat of the incidents that caused the war to erupt between the Vampire Reich and the rest of the world. The Concord has served us all well so far,” the Duke paused, ” and we believe will continue to serve us into far future as well.”
Batra heaved a sigh of relief at this pronouncement. While the humans were by far, the most powerful amongst all the intelligent races, the others were no weaklings, and a dissolution of the Concord would be cause for unwarranted loss of life on all sides.
“What then is the issue?”
“You all will recall that in 1989,” he paused suddenly and started again after a while. “Again, not you Batra, I think it was your uncle at the Malta Summit? Humans live such short dreadful lives.” Before Kuber could respond, the Duke continued. “Where were we? Oh yes, in 1989, on the sidelines of the Malta Summit between the US and USSR we struck a secret addendum to the Concord of 1945. An agreement, which ushered in 30 years of peace, prosperity, and growth on the planet.”
“Yes yes, the Portly Prosperity Pact, or the PPP, as we call it now,” Batra interjected. “The pact to spread obesity amongst humans for the collective benefit of all. What’s the issue with it?”
“Well, if I were to summarize, if we were to summarise, it’s been too successful,” the Duke said looking at his non- human compatriots. “What was supposed to be a managed event has grown into a full-blown, out of control, epidemic.” The Duke paused, looking at Batra expectantly.
“And why is that an issue? I thought easy availability of juicy, soft, tender humans was exactly what you all were looking for? Not to mention the substantial financial gains we all have made getting them there in an over-fed state in the first place?”
“Like I said, we’ve been too successful in this endeavour. I don’t presume to speak for the others but given our main goal in the PPP was not about obesity per se, but ensuring the availability of sweeter blood, the success has meant that most Vampires are suffering from tooth decay. We are literally being defanged due to excessive sugar in the human blood. No fangs mean, we can’t bite, and if we can’t bite, we can’t infect…err persuade folks to join our cause.”
“Hmm,” Batra said as he processed the information. “And what is the concern of the Zombies in this?”
“It’s the fat reserves. To put it simply, for a bite to be successful, you have to be able to infect the blood vein. But when they are hidden behind layers and layers of fat, the bite doesn’t really do much. Our bite failure rates are directly correlated with rising obesity levels in humanity.”
“Who knew!” Batra remarked even as he turned to Carver Tenderbite of the Cannibals. ” And what’s your issue?”
“Diabetes. Too much fat in humans means too much fat in Cannibals. We are suffering from our own mini epidemic of obesity and diabetes. As you know, we cannot resist biting into fat humans – there have been some cases of cannibalism within the cannibal clan,” Carver said as he puffed his cigar. “It has been a most unpleasant situation.”
“Well, the solution is simple, isn’t it? Stop the mass fattening of the human race. Go back to the Pre- PPP days. You don’t need me for that,” Batra remarked.
“And therein lies the problem,” the Duke reintroduced himself into the conversation. ” As you know the Malta Summit, also divided our areas of economic activity. The Vampires were to have a monopoly on technology, the Cannibals on food supplies, the Zombies on entertainment, and humans in pharma and medical sciences, with the rest being open to competition.”
“I am aware of it,” Batra said with a hint of impatience.
“The challenge is, our collective economic prosperity also hinges on keeping humans fat. The Cannibals have their network of fast food joints, food delivery services, and processed food to fatten people up and sweeten their blood. The zombies, through television, streaming services, and social media, ensure no one moves around much, and they stay soft making humans easy to catch and bite. The Vampires in turn develop the technology deployed by everyone else to make them fat and keep them there. Besides, the obesity epidemic has ensured that the human medical and pharma industries too, have grown into large empires of their own. If we are to stop doing all this, our economic system would collapse.” The Duke paused for a few seconds to allow Batra to absorb what he had just laid out. ” So, you see, and I know it’s ironic coming from a vampire, but we are in a classic, damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
The solution
It had been exactly three months since the last meeting. The Collective had disbursed to go back and mull on the potential solution to their problem. Well really, it was up to Kabir Batra to come up with a solution, given it was predominantly human obesity that was the cause. The others had already tried their own solutions, including opening fitness clubs, launching smart watches, making ‘thin’ the new sexy …but nothing had worked.
As the clock struck 3, they all sat down to begin the meeting. Kabir, as the chairman of the Collective, opened the meeting. As was his style, he skipped the pleasantries and jumped straight into the issue at hand.
“The issue, boiled down to its essence, is quite clear. Obesity in humans has reached epidemic proportions, which in turn is causing health and population pressures on the rest of you. We can’t do away with obesity as it will cause economic turmoil and defeat the very purpose of the 1991 Malta Summit PPP agreement. I have consulted and deliberated this extensively over the past few months and I believe we may have a solution at hand.” Taking a leaf out of the duke’s book, Batra paused for dramatic affect.
It was the Cannibal, Carver, who broke first. ” Well don’t just leave us hanging, tell us your solution!”
“It’s simple. We have developed powerful drugs that can control food cravings in humanity. Known as GLP-1s, through a complex combination of metabolic and hormonal controls, we are able to control hunger, and by extension diabetes and obesity in humans. Release this into the market and our issue dies with it.”
Carver and U. N. Dead reacted at once.
“If you kill hunger, it will be the end of the Cannibal businesses! Besides, you forget the main point, we need to keep people fat and juicy, at least some of them,” Carver said.
“Same with the Zombies, thin people are fit people. They would lose their addiction to media!” U. N. Dead interjected.
The two continued their protestations even as Batra looked at them with a bemused smile on his face. The vampire, Duke Bloodsipper, ever the observant one, saw the look on Batra’s face and intervened. “Gentlemen…and the rest. I believe Mr. Batra has thought of all angles to this, let him complete his thoughts.”
“Thank you, Duke. You are correct. The key is controlled distribution of the drugs. People can continue to consume as they do knowing that a solution for obesity and diabetes is available, thus, your businesses are not affected in any way. We will, however, regulate availability and prices through our capture of insurance companies to ensure supply is limited. Through trial and experimentation, we can arrive at the right levels of obesity ensuring the right proportion of a diabetes free, obese population. There you have it, continued consumption for preserved prosperity, with regulated outcomes for preserved populations. In simple terms my dear committee members – we will fatten them up, and then make them spend money to thin down again. Exactly the way we want it.”