When Everyone is Skinny
An incomplete short story by Dan Ames, March 2011
Chapter 1
The fitness industry was, as expected, the first to disappear – not entirely, but so much so as to be completely unrecognizable – a mere waif of its former multi-billion-dollar glory. Who would buy elliptical machines, stair climbers, and workout videos now? The market for such things had, in five short years, come to look like the slide-rule market after the invention of the calculator.
Surprisingly, the advent of phenaprine had initially been a boon to the purveyors of fitness fads and exercise equipment megamalls. It was clear immediately that the new drug didn't work instantaneously, and indeed, a small boost from a piece of exercise hardware could make a huge difference in the speed at which an individual shed their unwanted weight.
The gyms across the country all began massive advertising campaigns including free membership drives and rapid weight loss promises that were, perhaps for the first time ever, not fabrications of false hopes.
Phenaprine was a wonder drug, no doubt about it. The concept behind it was simple – suppress the appetite using natural stimulants that targeted the endocrine system releasing just enough cortisol to make the individual both not hungry and happy about it. What could be better? The combination effect was more substantial than even the pharmaceutical companies could have imagined. Of course, the second miracle aspect to this miracle drug was the mere fact that it had appeared on the market in an un-patentable formula from the outset, thanks to the clever application of the MIT open source software license to the drug formulation itself by the discoverer, Jay Daniels.
A lot of people thought Jay was crazy to give away the license in the formula like so much Linux software, in this way, but Jay knew he had something amazing on his hands and was not about to let it become the sole dominion of a single corporation or big pharma conglomerate.
Chapter 2
How an assistant professor at a small medical college in Dallas became the Time Magazine “Man of the Year”, the People Magazine, “Conqueror of Obesity” and a worldwide phenomenon half superstar half savior, was something that amazed even Jay himself.
In retrospect the last 3 years of his life could barely be placed in any kind of m understandable context. If asked to reproduce a detailed timeline of the journey he had taken (or been taken upon) he would be hard-pressed indeed.
There was the original trip to Brazil – he remembered that experience like it was yesterday. The smells and sounds were overstimulating in a Disneyland Enchanted Tiki Hut kind of way. He remembered the thick smell of the heavy humid air and the way that the jungle canopy seemed to create a cathedral like ceiling overhead – that rose above him with no definite end of height. He remembered clearly meeting the Ukbai village chief and the feeling of relief that instantly overcame him when Onko wielded a smile rather than a weapon in that first extremely tense encounter.
The Brazilian authorities on native persons had warned Jay and his colleagues from approaching the village. This particular village was not on the “do not disturb” list of villages maintained by the Brazilian agency, but was still afforded general sensitivities and protections including a sort of Laissez-faire hands-off approach to interactions between the village and outsiders. The reasoning was effectively leave them alone and they will leave alone the ever-encroaching land developers. There was no actual fence surrounding the 41 square mile protected reserve belonging to the village, but the region was well mapped and clearly delineated as a protected corner of the jungle – specifically for the use of the Ukbai people.
Jay and his team – three medical students and two escorts provided by the Brazilian government at a hefty fee – had approached the outskirts of the reservation with great caution. Two large cases of tools, seeds and clothing were carried part way into the borders of the village territory and left sitting on the ground in a small opening in the jungle floor overnight. When the team returned the next morning – having camped a full mile outside of away from the gift cache, the cases were gone. A small stone mound left in its place.
Jay had been informed by Raul of the Brazilian Native Peoples agency that this technique had been used to make contact with the Ukbai people originally in the late 1980's. He was glad to see that the people of this tribe were still receptive to gifts from the outside. The next step would be to make a limited foray further into the reservation borders, leaving their own small rock mound and another gift – this time a set of knives – the type that are advertised on late night infomercials involving cutting through tin cans and tomatoes.
The set of knives was actually Myriam’s idea. She was a second year PhD student in the Nutrition and Food Science program at the University of Texas – Arlington, and was ever the practical and pragmatic team member. Myriam had been a major proponent of this trip and conducted much of the original research leading to the grant proposal to the National Science Foundation that ultimately facilitated it. Jay never heard about any particular promotion offered to the NSF program manager that green-lighted the original phenaprine expedition of discovery – though certainly it was warranted.
Another retreat back into the edges of the jungle near a small makeshift project office for the South American Development Company of Brazil gave the team a chance to ponder the implications of this visit and the possible outcomes of the expected encounter with the natives the following morning.
The morning quickly arrived and Jay unhappily discovered that he was not the first to arise as he had hoped, but was in fact the last. Myriam and the others were already moving around the small camp organizing breakfast and preparing for the certain excitement of the day by the time Jay emerged from his simple Coleman dome tent.
By 9:00 the team had finalized their morning preparations and were assembling for a final team meeting before beginning the 40-minute trek over the jungle underbrush along a small trickling stream to the border of the tribal preserve and then a to the small clearing they had chosen the day before for their second offering. There was palpable silence among the small group as they approached the space and looked to see if the knives had been taken. However, instead of relieving their communal tension, the site of the small mound of rocks, the missing set of knives and the view of the round wooden bowl of wild berries that now sat in its place created an eve greater sense of intensive importance to the moment.
Everyone on the team knew the significance of the exchange that had happened. The Ukbai people had accepted the offering and made an offering of their own in return. The berries – with their deep purple hue – were not particularly common in this part of the jungle and hence their presence here as an offering to the team was immediately recognized as a welcoming gesture.
Jay stepped ahead of his fellow team members and knelt in the mulchy jungle floor to inspect the bowl. He pushed a few of the berries around with his forefinger in a somewhat primal but clearly unnecessary check for anything untoward that might be mixed in with the simple but significant offering. After confirming to himself the clear meaning of the object before him, he turned and looked up at his team members, first to
Myriam, her short cherry chocolate hair tousled around her wide, blue eyes, and then to the rest of the team, the Brazilian guides included. Looking back at Myriam he gave a slight nod of his head and let a carefully considered half-smile creep up his face.
For the first time in what seemed like hours, breathing could be heard from the team. Shoulders were lowered, bodies turned and stretched and general relief settled over the group. Myriam was the second to move toward the veritable alter and crouched down in the mulch next to Jay. She rested a hand on his knee and as she gazed at the small offering of berries in the bowl before them.
“We did it.” she said, half under her breath. Jay just nodded.
“yeah,” I think so.
“So, now what?” It was Dave DuBois, the newest member of the research team and computer scientist turned wannabe archeologist.
Jay made the “shhh” sign with his finger on his lips. Dave had a way of being a little too loud at exactly the wrong moment. Jay attributed it to the iPod headphone syndrome that seemed to cause lots of kids Dave's age to talk louder than need be – even when disconnected from their sound systems.
The jungle had its own background noises that were clearly louder than any sound Dave could have made, but still it just seemed to Jay that this was a good time to keep things quiet. Jay stood up and moved toward the rest of the team, Myriam rose behind him.” OK, he said somewhat airily – subconsciously trying to blend in with the sound of the breeze shaking the jungle around him.
“Now we wait.”
Almost an hour passed and one by one the team members lowered themselves to their haunches – starting with the Brazilian guides who had learned from many years of passing through parts of the jungle that it was always better to be sitting on your feet, than sitting on your bottom when you're not sure of what creatures are creeping in the leaves and grasses below you. T
The other team members followed suit and together they looked to Jay like a collection of oddly placed garden gnomes that had somehow wandered from their picket fence yard. The Brazilians talked in low Portuguese voices and Myriam flipped pages in a notebook. David and Kasem – the Thai post-doctoral researcher in the group laughed quietly about some previous adventure on the prior day's hike through the jungle.
Jay scanned the trees in all direction looking for some sign of non-sequitur life. The Jungle was full of life – it seemed to live and breathe on its own. The trees and fines inhaling and exhaling a buzzing orchestra of sounds. But this wasn't the life Jaw as looking for. He was scanning for some sign of the life that had be taken the gifts and returned this bowl of berries.
Then he appeared. Stepping from behind the trees about ten yards in front of the team, a slight but sturdy man wearing a kind of grass loincloth, two black streaks of ashen paint across his forehead, and a machete held high above his head with both hands – as if about to slice a giant watermelon in two – emerged from the jungle. He stared at the small group of scientists and their guides and didn't make a sound or movement. The team held perfectly still – down low to the ground in a position that instinctively seemed to be the most non-threatening they could take.
The man held his position as well in a staring standoff that lasted for several moments. Jay made the first move – reaching out to the bowl of berries that sat on the small alter of stones before him and taking a berry in his hand. Without looking back up at that Okbai warrior, he placed the berry in his mouth. It was bitter and hard but he chewed it slowly and swallowed it with its small pit, still not looking back at the tribesman. Jay reached for a second berry and then passed the bowl to Myriam who did the same. The small wooden bowl moved through the team – each person taking a berry or two and eating it with a quiet respect and appreciation – knowing the work that undoubtedly had been expended to acquire this small gift.
Almost immediately, when the last was passed back to Jay, another figure appeared from somewhere further in the jungle. This man was taller and was fully clothed with Brazilian Gaucho-style pants and shirt unbuttoned to his midsection. Around his neck hung a variety of ornamentations and his hair was pulled back into a pony tail that reached down his back to his waist. He wore a kind of self-made animal skin sandals and carried a monkey skull in his right hand. In his left hand he carried another bowl – nearly identical to the one from which the team had just consumed the berry offering – and it too appeared to be full of the small purple fruits.
He turned and looked at the warrior behind him and made a small gesture with his head. The warrior gestured back. He was clearly a leader – though it would be later that Jay would understand that he was in fact the tribal chief of the Ukbai people. The man, who's name Jay would later learn was Onko, looked systematically to several other points in the foliage around the clearing, making similar nods and gestures to an apparently invisible army of others – perhaps like the warrior – out of site but clearly surrounding the clearing.
Jay tensed as he realized how many eyes had apparently been watching him and his team undoubtedly all morning.
Onko approached the center of the clearing and, identifying Jay as the leader of the small band, held out the second bowl of berries toward him – making a motion that indicated to Jay that he should stand up. Jay slowly arose to his feet and with a slight bow of his head, accepted the second bowl. It was then that Onko smiled. The moment was magical for Jay and indeed would never be forgotten. Here was a man who had never held a cell phone, never watched T.V. , never browsed the web, never even flipped on a light switch and yet he had every bit as much right to live on this earth as the President of the United States. He was, after all, a human being – his broad, closed mouth smile making this amply evident to Jay and his research team.
They stayed in the village for a week. This seemed to be the right amount of time to gather the information which Jay and his colleagues sought, and for which the NSF had funded the expedition. And it was clear that any longer would have been seen by the tribal people – Onko included – as a wearing out of their welcome. At first the people had been reluctant to help Jay and his team find the sources of the foodstuffs that they were preparing and eating, but by the third day, a number of roots, plant fibers, small fruits (though no more of the offering berries), and mushroom like plants had been collected into individual plastic zipper bags and then into larger duffle bags that the team had brought with them into the village.
By their sixth day in the village they Jay determined it was time to leave and organized his team with their small backpacks that had sustained their needs during the stay in the village, as well as two medium-sized duffle bags filled with plant specimens – the finding of which was the very purpose of the trip.
About thirty members of the village, several women and children included, gathered near the footpath leading into the dense jungle and ultimately back to the team's base camp. The Brazilian guides lead the way, followed by Kasem and David. Myriam knelt in the jungle underbrush to give a pat on the head to a young girl she had befriended through the week, and, after receiving an approving nod from the girl's father, placed a small silver necklace around her neck.
Myriam stepped down the footpath, following her colleagues. Jay was the last to leave. In the past several days he had mastered the art of the partial head nod that the Okbai people used as both a silent “hello” and somber “goodbye”. He looked to some of the men in the group and nodded at each. Finally, he turned to Onko and nodded, for which he received another semi-grin from the tribal leader. With that, Jay retreated into the jungle, following the sounds of feet crunching through decaying bark and other components of the thick jungle floor.
Jay never returned to the village again – though he often wondered how he could possibly explain to Onko the global change that had occurred as a result of that brief encounter.
Chapter 3
It wasn’t a lightning strike of inspiration, but it wasn’t the result of the typical big pharma decades-long research and development activity. Rather the theory, hypothesis, and brief set of experiments that led to the discovery of phenaprine were developed and conducted as part of the regular mundane day to day happenings of a typical research laboratory in a small Texas university. The Brazilian expedition which led to collecting the right combination of local plant extracts was certainly a highlight of the NSF-funded research project.
The proposal had been simple: find the healthiest people in the world and learn something about their diet. The Brazilians had kept meticulous records on the native peoples in the forest for decades – some argued that the data..
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The beginning of a short story I started in 2011
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DALL-E image prompt: A post-apocalyptic scene on the outskirts of a dilapidated city. In the background is the city. In the foreground is a green field with hundreds of skinny people of different races milling about. Digital art style.