THE SPACE BETWEEN THE NIGGLE AND THE VOMIT

malaise, the bad kind. i was sick most of this weekend, deathly ill, was even considering typing up a blog post which read, simply, untitled: pray for me, i am not long for this world. then i realized i was too sick to type, and all of my prayers go unanswered anyway. it started innocently enough, as these things often do, picking out which colander to use for thursday spaghetti. sure, i'll do the dinner tonight, i still have a schedule of shows to keep up, but i can fit it all in. i knew when my photographic memory took a snapshot of the computer sill last night filled with tons and tons of used tissues from my sick relative, that same sill the next day would be mysteriously cleared and i would think nothing of it, as the germs all collected and multiplied and had sex with one another, invisible and hedonistic and ready to pounce into my lungs, knew i would pay eventually. the night after, signs stirring, wake up with a terrible sore throat, the scary kind that just pops into your mouth without warning, you wonder if some alien infected you while you were helpless sleeping. okay, okay, take some white pills for headache, and you'll be fine. that quieted things down for two hours...then BOOM, headshot! body aching all over, can't move, can't get around to watch my stories on tv, and worst of all, the sore throat has been trapped shut by the virus's evil buddies secreting their tape and glue to trap my tongue, now it hurts every single time i swallow. i'm a fucking commercial: "MOMMY, it'll hurt if i swallow!" loss of appetite, once wanted a heavy enchilada and a chili bowl, now i make myself a breaky of fried eggs and bacon, nibble on a little egg, and fall fast asleep for another two-hour forced power nap. next night, the post title starts to make sense, the vapors of vomit enter my stream. i feel like i'm gonna throw up, but i'm not quite there. this is why i type now, to explain to you that space of time between the first niggle you get in the pit of your stomach and the actual vomiting. that space, i contend, is the worst feeling a human can endure. when i was going through it, i felt not LIKE i was dying, but rather that this WAS in fact the actual feeling of DEATH. see, there's nothing you can do at that point, you can't escape your body, and you know that in five minutes, your body will vomit, it's simply something you cannot avoid, try as you might, much like DEATH. you have to lay comatose on your dirty bathroom floor, looking at the empty lemon air-freshener can's instructions for the zillionth time as your head is in the toilet bowl, holding on to the sides with your greasy hands, your mind crazy from the strain of waiting, trying to hum a few bars of that nirvana song of olde, can't wait for it to be over, but must wait, now? is it coming now? will the vomit travel as an unwelcome guest through the whitened tubes of my body, under my stomach, through the highway, up the throat violently, and out and PUSH, and PUSHED OUT for heat and HEAT and final release and glory, and the NIGGLE gloriously gone!! the niggle is gone! such heavenly release, oh it feels so righteous, i am so relieved, but what a price i had to pay for this outcome, a little bit of my soul just left me tonight, much like death.





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