New Employee 4

“Huff, huff, how, pant, is, gasp, this, wheeze, only 10 minutes?”

Cass panted and wheezed her way on the treadmill, trying to get in a workout she had done so many times before. The gym was quiet for a change this Sunday, and Cass was grateful for it. She did not want people to see how out of shape she had gotten.

It had been over four months since she had started working at Gluttco and in that time the bird had put on a substantial amount of weight, 61 pounds to be exact. The abundance of food did not help, but she had not been active in the slightest, relegated to sitting on her widening rear for most of the day as she processed numbers and had reports printed out for her boss. The pay may have been great but the lack of activity was taking it’s toll.

Worse, the hours were still longer than she expected and the staring at the screen all day gave her massive headaches, so much so that all she wanted to do after her shift ended was go home and try to rest (well, after having dinner first). This left her with no time to go to Mango-Fitness after work, and while she did try and get up early to go, it only resulted in her muttering something under her breath before hitting the snooze button to try and get a few more minutes of sleep before she got ready for work. All in all, the fitness obsessed go-getter was fading more and more from memory, replaced by a doughy fur who was giving in too all the temptations around her.

As she tried to jog, the bird felt her stomach grumble, almost demanding food. She tried to ignore it, but as she plodded along, the sounds got worse and worse, even through her sound canceling headphones. Finally, at the fifteen-minute mark, Cass could take it no more and gave up on her running.

“I’ll, wheeze, just, pant, have a snack. Once, once I get some food in me, I can keep going. What, whew, was I thinking, running on an empty stomach”, she asked herself as she hopped off the treadmill, her belly flesh wobbling as she did so.

She would just munch on the two “Gluttco” protein bars she had picked up at the vending machine from work Friday. Those would help her have the energy to get through a few more exercises.

She hoped.