Tabloids

“Breaking news at 6:00, Billionaire tech entrepreneur Pan Armington’s dirty secret revealed. You may know him as the mind behind home fusion reactors and media figurehead for clean energy; a man truly larger than life. But he likes it larger, much larger. After a hacker seised a few of his online accounts last week, it was found out that Mr Armington has quite the fetish for body expansion, and has been keeping it hidden for years. We cover more later.”

“That damn Cyndi Sydney!” Pan shouted as he smashed his glass of aged Bourbon on the floor. “Everyone knows she hires those hackers for that god damn tabloid of hers! The media is such a pain in the ass.” Within hours social media spread the story to every person by midnight. Cyndi’s tabloid had yet another hit story fueled on others sorrows and secrets. Work the next day was unbearable for Pan. Even driving to work was painful, keeping the top up on his bright yellow roadster didn’t help him not be noticed. People shouted and poked fun at almost every stoplight in the California traffic. When he walked through the front door of the Armington Corporation office, everyone went silent except for a few audible whispers. Bruce, one of Pan’s closest friends and a co-founder walked up. “How you feeling, buddy?” “This is my Hell.” Pan replied. “Well if you need to talk, you know where my office is” Bruce said as he walked away. Pan sighed. “I need a response” Pan thought. “I need to tell them my side, tell them my thoughts.” Pan walked to his office and started typing.

Dear internet sharers, button pressers, and general thing doers of the world, 

I thought bullying was done after highschool, but I guess I was wrong. Yes, Cyndi Sydney’s article that spread like wildfire last night contains truths, but that is not the problem here. The root problem is the fact that we all have this inability to accept everyone for who they are. The tabloid’s job is only bullying for money on a larger scale, and until we overcome our ability to find humor in the demise of others, will will remain nothing more than monkeys with sophisticated sticks. I got thick skin from fighting the oil companies, and I’m hoping its thick enough to make it through this one.

Thanks for your time,

Pan

“Well here goes nothing!” as he sent the post. Within an hour it was trending. The few good doers of the world said nice things, unfortunately the tabloids took is as more fuel for the fire. The meanest headline was Cyndy’s “Weirdo asks sympathy from world for weirdness.” The hate mail started to come in floods. “What did I do to deserve this!” Pan started to break down; and started to go a little crazy. “I’ll show them what they did to me. I’ll show them what they want to see.” Pan took a work truck home, stopping by an exit on the interstate to a corporate warehouse to pick up some supplies. “Prototype water gasifier 0.4, one of the failed ideas for fusion.” Pan took as much gas as the truck could hold and drove home. 

It was a few hours of setup, but Pan had everything ready in time. He sat down in front of the computer and started recording a video to be automatically uploaded to his media accounts. “Hello whoever still cares, you people have driven me to insanity. You would think people could overlook one thing about a person, instead of sharing my philanthropy, you share my weakest moments. So I am going to give you people something else to post. Behind me I have a failed protoype fuel for your fusion reactors that power your homes, cars, and everything else. You’ll see what it does.” With that, Pan opened the valve on the canister of prototype 0.4. 

Prototype 0.4 failed horribly for fusion; a heavy gas that reacted with water in its surrounding and changed it into steam at low temperatures. It would be useful at last though. A glass of water in the background started to bubble softly. Pan took a deep breath, coughed, and took another. His stomach began to rise. “You people couldn’t accept me, even after I gave you unlimited energy, and started charities with the money.” He took a heavy swig of whisky and another deep breath. “I thought the world was kinder than this, but everyone is still cruel as schoolchildren.” As he was talking, his belly started to grow at an alarming rate. He went from lanky to heavily bloated in only a minute. He took another deep breath to accelerate things. “I only wanted to make the world a better place, I hope the world forgives me for the following events” another deep breath, another swig of whiskey. It looked like a party ballon was under his shirt, slowly being inflated. Stretch marks began to form around his body; making his belly look like he was carrying twins. But it didn’t stop there. He began to shake mildly, as more pressure built inside his belly, now approaching the size of an exercise ball.

“Doesn’t anyone care!” he shouted to the camera, taking another swig of whisky. “all you people do is consume useless garbage, and I’m the one paying for it!” His body grew another six inches, as his oversized body started to tremble. His belly approached three feet across. “I said my skin was thick, I guess we’ll find out how thick it really is” he said with a saddened smirk. The inflation accelerated as he took another breath. Stretch marks now circumnavigated the weather balloon sized belly, the skin was stretched tight. He could not grow much more, but there was plenty more gas. He winced in pain, and finished the bottle of whisky. His thighs spread apart as his oversized belly filled the gap, still growing slowly as the gas pushed ahead. A light rumbling was emanating from the orb as he shifted awkwardly. The pressure kept building as he reached his critical maximum. He could feel his time was short. At five feet across, his belly creaked loudly from any small movements. “I hope the world is happy when I”

His thought was cut off as his over stretched skin burst violently like balloon left on compressed air. The room shook as the camera smashed against the back wall. The computer automatically posted the video world wide, and it spread fast. Cyndi’s tabloid was the first to see it, and needed the inside scoop. Media sources rushed to the scene, responding much quicker than any paramedics.

“Here we are at Pan Armington’s California Mansion at the scene where his video just went viral. No one knows what is currently going on inside the house, but we’ll be the first to know!” Cyndi started her celebrity news report from the sight of the mansion gates. What the media did’t realize is Pan set up the stock reserves of prototype 0.4 to release upon their arrival. The heavy gas filled the air around the house, as the press started to gag, Cyndi started to feel bloated. “Oh shit, cut the feed” she shouted to the cameraman. Unfortunately for them, Pan’s computer had hacked their video feed, his cameras surrounding the area were broadcasting the event now, regardless of their choice. The world needed to see this. Cyndi looked around, all the tabloid people were having the same reaction and starting to run away. Her belly protruded outward, moving from bloated to full term in only a short time. She panicked as she stood outside the house, too dumbfounded to move, and then started running. Her center of mass changed rapidly from the expansion though as she tripped and landed on her bloated stomach.

She thought that was the end, but her growing belly held. As she rolled over, she realized the same thing happened to much of the press. This would normally be a great story for her, but instead she could only incoherently scream and panic as stretch marks started to form over her body. Her belly looked like a beach ball forgotten on an automatic pump. She laid on the ground spread eagle, as her inflation accelerated and her belly filled the available space. She felt so tight, she had no idea how much more she could grow. As she looked around, one tabloid writer was much closer to the open valve. Her belly had already grown five feet in diameter as it detonated like a bomb.

“Holy shit I’m going to pop” Cyndi thought as she realized her fate. She bit her lip as the quivering orb attached to her body approached four feet across. Multiple explosions could be heard over the grassy yard as she laid in fear of the inevitable. Her belly started groaning loudly as she approached her limit. “I’m going to burst” she managed to shout as her taught skin exceeded the five foot mark and began to reach its elastic limit. The steam inside her grew rapidly, but her belly finally stopped at 6 feet across. She moaned as her body shook, and took one last gasp as her oversized belly exploded.