Enough Dristan to Kill a Man (733 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.8 on 20 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by charminglybeef (View user info) at 2007-07-14 07:33:09 EDT
I was just sitting there on the couch. Watching the late news and sipping a cup of tea, you know? All wrapped in a blanket?
Sniffling a little, sure -- I'll give ya that. I was feeling a little ill. Maybe to the point where if I were some other person say, feeling that ill, I might have gone to the doctor, you know? -- Head cold. Sinuses like syrup-soaked sponges. A wet, rolling cough.
All pretty standard, as far as colds go. Not anything to get upset about. But the odd thing, and incidentally, the thing I haven't mentioned yet, was this thing: and that thing was the fact that my teeth hurt, and they did so a whole heck of a lot.
I tried to rationalize it. As sinus pressure. Right? Intense pressure of the sinii?
So, smart guy, get a fucking decongestant, right?
Right.
So that's what I did. I put my tea on the table and rightened myself and holy shit if that didn't just make the whole world go thump thump thump and swell in my ears and at my temples and it took a moment before I was adjusted to the whole sitting up thing. At length, I took it all in: the world from three feet higher. It's a rough place up here -- so far above the spooning couch and the expensive pillow and the return to the womb.
Standing must be shit, I observed.
And stood. And wiggled the tooth that had been hurting the most. "Yep, gonna have to get me soma dem decongestaments."
But I was all out.
So I walked to the bedroom. Where I put on a good, comfy, sick-in-public shirt. I slithered into it and popped out the other side, somehow invigorated by this act until it struck me: the chill in my nostrils, (?) and the fact that it had turned to a dripping of something warm and thick!? Then a full and steady stream. I lifted my hands to my face and marveled at the incredible volume that must have been flowing to fill my cupped palms so quickly.
My amusement was interrupted in its turn to terror. I became quite suddenly overcome by this general loosening in my skull; and it seemed to me like maybe it were... deflating. And it continued to feel this way, for what seemed at the time some time, until the flesh of my mouth finally gave way like a crumbling dam, sending my teeth floating out past my lips -- barrel-riders down the Niagra Falls of... mouth blood?
A curious feeling.
And the mighty air-borne river that carried them met with that of my nostrils and they fell together, gloriously onto the rocks below (aptly played by my incredulous hands) where it seemed the flow somehow grew in volume. Perplexed, I turned them over only to discover a bulging of blood beneath my fingernails and then suddenly the pressure setting them free and exposing the flesh that bound them -- exploding with an incredible rush that slowed to a steady glug immediately thereafter.
Terrified, I stumbled to the bathroom. It seemed a safe place. A good place. A good place to bleed. Easy to clean. medicine in there, too.
Convenient.
So it was settled: I needed the fucking bathroom. I would bleed in the bathroom. The bathroom would save me.
But it was a hideous scene in that bathroom, man. A hideous fucking scene. The mirror! I looked away when I noticed the blood trickling from my ears and down my neck. And in doing so, I spotted the spot of sticky purplish ooze that moved beneath my shirt but over my stomach like there were a snake beneath it, and I realized, I was bleeding from my belly button too.
No sooner had this thought completed that I felt something hot and wet moving between my legs. I stuck my thumb into my waistband, pulling it out to see what I hoped was liquid, oozing from my belly button, satisfying gravity.
Which instead, and much to my dismay, was blood flowing from it too, as syrupy urine might.
I gasped and snapped the sweat pants shut. My eyes found themselves in the mirror -- bulges of red pooled at their corners. I blinked and they spilled out past the lids, down my cheeks and I watched them -- as the world changed from pink, to purple, to brown -- and my body drained and wasted away right in front of me in this whirling kaleidoscope that finally turned to black.
And that was all there was. Until there was this:
I was a pile on the floor. My bones stacked impossibly and awkwardly atop one another -- slipping about in a loose bag of flesh. I did my best to rise. Rise because I knew I was a pile on the floor. Because my backside felt warm and crusty and sticky and my frontside felt cold and crusty and sticky.
And I desired, like I do after every good rest, to righten myself.
Which I did, gentle reader, in good time. With much creaking and squealing and leaning and propping. And when I was finally back up to my feet and face to face with myself in the mirror I realized that I couldn't see a damn thing. Because there were clumps of coagulated blood covering each of my eyes. Instinctively I moved to scratch them off, and in doing so, I removed the scabs that had formed almost like nails over the tips of my fingers where the real nails had come loose.
I tried to groan.
But the mouth was of course bound by hard, crusty...
I dare not even finish that thought.
I was upset enough about the sensation of losing two fingernails in the form of scabs. And that I couldn't see. Fuck the mouth.
Fuck the mouth.
The eyes. We get most of our stimulus from the eyes man, goddamnit that's the most important sense! Wet the toothbrush with some mouth wash and take it to the eye-scabs. Yeah, that'll get 'em dissolving. Dissolving.
Wouldn't you know it -- having fumbled around and broken some shit and heard some tube-things hit the floor -- it works! Honest! Ever find your eyes covered in scabs -- grab your toothbrush. Cover it in Listerine. Brush away the scabs. Further research might reveal it's an effective replacement for polysporin beneath the band-aid too.
Having dissolved this veil of (fuck, how many clever ways can I possibly describe blood crusted over and inside your eyelids?) (that'll work).
--I took in my ghastly figure. Emaciated. Exhausted. But needing to survive.
Washed my body with some hardened cube of goat-lactate and phosphorous. Scrubbed my face with a cream studded by red pellets. Put on a clever-fitting shirt. Similar pants. Shoes.
Made my armpits smell nice.
Smiled.
Walked out the door.
Didn't forget to lock.
Popped on the iPod.
Stood at the bus stop.
Worked.
Again.
And came home.
And you know? -- suddenly I'm not feeling so good.
User Reviews
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-07-16 10:37:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by particle_man58 (user info) at 2007-07-14 08:10:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This started out simple enough, but then it took a detour straight into "WTF Land".
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-07-15 22:38:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-07-15 22:26:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2007-07-15 18:57:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was brilliant.
I see people like you every day, the pre bleeding and the post bleeding....occasionally inbetween those two stages.
I should 2- DIE you for making me think about work.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2007-07-15 16:33:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I got nothin but this +2.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-07-15 10:19:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is a delicious sort of disgusting.
One thing that I was surprised you didn't include (or I missed it..I'm hungover and it's entirely possible) was any reference to difficulty of breathing, or choking on all the blood..that's one of the first sensations that came to mind as I was reading. Then again, he was taking the whole thing in mostly as a mystified observer, so that may have stolen from the dreamy quality of it.
Listerine is the answer to many of life's problems.
Submitted by Progr3ss (user info) at 2007-07-15 00:32:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
great, now I feel like a cup of tea.
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-07-15 00:14:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Refreshing.
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-07-14 20:06:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
disgusting
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-07-14 16:38:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I dig the style but not the funky substance(s).
Submitted by PhillipTheGreat (user info) at 2007-07-14 15:17:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
These are somewhat like the symptoms of ebola... but you missed out on the part where you shit out your intestinal lining, and cough up the skin from your tounge.
Read The Hot Zone, it has a wonderfully disguesting explanation of what happens.
Submitted by QueenAshlee (user info) at 2007-07-14 14:47:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
wow, that was fucked up man.
Submitted by URNVUS (user info) at 2007-07-14 14:30:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You rode the "Special Bus" to school... Didn't you? EL-OHH-EL
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-07-14 14:11:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 beef
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-07-14 11:03:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good
Submitted by ParlorTrick (user info) at 2007-07-14 10:49:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by particle_man58 (user info) at 2007-07-14 08:10:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This started out simple enough, but then it took a detour straight into "WTF Land".
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2007-07-14 10:16:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
holy shit that was nuts
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-07-14 09:12:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by particle_man58 (user info) at 2007-07-14 08:10:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This started out simple enough, but then it took a detour straight into "WTF Land".
Submitted by littledan (user info) at 2007-07-14 07:38:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Trippy, and great!