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ecotone99 · 4 years

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[MF] Bertil’s Belly

The Disappearing Willy

One morning his willy disappeared. Bertil pondered on this illusion and tried an old and reliable trick: to pull in his belly and at the same time bend forward. Bertil could now see the pee stream a bit better, but his willy remained unseen. Slightly panic-struck, Bertil suddenly remembered a chapter of Seinfeld, in which George tried justifying his willy’s miniatureness by referring to “the shrinkage”, which, according to him, occurred in cold temperatures. Bertil didn’t, by any means, want to be associated with this George, but for now he felt the explanation could suffice. Suddenly, Bertil remembered how hot he felt the night was and that he was actually covered in sweat. He began desperately to search for a different explanation for his willy’s mystical vanishing below his belly, and turned in his mind his mental wheel of fortune which spun slowly, passing subjects like the relativity theory, the climate change, the urbanisation and the middle- east conflict, and landed finally on the phase of the moon – the good old explanation that helped him so many times before when he wondered over other mystical and unexplainable phenomena.

The Boys

Bertil’s belly was white and bulky. Not totally unlike his wife’s – when she was in her fifth or sixth month. The belly hadn’t always been that big as it was now, nor that hairy. Something must have happened, thought Bertil. Maybe it had to do with the climate change?

It was a warm and humid day out in the archipelago. Such a day in which one thought it was actually fun to live in Sweden – though one has to spend eleven dark, cold months waiting for these warm and humid days. Imagine sitting on the pier, drinking tepid beer and feeding the mosquitoes. Didn’t everything feel enjoyable and uncomplicated? Then there were all those folks who obviously felt they had to share their joy, preferably via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever the other ones were called. There should be photos of the wine that waits at the balcony, of the newly manicured toe nails with corresponding feet on the beach chairs, or of the children diving into the sea – in order to better ones position in the annual competition against the other nine million Swedes, in the category named “Who’s having most fun right now”.

Bertil sighed and tried relaxing a bit and thinking about nicer things than bellies, mosquitoes and Facebook. Perhaps the match could have a tranquillising effect. That was the second reason (the first one being the heat) to Bertil’s belly being naked and visible for anybody who would like to enjoy the view (yeah, they’d probably soon stand in a long looping queue, thought Bertil). Bertil spent namely the whole morning together with the boys on the lawn outside the small cabin, chasing a small football. Unfortunately, this ball suffered from an illness which caused a permanent lack of air pressure, even if one blew in it until the pump coughed and proclaimed gently that it couldn’t cope anymore and that one, if necessary, could come back Monday to Friday between nine and five o’clock. But it was sure fun, all running and shoving and trying to kick the poor ball between the boots that made up the goal. And Bertil scored one actually. Or rather almost, according to the boys who whined that “it was half a meter off!”, “maybe uncle needs glasses?” and so on. Aren’t we all bad losers, contemplated Bertil.

Running and running, by the way. There wasn’t too much of this happening anymore. Early on in his life Bertil could run a half marathon, almost. Thereafter the boys called him “Martil” for six months or so. But now there was less and less running. And in football too he became a more of a “set play-kind of guy” in later times. Bertil cursed the climate change once again and took a slurp from the tepid flat beer.

The boys: this group consisted of his bigger brother Benjamin (aka Skilled Benny), his little sister Berit and of course Bertil himself. Their mom had a fetish for names beginning with a B. For a long time sister Berit did try fighting this unjust grouping, partly because she obviously wasn’t a boy, neither in sex or age, and partly because she bore a grudge to her bigger brothers since early age and in school always told anyone who cared to listen that these guys weren’t really her family, but far-off relatives, such that Darwin’s evolution should have taken care of a long time ago. But at the end she grew up and finally realised that it wasn’t worthwhile trying to correct her mother every time she called the boys to come down and eat, or hurry up boys, it’s time to go to the mall for our weekly shopping.

Skilled Benny, who got his nickname early on when he became diaper-free already at the age of one and a half, spend his life continuously chasing for more reasons for his name. These consisted of excelling grades in school, numerous medals and trophies that hanged neatly on the wall in his room at home (now they hang on the wall in the guest room in his villa) and of his tenacious blowing in the damned oboe which he practiced one hour every evening since he was seven. A rehearsal studio apparently didn’t seem adequate for Skilled Benny, since then his parents could not hear how skilled he actually was, and the boys would do better to not only bear with the whistling misery, but even listen and enjoy the delicate music, thought their mom, and stop whining all the time.

Nine years ago, since the boys started conceiving their own children, the boys group extended to contain these offspring as well. First off, and in correct order, was Skilled Benny’s turn, together with his skilled wife Lea, to produce a little skilled boy named Bo (“A good-old name beginning with a B”, enjoyed Skilled Benny’s mother, “Isn’t he just skilled?”). Bo was now nine years old and as skilled as his parents. Then there was number two, Björn, a brother to Bo. Björn reached seven now, and has had the honor to be somewhat less skilled than his bigger brother, a good-old tradition that even his uncle Bertil had adopted. His skilled parents, Skilled Benny and Skilled Lea have a difficult time understanding Björn’s negligence with everything he does, or why he can’t learn a bit more from his bigger and more skilled brother, and try a bit harder. Björn is Bertil’s favourite member of this family. He feels an affinity towards him; that they are both members of the honoured club of “less skilled second children who should learn from their bigger brothers”.

Sister Berit’s five-year-old son David is a given member among the boys, even though his name doesn’t begin with a B. Rebellious as she was, sister Berit dared stepping not only one, but even two letters away. Boldly done, thought Bertil and told that to his sister, who in turn threatened to return to calling him Martil if he even looked at her direction again. By doing so, Berit multiplied the number of words she usually uttered to Bertil, which more than often was none other than “shut up”.

But Bertil actually likes David. He feels that in Berit’s family’s case, one had skipped the first, skilled child and went directly over to the second one, who was a bit more slack. That made Bertil’s belly fill warm and fuzzy.

Finally, Bertil deems that his five-months-old little daughter Liv would have to join the boys tribe when she grew up a bit. Bertil suspects that she cannot escape this destiny, and that she probably is going to have a bit of a struggle understanding the logic behind this strange grouping, but after she’ll get to know the rest of the family she would probably, just like the others, simply give up.

Adrenalin

Sister Berit was so furious she wondered if there’s such a thing called an adrenalin poisoning and if so, if she was on her way to get it. She had had this feeling many times before in her life, especially close to her family, and felt that a week out in the countryside together with the boys was like an attempt to treat the allergy by overexposure, which up until now hadn’t shown any effect.

Skilled brother Benny was, just like he always was, skilled. He cooked, played with the kids, chopped the firewood, and won the card game – though he kindly remarked how well everybody else played and that it was simply so that he happened to have luck on his side. Finally, he tried taking over the washing-up from Berit by proclaiming that “you’ve already done so much, let me do the dishes instead.” Gruesome person, thought Berit, and gave him one of her special-designed murder gazes. When she finally found a place which was a bit more seceded from the rest of the family, and totally Bertil-free, she wanted to stay there as long as possible – maybe until the damn week was over. She uttered two more words to Skilled Benny in case her gaze didn’t have the proper effect. It was two small words which she often used in her discussions with her family members and which summarised all her thoughts and feelings so well. She said: “shut up”.

Bertil. This monkey of a brother she had to withstand for so long. She couldn’t possibly count all the annoying things about him, it would take a lifetime. Perhaps it was easier to count the ones that weren’t so annoying. His daughter, perhaps. The rest was unbearable.

She’d tested many different strategies with Bertil. She ignored him, contrived alternative nicknames for him, such as Monkey-Bastard and Pork-Bert, she promised herself to only utter a single word to him per week, and that this word would be an insult. She thought that in the end he would stop commenting over things she did or even worse, try to discuss things with her. But it didn’t help. His thick head was simply impenetrable for the message she so desperately tried sending to him. A message that was so simple and consisted of two simple words, namely “shut up”.

Berit called to her son, David, and said it was late now, and time to brush his teeth and go to bed. David didn’t want to. He said he was actually playing with uncle Bertil and was having so much fun right now, and why must he brush his teeth, and that he didn’t want to go to sleep at all. Berit’s face turned red. She didn’t know what was most annoying: that David played with Monkey-Bastard, that he called him his uncle, or that he...she didn’t want to think about it...it wasn’t like that...shit...

He reminded her of him.

Her son. Reminded her of Pork-Bert. She wanted to die. She wanted to scream. But now she finally realised what it was that was so wrong with the world. It was this damn irony. That henceforth she would always think of Bertil when she’d look at her son. What a frickin nightmare, thought Berit.

Deep Insights

Bertil sat inside the cabin in the countryside, played Yatzy with the boys, and looked outside the window at the large raindrops that destroyed yet another great football match. And one in which he cunningly and with great skill, finesse and dash made one goal and a breathtaking assist.

By continuously taking the wrong decisions (a four of a kind is not a problem at all, right?) and to the boys amusing cheering, Bertil managed to get an all-time-low record in the last game. But the truth was that Bertil wasn’t that concentrated on the boring game. He sat there instead and counted the cons and pros of being out there in the countryside, and grouped these according to his own secret logic:

Things that wanted Bertil’s blood: mosquitos, tics, horseflies, wasps and the boys – this group was definitely a minus.

Things one wouldn’t do at home: walk all day with bare belly, play football, grill several days in a row without his wife protesting, chop firewood, take a swim – easy, a plus.

General bad stuff: damn Yatzy, rain, constant mingle with younger boys’ generation, constant mingle with older boys’ generation – a striking minus with a star on the edge.

General good stuff: the heat (well, kinda), Liv’s grandmother that by own accord offered to take care of the little one’s diapers, to sit and drink with the boys all night, to avoid work – a plus with three fat stars on the edge

The sleeping factor: at home, one can, under the best circumstances, on weekends, make it until 7:45 AM. Thereafter there is too much noise and bad vibes if one stayed in bed. In the countryside, there are grandparents and other volunteers who willingly take care of small children and their mothers, which makes way to persistent sleeping right until the day's most delightful time: lunch.

Bertil threw the dice and got five sixes in the very first roll. No, he realised, it was just in his fantasy. Actually, he got a pair of ones, a three, a four and a five. Bertil saved the ones and again threw the damn three, four and five two more times. This summed to a pair of ones, that is, two points. Stupid game, thought Bertil.

Later Bertil felt a sudden need to share his deep insights on Facebook. He looked in his mobile phone, browsed through all the dishes, the wine bottles and the swimming kids which his friends thought would be good for him to see, and posted the following status update:

Countryside wins with 3-2. Sleeping factor clinched the deal

Boxer

Skilled Benny thought the whole deal with being skilled and all was quite silly. He did not, by any means, feel more skilled than anyone else. If anything, he felt he constantly must exert himself to achieve anything in this world – nothing came free. If there was any difference between himself and his siblings, thought Skilled Benny, then perhaps it was that they didn’t always strain themselves that hard.

Sister Berit. From the moment he saw her for the very first time, Skilled Benny thought the baby was the sweetest and most beautiful person he’d seen in his life, and promised himself to always take care of her, protect her and help her with everything he could. But she grew up and became angry. He had a hard time understanding why, and decided, as always, to try harder. He tried talking to her about what it was that was troubling her, and tried assisting her with her chores and with her homework, but always got her wicked gazes and that word pair she started using as an answer for everything. This “shut up”. But Skilled Benny did not get his nickname because he was used to giving up when small concerns occurred. Nothing that he earlier got himself into could stop him when Skilled Benny had made up his mind. He would not give up that easy.

Skilled Benny’s role model was Boxer the workhorse in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Boxer’s phrase “I will work harder” was like a motive in Skilled Benny’s life, and he knew that he himself must do his best and that nobody else would do it for him. But unlike Boxer, Skilled Benny realised that the pigs were not to be trusted, and therefore not abide to Bertil’s constant attempts to manipulate him.

And Bertil tried. First there were small things, like when they had to tidy their common room and Bertil suddenly got a toe-ache or a stomachache, and Skilled Benny gladly took over the task and cleaned the room for both of them. Later, Bertil changed his tactic and instead used reverse psychology, which, Skilled Benny must admit, worked on him quite often. Like when Bertil said that the lawn mower was broken and that maybe we could ask the neighbour if we could borrow hers. Then Skilled Benny picked up a screwdriver and some oil, fixed the machine and mowed all the grass while he was at it. Or when Bertil claimed that the grill wouldn’t light and that the lighter fuel was drained, and that the sausages were good to eat even though they were cold. Then Skilled Benny picked up his scout skills, managed to fix the glow with a single match and grilled the meat. Later on, Skilled Benny learned how not to fall into Bertil’s traps. He decided to help Bertil deal with things instead of manipulating others to do them for him.

That’s how his siblings, Bertil and Berit, became Skilled Benny’s hardest nut to crack. He decided to work even harder.

Loranga

Berit woke up slowly on the bed in the cabin, where she lay and drowsed a little in the afternoon. Still dozing she heard a well-known voice:

His name is Masarin and he’ s quite strong, about as strong as one usually is in his age. Otherwise there is nothing special about him, he eats buns and reads comic books and walks around like one usually does. (1)

Berit was still half-sleeping, and the story took her back to her childhood. It was pleasant to hear such an old and well-known tale. But some questions begun racing in her head. Which book was it, actually? And who was reading it for whom? The voice continued:

Then one takes a right turn and enters the kitchen. There, everything is red. The cupboards and the stove and the curtains and the plates. And the table is round and red, and under the table lays quite a bulky and lazy dad.

It was her son David who was lying on the bed, and beside him was Björn, Skilled Benny’s younger son. Both lay there and gazed at the ceiling. Across from them, on the other side of the bed, sat the storyteller and read on:

He is apparently the only thing in the kitchen that is not red, he is more orange, like Loranga. His name is Loranga too! Oh, Loranga is a great dad, he doesn’t care about anything.

Bertil! It was Bertil who read for the children! Berit became wide-awake at once, stood up and looked around at her surroundings: Bertil, David, Björn, Loranga, Masarin and Dartanjang. They all glared at her with astonishment and she realised that maybe it had to with her violent arm waving and screaming. She understood what was about to happen: Bertil was training David and Björn in Loranga technique! If she didn’t take immediate action they would grow up and become like him: fat and lazy white trash. He was assembling a slacker alliance with the younger boys, in order to turn them against her! NO! THIS IS FREAKING ENOUGH! THIS ENDS RIGHT NOW!

Berit took David’s hand and dragged him and her half-packed bag towards her car. They drove straight home. This week in the countryside was more than she could take. Her son would not grow up and become a new Loranga or Bertil. Over her dead body!

(1) Loranga, Masarin och Dartanjang is a book by Barbro Lindgren about a kid named Masarin, his lazy father, Loranga, and his hypochondriac grandfather Dartanjang. Every Swede knows this book by heart. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the translation of this book so I’m doing my best here to try translating these parts on my own.

The Steaks That Went Astray

In the evening, well home from the countryside, Bertil’s family sat on the sofa and watched TV. Or rather his wife did, the little one slept, and Bertil sat with his Apple (which he called his Mac laptop) in his lap and surfed purposelessly. There was some kind of culture show on, in a public channel in which someone talked excitingly about how the Americans thought the Swedes were insane. Bertil did not listen that carefully, but grasped some flying-by words such as “public”, “transparent” and “self- regulating”. Due to some strange circumstances, these words found their way into Bertil’s subconscious and started to mingle with the natives, who in turn introduced themselves as “steaks”, “barbecue”, “climate change” and of course “belly”. After they hang-out with each other for a while, the words decided to build a cooperation in order to advance together, climb to a higher ground, and accomplish that, which for them was like reaching nirvana, and for Bertil was otherwise known as conscious thoughts. What all that resulted in was that Bertil started thinking about dinner.

Bertil grilled as many steaks as he could fit in the gigantic grill he got for his birthday earlier that spring. When he later arrived with the overfull tray at the table, his wife wanted only a small one. Bertil ate three, and then thought that it was so hot he had to remove his shirt if he was to manage eating further. But when he then sat down again to continue eating, something strange happened which made him stop abruptly. His gentle wife sat, and glared at his belly with a gaze that tried to tell him something. What was it she wanted? Bertil tried deciphering the message and consequently lost his appetite. The whole lot of steaks had to be thrown to Bertil’s great annoyance, though the gaze mystery remained unsolved.

One might think that the newly established word cooperative would be satisfied with what it accomplished: reminding Bertil about dinner. But that wasn’t the whole story. Once they got the taste of their success, the words could not simply lie down and take it easy. Instead they decided to gather their forces and charge one more time. Bertil got, consequently, an urge to explain for his Facebook audience about his newly found knowledge. He posted the following status update:

If more people would eat with bare bellies, perhaps everybody would be a bit slimmer

The Facebook Scale

At lunchtime the following day, Bertil checked Facebook again and discovered that yesterday’s status update reached a record of five in the Facebook scale. Bertil had devised a way to measure a status update’s popularity on Facebook, according to the following formula:

𝑆 = L/𝐹 × 10

...where S was the Facebook scale, L was the number of likes and F the total number of friends one had. Bertil wanted to use the magical number π in the equation, but gave up once he realised it would be too complex to explain it to all those who would wonder why.

According to the uncomplicated formula, if one had circa 40 friends in Facebook, which was exactly what Bertil had, it would take twenty likes to achieve the scale of five, which, as said before, was the case. Bertil had never before reached higher than a two, which could explain why he now walked happily and sang cheerful songs to himself and smiled discreetly and thought how philosophical he was and how great he was at inspiring his friends.

In the evening the scale rose to 16, that is to 64 likes. Furthermore, there were 27 comments and 8 sharings. Bertil’s ten-grade scale hadn’t apparently taken into consideration the fact that people tend to share things they thought were amusing. His suggestion now grew wings and was spread all across Facebook among his friends, his friends’ friends, as well as some of their friends. Among the comments one could read that several of these friends liked the suggestion, and wondered where he found the inspiration to the idea. A few photos could also be found among the comments, of a bunch of friends and even whole families who sat around the table with bare torsos and ate lunch or dinner. Bertil answered that it was the public service TV show which carried the blame. While listening to the show he could hear, he explained, that transparency leads to increased awareness, which in turn leads to self-regulation. All that was then needed, wrapped Bertil up, was to apply the whole thing to yesterday’s grill dinner, in which his wife’s gaze got him to lose his appetite briskly.

The following day the number of likes and comments tripled. Bertil decided that he must practice what he preached, and ate his dinner with bare belly. Bertil's self-preservation skills told him it was best not to suggest his well-formed wife to do the same. She didn’t need to: she was as thin as a stick.

Headlines

Berit was in a hurry. She was late. She had to pick up David from kindergarten but was late due to delays in the subway because of something she didn’t apprehend. Was it something to do with the heat? On her way from the city center to the kindergarten she saw the tabloids’ headlines, which with small variations and large letters told of the new diet. Something along the lines of “LOSE WEIGHT WITH THE NEW SYB DIET”. Berit was just about to dismiss that as just another case of a quiet news day, when she saw the large belly, which both newspapers placed in their first page. A bulky, ugly, hairy belly. That did not directly improve her humor.

Berit’s irritation was just reaching normal service temperature when her mobile phone decided to buzz. The voice on the other side said it was calling from Aftonbladet (2) and was wondering how it was, to grow up near a genius brother and whether he had other brilliant ideas she would like to reveal. Berit removed the phone from her ear and stared at the strange device with increasing bewilderment. She then excused herself to the voice and wondered whether it was some kind of a joke or if one might have called the wrong number. The voice said it didn’t think so, for it was Berit one had the honor of talking to, wasn’t it? A sister to Bertil, the originator of the new SYB diet, also known as “Show your belly”?

Berit felt that a hurricane was building up behind her forehead. The powers that fuelled this nature catastrophe were so powerful that she was about to turn into a murdering beast that would destroy everything in her way. Whether it was the phone, the center, the city or the entire galaxy, she was yet uncertain of. She gathered some air and then screamed “SHUT UP” so loud into the phone that she was certain that the voice on the other side would suffer permanent damage for the rest of its hopefully very short life. She then continued to walk towards the kindergarten.

The day after, Skilled Benny ate breakfast and managed, after a few minutes searching, to fish DN’s (3) culture supplement among all the advertisements. He stared at the front page for one second and then dropped the spoon, which splashed curdled milk and muesli on his newly ironed pink striped shirt. The headline read: “Status Update Turned Into Culture Phenomenon” and underneath it was a photo of a well-known smiling face above a well-known, round belly.

(2) A Swedish tabloid(3) A Swedish morning paper

The Debate

Skilled Benny watched a debate program on TV. The issue was the SYB diet and it was guested by a psychologist, a dietitian, two debaters and a Bertil. The host started the debate by asking the psychologist what the method was based upon. “Guilt and shame”, answered the psychologist with unrestrained disgust. “It attempts to get people who already feel bad about themselves or about how other people look at them to feel even worse and hate their bodies. The diet uses self- loathing as a lever, so to speak. It is destructive by definition. I wouldn’t recommend it to my enemies”.

“On the contrary”, said one of the debaters. “It is a way to free ourselves from all politically correctness and from our straitjackets. Finally a way to show one another who we really are, without restrains or shame. Those who already tried the diet, such as my family and me, can witness how relieving it really is! And the children simply love not having to think about their clothes getting dirty. Have you even tried that, doctor?”

The host turned towards the dietitian. But before he managed to ask the question, she began to speak. “I do not have anything against people thinking a bit about what they are eating”, said the dietitian. “On the contrary. What I am against is that people think, as usual, that they’ve found the ultimate method, the so-called silver bullet, which would solve all their problems. People need to wake up and look around and be more self-conscious. And if this here method helps them do that then go ahead and take off your shirts before dinner. And after that go out and jog a couple of rounds as well.”

Skilled Benny dipped a carrot in the dip and stared astonished at his brother’s gazing face, repetitively looking from right to left to right at the skilled debaters as if he was watching a tennis match. But his face, which usually was quite revealing, was now veiled, as if he couldn’t really decide whom to support. He had never before seemed so feebleminded.

Debater number two said that SYB was not a diet at all, but instead something that the papers came up with due to this quiet news period. “Diets come and go”, he said, “but obesity is forever”. “Stop it right there”, said the first debater, “I have actually tried this diet you call nothing, and thought it was great”. “Exactly what I mean”, interrupted the psychologist, “It is simply self-deception”. “That’s enough!”, said the dietitian slightly annoyed. And so they continued cutting each other off and repeating the same arguments over and over again, until they suddenly remembered that the very originator of the diet (or the non-diet) was sitting among them. They all turned towards Bertil and the host asked him a question: “with all due respect, you have a bit left until you’ll be as thin as a stick. Do you think that this method has helped you?”

Skilled Benny tried sending telepathic empathy waves through the TV. He wanted to help him, wanted to tell the mean and pompous group to leave his brother alone and go and chase someone else instead. He felt helpless.

Just then Bertil stopped staring at the wolf pack and turned his face at the camera. “You do not need to take it so awfully seriously”, he said. “It’s not like it’s damn nuclear physics. You eat a chicken leg”, exemplified Bertil, “and then, when you’re finished, you might feel that maybe you would like another one. Then you could ask a friend for an advice. I look at my belly, which just sits there and is glad it doesn’t have to hide anymore behind the shirt, and ask it: do you want one more? Then it might answer that, no thanks, I’m happy. And then the debate begins between the hunger, the carving and the belly. All I did was to add another voice to the debate, in the same way you did in this show by asking me to join!”

The public was a bit taken aback at that, but started applauding gradually. It was the perfect end to the debate. Skilled Benny discovered he had tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. He also noticed that the dipped carrots seemed slightly saltier now.

The Boys of the Round Table

“EVERYTHING DOESN’T CONCERN YOUR FREAKING BELLY!”

Sister Berit ears were red. Actually, not only her ears, but the rest of her face as well. And her throat, too. Bertil was, maybe for the first time in his life, speechless.

The previous evening, Bertil heard that someone, somewhere, was playing a well-known melody. It was the theme from Shaun the Sheep, a show on the children’s channel. Bertil whistled along for a while, but then realised it was his mobile phone which was the source. Bertil remembered that he arranged so that his phone would play this melody when his mom called, so that he’d know it wasn’t Aftonbladet or someone alike who disturbed him, so he actually should answer. But since it took him such a long time to realise all that, and to fish out his phone from his pocket, his mobile voicemail took over, informing the caller that “Bertil and his belly here, leave a message if you have to”.

Bertil listened to the message. His mom had something important to discuss with the boys who were to be summoned to a meeting tomorrow at 5 PM with no excuses and without respective spouse or children. Food would not be served at the occasion and bellies should therefore be covered over with adequate garments. How bizarre, thought Bertil. Mom had never before been so formal. What was going on?

At 5 PM the next day, the original boys gang, that is, Skilled Benny, Bertil and Berit, were properly gathered for a meeting at their mother's house. They sat around the dinner table without uttering a word. The atmosphere was quite odd. Bertil knew not what was going on and a glance at Skilled Benny revealed that he didn’t have a clue either. It was obvious that Berit and their mom were cooking something, and that it was not some kind of a delicate soup.

The boys’ mother started to speak with a low and formal voice. She said that she usually didn’t want to talk on behalf of someone else, but that the current case required extreme measures and that enough was enough. That’s how things stood:

“Your sister does not want to talk with you. She hasn’t done so for quite a long period of time now, and has a difficult time beginning now, which is why I intend to assist her to begin with. She does not feel too well, as you probably know, and I expect you to encourage and help her the best you can, and I mean to do the same. Berit has, during the last couple of months, been talking to a therapist, who tried helping her, as she put it, to deal with her childhood problems, that is, you, and to restart her life in a better and more productive way. But in order to accomplish all that, she first needs to explain certain things to the good doctor, such as what it was she was so angry at. And this is why you’ve been summoned here to find out, since she could not directly clarify that to the therapist”.

Skilled Benny was like a volcano of pure empathy, which just erupted and gushed heavy, warm boulders of EQ all over the place. If there was anything he could do to help then he was prepared to assist. He had also felt that the relations between the siblings were not flourishing and tried getting them all to come to an agreement, but it was not that easy. Now, he thought, they should together turn, so to speak, a new page in the family book and be open and honest towards each other. That was what siblings are for, wasn’t it? To help each other out. He was, in any case, ready to work hard to improve their relationships and he was certain that everybody would feel better and help each other out.

Their mom said she sometimes understood how her daughter was thinking and wanted to say something on her behalf, namely “shut up”.

“We have not gathered here in order for you to show how skilled you are again, Benjamin. We are here to help Berit. But I think that through your little speech we could find a clue to why Berit is so mad at you. Must you be so skilled all the time? Can’t you simply give it up sometimes?”

A strange noise came from Berit’s direction, who still hadn’t uttered a word since they sat around the table. It was a sort of a gurgling snarl, which got Bertil to jump as if he just discovered he was sitting next to a hungry lion, which was so well camouflaged that Bertil didn’t notice it was there. He looked at Skilled Benny who for the moment didn’t look that skilled and instead sat and glared intensively at the floor. He had never before heard his mother call him Benjamin, without the prefix, nor utter the magical words “shut up”.

“I think brother Skilled Benny was just trying to help”, said Bertil. “There is no reason to be mean to him. There there, Skilled Benny, they didn’t mean to. Don’t be offended.”

“YOU’RE SO DAMN MANIPULATIVE YOU!” cried Skilled Benny as an answer. Bertil looked around him in search of some confirmation to that what his brother just did actually happened and not only in his fantasy. But he could read in his mother’s accusing, narrow eyes, that this was unfortunately the case. Now that was new, thought Bertil, and tried to pave the way to a more familiar discussion. “Me, I never felt too much skilled at anything. Except for eating and showing my belly. That I am quite good at.”

It was in this second that sister Berit spoke for the first time this evening. It was the above-mentioned comment. The one about the belly, which Bertil thought everything concerned. “YOU’RE NOT ONLY SO DAMN MANIPULATIVE, YOU ARE SO FREAKING SELF-CENTERED! YOU THINK APPARENTLY THAT YOUR WRINKLED NAVEL IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!”, she added.

Berit’s face was, as mentioned, red, and so was her throat as well. Skilled Benny stared at a chair leg. Bertil was speechless.

“I’m so happy we finally had this pleasant discussion”, said their mom with tears running down her cheeks. “And that you finally started talking to each other.”

Going International

With time, the SYB diet broke through internationally. First of all in England, where one adopted the method with open arms. Suddenly it felt very natural to sit in the pub, watch football and drink a lot of beer with bare belly. All that the Englishmen asked themselves was how come they didn’t come up with this concept on their own and that a Swede figured it out before them. The diet became at the same time both appreciated and hated, and many pubs displayed signs on their doors claiming it was a “SYB free zone”, or, respectively “Show your belly here, mate” in order to clarify which side of the movement they were on. Thereafter one could show one’s belly even in pubs in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and even in Australia, where one claimed that this was not by any chance a Swedish invention, but was used by the natives for hundreds of years. In the end the diet came to the US, where it started an intensive debate in which people from different backgrounds argued with each other in diverse TV shows. The fact that it was a Swede who happened to stumble upon the idea was by then long forgotten.

In the beginning there were mostly men who dared show their bellies in pubs and at home at dinnertime. But after a while, more and more women started adopting the method. The problem was though which bras they should use: they couldn’t simply use their usual ones, which they wore under the t-shirt or the blouse, because they thought they were too private to be shown publicly, and they didn’t want to walk around in colourful bikini tops either. There had to be a limit somewhere. Therefore, one had come up with the concept of the SYB-bra, which was both fairly discrete and was suitable even among strangers.

The world’s population’s average weight descended with a few kilos. It could not be proven that there was a connection to the SYB movement, but was striking nevertheless.

Bertil was interviewed by Skavlan (4), who wondered how it felt to be a worldwide celebrity after he posted a status update on Facebook, as well as contributed to the world’s health in a way that could only be compared to WHO’s efforts. Bertil thought for a while. Then he said that it was never his intention. He just wanted to describe that dinner he ate with his wife and the way she glared at his belly and how his appetite disappeared thereafter. He said he was tired of being a celeb and wished he had never written the stupid text on Facebook. Then he stood up, abandoned the studio and went back to his family.

When he got home he heard Shaun the Sheep calling. His mom congratulated him on the best reply she ever heard anyone said in an interview.

The day after, his sister Berit called. She told him that both she and her son David started eating dinner with bare bellies and that she even bought two pairs of SYB-bras for the occasion, plus actually lost a couple of kilos. Furthermore she said she talked to their brother Skilled Benny and that both agreed that the SYB diet was quite nifty, and both couldn’t but laugh at Bertil’s actions in the interview.

Bertil was quiet. Then he answered “shut up” and hung up.

(4) A well-known Norwegian TV talkshow host

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