Spawn of the Pickle Loaf

Part 15, In Which Our Tragic Hero Becomes Horribly, Violently Ill

The first rumblings began in the kitchen.

I was halfway through slicing open a can of chicken noodle soup, when something shifted inside my bowels. My arms broke out in goosebumps. My heart began drubbing inside my ribcage. Remembering my horrible experience earlier, I panicked, abandoned the metal cylinder yawning on the counter, and strode quickly to my sanctuary. Within moments, I was disgorging a torrent of macerated beeferoni into the toilet.

I recovered quickly, thank goodness, and stumbled to my feet. This incident hadn't been as agonizing as the first, and I was relieved that I'd powered through another of life's obstructions. So I napped for fifteen minutes and then resumed opening the can, awarding myself a celebration feast. I ate heartily, thankful for simple pleasures, and half an hour later, I was on my knees again, spewing-up the can's contents along with a bountiful supply of fluids.

This incident was far worse; I felt like my stomach had become a boiling sump squeezing motor oil. My insides were poison; I could feel them rotting and corroding, turning black like an old dish sponge. And I didn't feel relief afterwards like I had before. If anything, the expulsion left me feeling more like a dying fish. It was probably dehydration, I told myself. My body would recoup once its liquids were replenished.

I forced myself onto my feet, clutched my abdomen to hold my intestines together, and lurched to the other end of my bungalow. Once in my pantry, I leaned against a shelf to rest my shuddering legs. My fist closed around one of my bottles so clumsily it nearly slipped and rocketed into the air, but I held on. I unscrewed the cap and began sipping the contents cautiously, fearing another onset if I gulped with too much zeal. And for another ten minutes, I managed to hold the mouthful of water down before the damn burst again.

By then, the trip had become second nature for me. I careened through the bathroom door and barely made it to the rim before I began retching every ounce of fluid I'd been storing up in my gut. (Pardon the exhaustive descriptions, dear reader; I'm simply trying to communicate the ambience of my waking nightmare). And I really was dehydrated then. On top of the agony in my stomach, my temples throbbed with a terrible headache. My lips were parched, my tongue dried up like a dead slug. It was enough to cause me significant concern, because a body at war with its basic needs is a fragile organism indeed.

I was too tired to kneel anymore, so I slid onto the bathroom floor and lay there in the fetal position, wondering when the next bout would hit. I needed water. But that would require another trek across the bungalow, and I feared the slightest movement might set off the alarm in my esophagus again. Tap water was out of the question. I was better off sick than zombified. Which meant I could only lie there like a beached jelly fish and await the next squall. It came moments later. The horrible tremor raked my chest, and I scrambled to my knees again, but I had nothing to vomit up so I just huddled there, dry heaving.

I groaned, dear reader. Groaned. And a man only groans when life strips him completely bare. Grunting is different. When a man grunts, he maintains a certain modicum of dignity, whereas a groaning man becomes subservient to pain. Pain has mastered him. But I hadn't the will even to grunt. I was too weak, too pathetic; a wretched creature was I, squirming on the bathroom floor, yowling, caterwauling, where no one could witness my misery.

I'm not sure how long I remained that way. An hour? A day? A week? The very fabric of time seemed distorted by my agony; time sped-up, time distended. I longed for respite, for oblivion; not death necessarily but unconsciousness would've done just fine. Had someone used a mallet to bludgeon me across the head, I wouldn't have complained the slightest bit.

Meanwhile, the bouts kept coming. My body kept expelling, even though it had nothing to expel. I begged it to stop. I begged my body to calm down, or at least layoff for awhile. I was only a tender creature, after all, with soft insides. I couldn't take much more. My stomach felt week, fraying at the seems, liable shrivel-up or tear open or detonate like a stick of dynamite.