Odelia farted so loudly that the noise woke her from a sound sleep. Licking her teeth, she cracked an eyelid at the clock beside her bed. Four forty-five in the morning... Much too early to get up.
Not that it would be easy to fall back asleep, either. The bed that had once been large enough for her to comfortably roll over in was now barely wide enough to cover her backside.
This, of course, wasn't the most honest way for her to regard the situation.
It wasn't as if the bed had shrunk.
She wriggled under the covers and another fart rippled its way to freedom. Odelia refused to allow herself to think about it. She had spent enough fruitless hours contemplating the increasingly inorganic smell of her own farts. It was a pointless and twisted exercise in self-absorption and she was done, thank you very much.
Rather than waning, the pressure in her gut continued to build until it forced her onto her feet. Farting with every step, she headed for the bathroom.
The exhaust fan over the stool proved unequal to its task. After several minutes of straining, the pungent, caustic aroma intensified to the point that, despite her resolve, she caught herself yet again evaluating it. It was definitely more like smoke than flatulence, and not a pleasant, woodsy sort of smoke a person might barbecue over, either.
She was getting ready to give up when she finally felt something more solid than another gas bubble press against her sphincter. Something smooth and stretchy. This putty-like something slid into the water without making a sound.
Apprehensively, Odelia stood up and snuck a reluctant peek at it.
Not content with their change of odor, her turds were no longer any color normally associated with bowel movements. They had developed a metallic sheen and iridescence.
And this one was weirder still.
It was moving.
Loose and flowing, but cohesive enough not to break apart, it billowed in and out of odd geometric shapes, occasionally forming what could only be called corners before they once again smoothed out on their way to some new configuration. She shut her eyes against this deviant display and flushed. When she let herself look again, the thing was gone, replaced by a pool of pristine water.
It was never really there, she told herself. You're still half asleep, and dreaming. Yes... That's what's happening. She knew this wasn't true, but it made so much more sense than the truth, it was irresistible. The best thing to do would be to go back to bed, to sleep, to forget all about it, like it was a bad dream.
#
She was reawakened by a yell that startled yet another fart out of her. Going by the strength of the stench, she had to have been producing them regularly as she slept.
"What the hell?" Jackson bellowed from the living room. "Is the glass fiber plant on fire again? Christ, that's awful!"
Oh no... Was the odor that obvious even from the living room? Odelia heaved herself upright and opened the bedroom window. The curtains ruffled, stirred by a chilly breeze that did little to ease things. It was better than doing nothing, but not by much.
The front door clicked open. "It isn't coming from Johns Manville!" she heard her brother yell.
She pushed her bedroom door open a crack, the better to eavesdrop.
YOU ARE READING
Tipping the Scales
ChickLitOdelia has spent most of her life so firmly under her brother's thumb that she might as well have been an insect trapped in a chunk of amber, but now, at long last, something is happening to her. Too bad it's not a nice, normal, something, like a '...
