I follow the flashing green floor arrows to the first aisle. Lo-Cal Extra is a massive, fluorescently lit warehouse space, the local store with a world of bargains, although these days, there are very few fresh items on the shelves and their world of bargains seems to be contracting. They gloss over weekly post-Brexit shortages of fresh products, rebalancing the empty shelves with a slow but steady expansion of Meal-Reps, supplements and processed junk food declaring that they are Low calorie, Lite, 0% or Free.
The Milton Diet is a story about a world not so far in the future where fat people are outcasts. Their food choices are scrutinised and verified and even the contents of their fridges are policed.
You know when people say they've hit rock bottom? Well this wasn't even half way there. What kind of worthless mean-spirited person am I? I meditate again, silently repeating my mantra and slowly feel the stress slip away. My mantra was given to me by a Transcendental Meditation guru and I cherished it for years as a one-off, tailored to me. You never divulge your mantra, she said, it's as personal a word as there could possibly be, it speaks to and nurtures your heart, soul and body. But that's a lie too, there's a list of mantra or is it mantrae? that match your age group. My guru had given me the wrong one, made me a 31-34 rather than a 25-30. The injustice of this pervades my thoughts and I can't switch my mind off to nothingness like she said you are supposed to. Her soft Irish lilt tells me to dip my virtual cloth in the fundamental goodness of the universe. Well there bloody well isn't any.
Cordelia Milton, The Milton Diet
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