Heart of Chocolate

I entered the building and the quiet hum of an omnipresent air conditioner greeted me with its

whir. When I entered, I used the opportunity to look around. In the back the words “Choc Health Club

– Where the fat slides right off,” were embossed in blue on a large placard, proclaiming the building's

raison d'etre. As far as the eye could see, the room was filled with rotund, red men and women, huffing

and puffing as they waddled shabbily from one station to the other, and engaged themselves in various

forms of hand flailing and leg jerking. Each seemed to have a round face and a rounder belly, and each

step seemed to cost these round things a great deal.

I walked over to a large counter that dominated my view, which could be none other than the

front desk. When I neared the counter, I saw what I first thought was some sort of a mirage. A

physically solid man with a well chiseled physique sat rigidly in a swivel chair, wearing an immaculate

suit – starched collar, pressed suit, and all. His fingers were furiously dancing across the keyboard of a

computer which he sat in front of, and he constantly exchanged glances with a paper he had placed to

the right of the keyboard. His physique hardly suited the work he seemed to be engaged in, enough to

make me doubt my eyes for more than a second.

I exchanged a few words with the man, and learned that he was the gym's head accountant. The

man himself was hardly worth a memory, and yet he distinguished himself. Not only did I learn about

that man from the accountant, but also I found a deep respect this accountant, who despite the physical

depravity of his clientelle, managed to keep a perfunctory appearance. “So, you're Marsh E. Mallow,

are you, the new dietitian? Well, be on your way now, you have a lot to see. On the first day, new

employees must take a tour of the facility, and get a feel for the general clientèle. Well, goodbye,” and

with that, he returned back to his work. But something pushed at him to look back at me, and he did.

“Inside the building, you will undoubtedly meet Mr. Kurdz.” On inquiry about Mr. Kurdz, I learned

that he was a high ranked dietitian. When I gave no reaction to his words, the accountant pulled himself

away from his computer, stood up, and looked me gravely in the eye. “Kurdz is an incredible man, the
stuff of legends. He makes more profit than all of the entrepreneurs make put together. Him and his

smoothies.” The accountant then motioned me to a picture hung on the wall to the side of his desk.

“Wey N. Kurdz – Employee of the Month” the caption read, and above it was a picture of a muscled,

thoughtful man, with a bushy mustache. I shook my head, and could not help but wonder what sort of a

man this Kurdz was.

I made my way further into the building, when I came upon a curious man who kept spying at

the employees and the clientèle, and walking circles around the gym's equipment. The man himself, his

actions, and his words seemed less than remarkable, but he possessed in himself a certain quality that

made the men around him profoundly insecure, leaving everyone around him constantly questioning.

When I learned that he was the Franchise Manager, I quickly understood why his disconcerting air

made him a successful figure of authority.

When I talked to the Manager, he, like the Accountant, bid me to explore the store, in hopes of

“broadening my view” from that of a regular gym. Inadvertently, he hit upon the topic that had so

excited the Accountant, the topic of one Mr. Kurdz. “So, the Accountant told you about Mr. Kurdz huh?

Kurdz is the best man we have. He puts in more profit than all the other entrepreneurs put together, but

then the entrepreneurs are a dying sort themselves. He's destined to go up, Mr. Kurdz is. In a few

months, he will become Assistant Franchise Manager, and then ...” the Manager bit his words off,

obviously hinting at his meaning. He once again bid me hurriedly off, and he went back to his job of

aimless surveillance and haphazard loping.

I had nothing better to do at this point but reflect upon my current situation and this Mr. Kurdz

that I had been told of all morning, as I walked further into the building. Choc Gym was a new sort of

gym, a place where entrepreneurs would sit themselves and sell health goods to the gym goers, in an

attempt to create the healthiest, best-tasting nourishment of all. The founders of Choc Gym believed

that the very nature of the competition would produce the most salient product. Among this, Mr. Kurdz

seemed to have launched himself into a spot of legends, and destined himself for power and glory.
 Later in the day, as I was inspecting the entrepreneur shops near the treadmills, I once again saw

the Manager, this time talking to another man. The Manager finished the talk, and began once more to

circle the area in his seemingly-futile rounds. I took the opportunity to go up to the man the Manager

had been talking with.

The man introduced himself to me as the Safetyman, whose job it was to make sure that our

clientèle did not put themselves in harm's way. Curiously, however, the Safetyman seemed to be

spending more time watching the various entrepreneurs and the lines of customers that had formed in

front of their shops. As we began conversing, once more the topic of Kurdz sprang up.

“Just who is this Kurdz?” asked I in an inquisitive manner. “Kurdz? Why, he is a great man,

unlike any entrepreneur this gym has ever known. This,” he said as he pointed to a picture on the wall

“is but a sample of the genius of Kurdz”. On the picture was a routine that described a cross-training

workout. Each segment of the workout pointed to a single machine in the gym, and each was precisely

timed. Even the time and energy required to walk from one station to the next had been figured in.

Suddenly, the Safetyman handed me a clipboard he was carrying on him with a stack of papers. “This is

also by Kurdz” he said. The first page on the clipboard was a detailed analysis of the entire gym and

each machine, the amount of energy taken to operate a machine, the target heart rate of the machine's

user, the amount of energy burned through in its usage, and its net decrease in body mass. Each figure

seemed precisely calculated, precisely figured. “So influential is Kurdz, that the Administration has

listened to his suggestion on the placement of machines in the gym, and the recommended usage for

each. Kurdz has profoundly affected the way this gym is run, and he is destined for the top.” said the

Safetyman. Then, the Safetyman set his gaze upon me, and narrowed his eyes in seeming malice. “But

you too are of his kind,” he said, “not just a mere entrepreneur, but a learned man, who understands

nutrition.” At this, the Safetyman walked away. As I too began walking away, I spied the Safetyman

furtively talking to a rival of the earlier entrepreneur, motioning towards the earlier entrepreneur in

what could be none other than subterfuge. “Just who could this Kurdz be!” I wondered heatedly. The
answer was soon to come.

When I made myself to the farthest corner of the store, located in the very back, I saw a huge

line of round, pudgy things. The very length of the line set me off on what was about to come – this

was Kurdz. I walked closer to the booth that was shrouded by this mass of people, and from a distance,

I caught my first real glance of Mr. Wey N. Kurdz.

The real Kurdz was short, and porky. His head was covered in a thin tuft of wispy blond hair,

and his face gleaned with sweat. His stomach protruded outwardly from his body so as to arch his back

forward, sloping his forehead along with it. His cheeks were ruddy and covered in sporadic shoots of

hair, and his mustache was unkempt and rangy.

Kurdz's face also seemed to be dominated by a certain crestfallen darkness. His eyes seemed to

lack the sheen of a healthy man, and his face seemed rumpled. He huffed and puffed as he diligently

poured the ingredients for his smoothie into a blender and set it to blend, upon which he once more

began collecting ingredients, preparing his next smoothie. Beside him was a fat man in a thin t-shirt

and shorts, who seemed to be looking at Kurdz's direction.

When I approached the counter and hailed Kurdz a greeting, he did not respond. There was little

surprise however, as the din of the blender and the intensity with which Kurdz was working in blocked

me from his consciousness. Instead I began talking to the fat man beside him, who went by the name

Belarussian.

As the line thinned, the Belarussian told me tales about Kurdz. Kurdz loved making smoothies,

it turned out, he loved giving people a nutritious yet delicious beverage, and loved even more the

money that he would make by selling the smoothies. Kurdz would wax endlessly about the importance

of bringing healthy food to the masses. So the Belarussian had asked Kurdz about the dietary bases of

the smoothies, but Kurdz had gone wild on the Belarussian and threatened him of stealing Kurdz's

money. He told me about the ingredients that Kurdz used – sugar, butter, cream, full fat milk. I gasped.

None of these ingredients seemed healthful.

genius like no other.” Kurdz was also very ill, it turned out, and he had come to work today for the

good of the gym members. Finally, the Belarussian lapsed into silence as we watched the last satisfied

customer leave Kurdz's line. With the customer gone, a look of intense exhaustion came over Kurdz,

and he vaulted over and collapsed, overtaken by his effort.

The Belarussian lunged forward and caught Kurdz, placing him flat on the floor. I hurriedly

picked up the phone next to Kurdz and called 911.

In his slumber, Kurdz talked to himself. “For the good of the people's health, health ... more

money!” he mumbled. On his desk, he had left a pamphlet open. I scanned the first few pages as I

waited, and found it to be a manual addressed to the Didactic Depository of Deliberating Dietitians

about a method of holistic body mass reduction. However, on the last page of the pamphlet, scrawled in

pencil, was a line “Feed all the fat people!” Reading the last line made it clear in my mind. Kurtz had

corrupted himself. He had come, with great ideals and morals, to help the portly get into shape, but the

profit motive had changed him, into a creature who did whatever he could for money. I shook my head.

In the distance, I saw a small, fat man walking toward the direction of the counter. His round

buttocks jostled in his gym shorts as he walked tortuously towards the counter. From him emitted a

wave of musty, overwhelming body odor. As the body odor washed over Kurdz and I, in his sleep,

Kurdz's face contorted into a horrific form, and the color further drained from his face. “The Horror,

The Horror.” he rasped and jerked his limbs. Not wanting to wait for the full assault of the pudgy man's

presence, I quickly ran in this moment of epiphany, staring at the smoothie the pudgy man was

enjoying, Kurds' own creation, the Heart of Chocolate.