Sean was chewing tiredly on his previous bite. He felt completely full, yet… not so much hungry as eager, maybe, to stuff more into himself – it was weird.
"Do you always eat like this?" Emma asked.
"Like wha–" he started with his mouth full, but quickly swallowed… fought the acid reflux, forcing it back down… then said again after a cautious breath, "Eat like what? Have I made a mess or–"
"Just look at this!" she cut in and waved at the table.
He did look at it. His tray still had a dozen half-eaten steaks and roasts, the boar stew that was getting cold… the grilled potatoes barely touched, the salad seemingly left to rot. Emma's vegetables were already gone and she had been watching him eat for a while now.
"Oh, I guess I took a bit too much…" he remarked, then offered, "Would you like some or– Wait, you're vegan – never mind."
"I'm not a f**king…" She barely stopped herself from saying worse, closed her eyes, massaged the bridge of her nose while sighing. Finally, she looked at him and continued, "It's like… are you on a weird diet or…"
"Well…" he started but paused to think about it. Sean wasn't sure how much he should admit right now, so he decided to tell part of the truth, "For the last two weeks it's been mostly pasta and rice, a handful of veggies. Oh and jam, lots of that too." He looked longingly at the leftovers, but he felt like his stomach might burst if he ate anything more. Maybe one more fried mushroom – so good.
Emma asked carefully, "You mean, only for lunch, right? Or dinner, whatever. Or–"
"Nah, breakfast or dinner," he interjected. "Or leftovers for a snack… whenever I was hungry. Besides, food is just food." Phrasing it that way had slightly overstated the abundance of supplies in his flat, but he didn't want to sound like some kind of poor hobo again.
"Food isn't just…" she protested but paused, then went back to the previous topic: "And you ate nothing else?"
"Like what else?" he asked, puzzled.
"Like, I don't know…" she started but hesitated for a few seconds, then added, "Animal protein – dairy, anything?"
Sean ignored the dairy question – he had run out of that in the first week. He argued, "But don't rice and pasta have protein? And jam too…"
Emma sighed again. He wondered if he had said something wrong, but she explained, "They have some, and fruit jams are mostly carbs. But what about vitamins and micronutrients – are you taking any supplements?"
"Nah, they're a scam," he scoffed. "And I thought fruits had lots of vitamins, so wouldn't jam have them too?"
"Yes, a little bit," she calmly explained. "But even ignoring the scam-opinion , you can't survive on just empty carbs and–"
"I survived just fine, thank you very much," he cut in.
"For a while, anyway," she commented.
Sean thought about it for a moment – was he missing something? He decided to ask, "Okay, what do you mean by 'for a while' ?"
Emma narrowed her eyes and resumed the interrogation – or that was how it felt: "But what about electrolytes? Did you take any–"
"You mean like water?" he broke in.
"Sports drinks?" she clarified. "Or literally anything with salt or potassium, magnesium, something like–"
"No, just tap water," he cut in, getting really confused about all the questions.
Emma slowly nodded, then speculated, "Let me guess: you felt weak for the past– Hang on, how long have you been eating like this, exactly?"
He attempted to downplay it: "About a week, but–"
"Then it's probably only starting…" she interrupted. "But no – you looked way worse than that, it had to be like… at least two or three weeks. But tell me if this sounds familiar: trouble sleeping, maybe… waking up in the middle of the night?" He merely frowned, so she continued, "Mood swings, brain fog, muscle atrophy – have you lost much weight already?"
"I actually gained some!" Sean said excitedly, happy to prove her wrong with this simple fact. He explained, "Look, I've been eating plenty. It's just that… with everything going on and jobs disappearing – I'm pretty sure it was like a mild depression. I've been stuck indoors without any human contact–"
"Wait-hang-on, stuck indoors as in… no sunlight exposure at all?" she cut in.
He tried to evade the question, "I'm not much for sunbathing, if that's what you're–"
"And no supplements either, for how long?" she broke in.
Sean frowned. This was getting annoying. He said, "Listen, I don't know what you're–"
"How long?" she pressed.
"Since the– I don't know, the first week after Omega showed up," he actually answered. "Once the company recommended working from home and–"
"But what about shopping?" she interrupted. "Didn't you go out for groceries or to exercise? Or maybe just to breathe fresh air?"
"Are you joking? Fresh air in San Francisco?" he tried to lighten the conversation and even smiled, but she was dead serious. He shook his head and explained, "Okay, it's not that bad, I suppose – but I'm not much for exercising, so…"
"Yeah, that figures," she commented.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he complained.
"Ever heard of vitamin D?" she asked… though it sounded rhetorical.
Sean tried, "Look, I don't know what you're implying – but I'm not some kind of weirdo who needs gym, protein supplements, and steroids to make themselves feel better, okay? I was mostly just driving between work and home, I don't need fancy, overpriced vitamins or–"
"There are so many things wrong with that sentence," she broke in. "I don't even know where to begin."
"Okay, fine," he said and crossed his arms defiantly. "Then tell me, what's wrong with me." A small pause. "Well?"
"For starters, skin discoloration and slight facial edema," Emma remarked. It didn't mean anything to Sean – he looked and felt fine. Well, mostly fine. She continued, "That was obvious at first glance… the moment you entered that lecture hall. I figured maybe you were badly dehydrated or on drugs, maybe some kind of–"
"But I'm not taking drugs!" he complained.
"Yeah-yeah – remember the hobo look that everybody teased you about?" she recalled. "It wasn't just the dirty clothes. But it was strange, like you were even walking weird… are your ankles swollen at all?"
"No," he lied. Well, half-lied – but they felt fine.
"Let me rephrase that: do they hurt when you wake up?" she asked. He frowned as he was trying to process what was going on, but she continued, "So there's that, though such swelling would've required– Right, but you're not ingesting or synthesizing albumin… so that explains it."
"Is that a drug or something?" he tried.
"No, that… is a protein, but you don't have the essential amino acids, so your body must've been breaking down muscle tissue to recover some. Also, the weight gain was probably just glycogen bonding with water, in your muscles. That's what the body does, or tries to do, on a high-sugar diet. But without proper nutrition, it's like…" she elaborated and trailed off, shaking her head.
"You're not making any sense at all," he complained.
"Okay, I'll be…" she started, nodded slowly, then explained, "I'll try to go step by step, so even you should understand. You looked like a mild case of hypoalbuminemia with severe vitamin deficiencies. The paleness of your skin suggested macrocytic anemia, but limb ataxia hinted at pre-beriberi. You don't really see combinations like that in developed countries nowadays. Except the lack of mental lethargy doesn't square with all the other– Ohh, but then you ate that pizza on the way to the lecture." A tiny pause. "What was that about?"
Sean's frown deepened. He was confused by all the strange terms but also unwilling to admit that Omega fed him that pizza… it suddenly felt so humiliating, so he said nothing.
"Or maybe," she tried, "how did it taste, do you remember?"
"It was disgusting," he told a half-truth.
"But specifically," she pressed.
He sighed, then shook his head while saying, "I don't know, like fish mixed with battery acid. It was…" He trailed off, realizing that he had said too much.
"Right. But where did you even get that pizza?" she asked the obvious follow-up question, so he simply didn't answer. Emma added after a moment, "There's one more thing that doesn't make sense: why wouldn't you just google some symptoms or even ask–"
"All searches go through Omega now," Sean cut in, "and I'm not asking 'that thing' to help with my health." A small pause. "Or with anything. Besides, I'm fine."
"Yeah, but you clearly weren't," she reminded. "And it all makes perfect sense now… maybe except for–"
"What makes sense? It doesn't make– You just made up some nonsense words and…" he raised his voice to interrupt, then paused to calm down. He finally pleaded, "Okay, maybe I'm missing something – but can you explain in plain English?"
"You mean like to a five-year-old?" she taunted.
He began, "I'm not a–"
"Because that's the level of nutrition knowledge that 'food is food' implies," she cut him off. "Like the kind of brat who keeps asking why they can't just eat candy and ice cream all day and– Or actually, ice cream would be better than a pure pasta and rice diet. Or anything milk-based would…"
"Okay, now you're being silly," he complained. "Besides, I got the good stuff. Pasta imported from Europe, none of that GMO crap that we have–"
Emma groaned loudly, interrupting him. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table, hiding her face in both hands.
Sean started, "Did I say something wro–"
"And I take it you bought white rice, right?" she broke in. "To match the 'fancy imported pasta' ?"
He thought about it for a couple of seconds. The white rice was the only thing left on the shelves by the time he got to that store section during the first-day chaos – but he didn't want to admit all that. So he tried, "Is that bad?"
"Have you ever heard of fortification?" she asked, watching him through her fingers.
Sean was starting to realize that maybe he had screwed up with the food. Big time. He still attempted to turn it into a joke, "You mean like strategy games, where a unit can be fortified to gain defense bonuses and–" Her gaze had turned to pure scorn, so he hurriedly pivoted to: "Okay-okay, I guess… I know about food fortification…" It was mostly a bluff, but he had heard about it. Probably. He also added, "But don't they have that in Europe, too?"
"No, they don't…" Emma corrected him. "Or maybe they have some additives, but different from– Are you really that clueless? How did you survive this long – and I don't just mean the last few weeks, because– But no, hang on… you mean you weren't shopping for fresh food all this time and… That has to be one hell of a constipation problem you must be going–"
"Diarrhea, actually," he cut in – again proud to prove her wrong… except in hindsight he should not have said that part. "Uhh, what I meant to say– It's not that bad…"
"After weeks of an almost-pure starch diet with no fiber?" she challenged his story, resting her chin on her hands. At least it looked a bit silly – she was a little short for the table and had to spread her arms wide for this posture to work.
Sean tried to clarify, "Well, I had fruits and vegetables a week ago, so there–"
"And let me guess: you just ate them all in one go?" she cut in.
"How did you– I mean, not 'all' of them…" he half-bluffed. He had eaten them all on the first day.
Emma sighed and leaned back in the chair. She started explaining after a moment, "Your body was craving… something. Anything other than the empty calories – it clearly had plenty of those. And you need a varied diet to– Look… the human body cannot endlessly recycle amino acids. Vitamins also run out… some sooner than others. But you looked like a textbook example of… at the very least vitamin C and D deficiencies, probably also B one, two, six, and nine… Also multiple amino acid shortages – whatever isn't available in grains." She nodded and continued, "Electrolyte imbalances – your lips were cracked either from that or due to vitamin C deficiency." He licked his lips – the corners still stung a little bit. She added, "Also, maybe even a pre-diabetes condi–"
"But it wasn't that bad," he interrupted.
"Define 'that bad'," she said. He didn't know what to add, so she continued after a couple of seconds, "Because you looked 'that bad.' You're better now, but that must've been a lucky pizza combo– Ohh, I take it she prepared it for you?"
"She?" Sean asked, confused. "She who?"
"Omega," Emma clarified. "Because only she could've–"
"Wait-wait-wait," he broke in, "it's not a 'she,' it's an 'it.' There's no person there or…"
"Sure, whatever," Emma remarked while rolling her eyes. "But that explains the miraculous recovery."
He frowned. He had felt like shit for the past few days but never thought… He asked, "Was it really that bad?"
"It's called hidden hunger," she explained. "When you're eating enough food, but it's either lacking some critical nutrients or elements, or your body has no means to digest and process them. There can be a lot of reasons behind it, from gut inflammation to enzyme deficiencies, liver problems, kidneys… or even hormone imbalances – but in your case it was probably the empty carbs diet." She stared at him for a moment, then added, "The body can't just 'tell you' what it needs, so there are weird cravings or persistent hunger… but you just kept feeding it garbage…"
Sean mulled it over for a while. He had felt that 'something' was wrong, but he had no idea it could be this bad. He had been eating enough. Or so he had assumed… The silence was becoming awkward, so he asked, "Are you sure about this?"
Emma shrugged and pointed at the table between them, remarking, "Healthy people don't eat like this."
He stared at the table with the sudden realization that… yes, he had never eaten 'like this' – and all the signs were there, even if he couldn't fully process them.
Sean had been assuming that Omega had tricked him into getting inside the car as part of an elaborate plot to break through his defenses, but if this was true…
Another detail felt odd, so he asked, "How do you even know all this? Are you some kind of doctor or–"
"Medical school, actually. Was…" Emma interjected through gritted teeth, and Sean's throat tightened.