As anyone with Crohn's can tell you, a colon sometimes makes a lot of noise. It gurgles. It burps. It sloshes. Sometimes it is soft. Sometimes it is loud and angry, causing spasms that resonate throughout the abdomen.
And usually it just doesn't care what you are doing or where you are. Sometimes it wants to announce to the world that it is there. Such an attention seeker is a colon.
The other day I was at a meeting after work. A couple of dozen people were sitting around a table. We were discussing various issues and events facing the people in our line of work. My colon decided it wanted in on the discussion.
First it gurgled; a guttural sound that rises from deep within the bowels and tingles the skin. Everybody with Crohn's knows that sensation.
And when that happens, we tend to shift in our seats to try and mask the sound, hoping others did not hear the noise. Sometimes we cough lightly to cover up the noise. But none of that actually works; we know that, but do it anyway.
My colon decided that day that it was not going to be silenced. It gurgled some more. It bubbled loudly. It was like that drunk relative at a family reunion still living in his parent's basement, wanting to prove to everybody that he's made something of his life.
People were beginning to notice my colon. They glanced my way. Eyebrows were raised.
I stopped trying to hide it and was instantly reminded of William S. Burroughs.
In his very bizarre novel, Naked Lunch, Burroughs writes about a man with a talking asshole:
Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down, you dig, farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard. This ass talk had sort of a gut frequency. It hit you right down there like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you have to do is turn loose? Well this talking hit you right down there, a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.For the first time in my life, Burroughs actually made sense. My colon was talking. Like the asshole in Burroughs' story, my colon was giving me "the elbow" and trying to get recognized.
It wasn't too long before the guy sitting next to me turned and said, "Is that your stomach?"
I laughed. Everyone just assumes that when such a noise emanates from a body, it must be the stomach announcing that it is hungry. Which is funny because it is not quite the same sound as a hunger rumble. And everyone knows it.
"No," I replied. I actually wanted to say: No, that's shit rushing through my innards. But I didn't.
"It's my colon," I said in an exaggerated whisper.
"Oh," he replied, a little surprised and perhaps a tad bit embarrassed. He looked back down to his computer.
"It talks sometimes," I added.
For the rest of the meeting, as we discussed the various issues facing people in my line of work, my colon occasionally added its own two cents. A gurgle here. A slurp there.
Shit rushing through my innards.
My colon talks sometimes. And I could tell, on this occasion, it was really enjoying itself.
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