# Can anyone help me identify this horror short?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 16, 2010, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181 "2010-02-16T08:04:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2010, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181/1 "2010-02-16T08:04:27Z")
OK, I’m pretty damn sure this _isn’t_ by Stephen King. I’ve trawled through all the relevant Wikipedia entries on his works and I’ve googled the heck out of what I can recall and I’ve come up with zip. It sounds a little like _Thinner_, but that’s a novel, I’ve read it, and it _isn’t_ this short story.
The basic idea of the story is that a fat guy is desperate to lose weight, so he gets a magic invisible monkey to ride on his back and eat all of the food he attempts to eat. The monkey, of course, gets fat and aggressive as time goes on, growing to substantial proportions while the guy wastes away. He finds out he can eat by fooling the monkey, like by dunking his head into a bowl of cereal before the monkey can stop him. This enrages the monkey and causes it to beat him about the head and neck.
I don’t remember how it ends. I probably read this about a decade ago now, likely checked out from a library then, so put it at 15 years old now at a minimum. I’m also pretty damn sure it was a short in a collection, but I could be wrong; I can plow through novels pretty fast when I want to.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181/2 "2010-02-16T16:16:15Z")
I don’t have any answers, but I’m sure curious as to what the author was taking when he/she wrote it. 😉
---
### Author:  [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181/3 "2010-02-16T16:32:28Z")
Hi Derleth,
I think the short story is George R. R. Martin’s “The Monkey Treatment”:
“The Monkey Treatment,” a story about extreme efforts at extreme weight loss by the desperate and foolhardy, might slip into this same category.
From
[http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book\_martin\_dreamsongs.html](http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_martin_dreamsongs.html)
---
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2010, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-help-me-identify-this-horror-short/529181/4 "2010-02-16T18:57:18Z")
> [@montag01](#):
>
> I think the short story is George R. R. Martin’s “The Monkey Treatment”
Yes, this is it. Thank you.