An Intestinal Imbroglio

Michael

What follows is a fable, a highly detailed, glaringly graphic recount of one particular journey, an odyssey through the murky, whirling waters of the doldrums within my belly. It is a tale I think we can all relate to, at least fifteen out of twenty two of us anyway, undoubtedly with more to come in the not too distant future. Dear reader, if you dare to read on, I urge you to brace yourself for the stomach churning, bowel contorting, pantaloon destroying story that lies ahead.

~

Deep in the distressed depths of my dinner's usual destination, a tumultuous terror lurks,

When it it rears its hideous head, my straining stomach body jumps and jerks,

Like Narcondam, the great Indian volcano of old,

The beast creates noises, even eruptions, best left untold,

Rumbling and roaring, veering with voracious violence and vigour,

Gushing with the force of the great Ganges river 

Flowing with the characteristically chaotic consistency of debris,

Ceaselessly, the stampeding strength of the stream swarms into the sea

~

Sorry for being so assiduously alliterative but I feel this faecal farrago requires some properly poetically pontificating prose to render it in its grim ghastly gut-churning glory.

Let me put it another way.

Some while ago I was talking to my fellow swashbuckling sphincter seismologist George.

"You know what would be really bad?" I asked.

"Burning alive?

"Waking up during an arm amputation?"

"...Ok." I said. "Also uncontrollable diarrhoea...that's what I dread."

Well, my fears were soon realised. Despite taking Imodium blockers, the unrelenting force within my bowels broke through the immaterial barrier that was intended to prevent it. The dam burst. All came gushing through like a tap with the valve fully open, like a shower nozzle going at full capacity, like the blast of water rushing down from the mountains and crashing into the foot of a river at the base of the Himalayas.

Two valiant pairs of underwear gave the ultimate sacrifice, my last line of defence, sentinels guarding the gates of the dam, watching over the sleeping villagers at the base of the valley, throwing themselves in the way to stop the unremitting unforgiving  onslaught, the bombardment, a salvo of effluence. For their sacrifice they paid gravely, tossed aside, jettisoned into an indiscreet wastebasket, one in the corner of the train station bathroom, the other in the train's bathroom itself. Forgotten, replaced by the next terrified, quivering pair of pantaloons. There was no respite.

To understand the gravity, the enormity of my predicament I have to make acknowledgment of the next stage in the dizzying, flummoxing, pantomimic whirligig that is my battle with my bowels, my intestinal imbroglio. It is as if I had found myself in a performance of some extravagant, complex drama, and I didn't have a script. My bowels and the unspeakable ungodliness festering deep within were the star and director, and I was just some extra grabbed along for the ride and left bumbling, grasping, tumbling along like some leaf caught in a gust on a windswept plain of the Great Indian Desert. 

In this next stage, in the appalling apogee of this stomachic struggle, I was forced to make a depressing decision: with a heavy, solemn heart I hid and donned the only implement capable of ameliorating the situation...

The adult nappies slid on and my head dropped despondently downwards, defeated. If not able to serve palliative purpose, the rear-end receptacle certainly provided security and succour. 

Adorned with this buttocks basket, pockets stuffed with toilet paper rolls and wet-wipes - the accoutrements of a battered, beaten, drained man - I trekked on for the next few days, battling the tumult of my tummy.

A fierce struggle ensued. The mighty Indian Ocean swelled up, battering my insides. My stomach was like a flimsy little Indian canoe, tossed out into a roiling, swirling, angry ocean, stranded at sea, lacking a paddle with dark clouds gathering ominously in the horizon. I sailed into the eye of the storm. My canoe tossed and tumbled, flipped and flailed, thunder boomed in the heavens above, rain pelted down like little pins battering my body. Everything went dark.

Hours later my eyes fluttered open and saw light. Now, it seems the clouds have parted, a new light shines down as I have conquered and come out victorious in the gastroenteric grudge match. Not long ago, I peered down in the toilet bowl and, to my utter delight, I found staring back at me, a solid one, a brick, a self-contained little lump. In its understated but transcendental beauty the little floating fella reminded me of the small majestic candle-lit basket I had placed on the surface of the Ganges under the soft amber light of the Varanasi sunrise. So full of hope and promise, I thought I had reached nirvana.

I can only hope it is a sign, a premonition of better things to come. For now I am recovered, but I find my gut contorts and convulses at the thought of the journey ahead. For now I am safe, full of relief after my narrow escape from the mighty beast, the mythological urban legend they call the Delhi Belly.