Colonic Disaster

Was awoken last night by a loud, popping noise, then an agonized sob. Drunk again, Kelvins had fallen asleep with his irrigator on. Dr. Rangou was unreachable so Kelvins was airlifted to the nearest medical center in Arcueil. Hope he makes it.

Earlier that evening Doctor Rangou had called me into his study for a chat. We sipped Calvados by the fireside, Doctor Rangou kindly making room for me on the floor and providing ample fur throws and cushions. I was given a pair of warm slippers and asked to roll from the fireside to the bar and back again. Doctor Rangou asked me if I had noticed any difficulties in doing so. I hadn’t, other than that my flesh was over-tender, which I’d put down to Julian’s warm coals and the grapefruit juice rub. I was then asked to sit up. I was unable. Doctor Rangou made a note of this and said that, undoubtedly, his worst fears were now confirmed. I was, he said, the first patient in 30 years’ history of successful colonic therapy at La Presse en Cordille to have contracted ‘hydrocolloidal liposis’, and a malignant case at that. Dr. Rangou disappeared and returned in a loose-fitting cotton robe. I was given a cotton sheet and told to fit it over my body as best I could. When I’d done so, Dr. Rangou glanced at his clipboard.

“Are you bloated?” he asked, glancing at my supine shape.

“Yes,” I said. I was still bloated.

“Significantly, I should think.”

I nodded.

“Do you suffer from indigestion or any other gastric ailments?”

“No.”

“Have you kept to your diet?”

I had.

“Did you at any time,” Dr. Rangou poked my stomach, which expanded at his touch, “administer an enema without my knowledge?”

“No, doctor,” I said.

“Well,” Doctor Rangou shrugged, “we’re going to transfer you to the B Wing. Please sign here. I trust,” he poked again, “that you aren’t against experimental therapies.”

I wasn’t and signed, was rolled back to my room to await delivery to the B Wing, and then Kelvins’ irrigator exploded.

After Kelvins was carried out of the clinic, alone in my bed, I saw a dream of lox, then of baklava. In both dreams the lox and baklava had the gently smiling face of Chungdrag Dorje, the Treasure Revealer. Whenever I approached and tried to prong them with a fork, they vanished. It was unbearable. I awoke in a sweat that smelled faintly of Entenmann’s Banana Split Crumb Cake. Tearfully, I bade farewell to Chatto, who couldn’t join me, Julian rolled me to the B Wing, which was a 15-minute procedure by a series of underground tunnels. We passed only hunched, bloated, wheezing figures being accompanied to or from rooms with locked doors leading off a atrium. I was rolled into a damp, brilliant white room with a large puffy mattress in the corner and given some reading material. For the rest of the night, I was misted at intervals with a liquid that smelled faintly of the doctor’s alpine tonic but in a more diluted form. In between mistings I was rolled from one side of the room to the other by Dr. Rangou’s manservant, Theovaldus, who then poked me in the stomach, asking me each time if I noticed a decrease in pressure. I didn’t. Following each rolling, I was led into one of the rooms we’d seen coming in, where I was set down on a rubber throne under a heat lamp that released a steady flow of atomized fennel at my naked body. I was then injected with a mysterious fluid that caused my stomach to speak in voices, and rolled back to my room.

At the end of this long night of therapies my condition hadn’t significantly improved, and it was then that it dawned on me that I was no longer walking anywhere, but rolling or being rolled. Oddly, I also realized I hadn’t eaten anything that day but a plate of Greg Louganis’ tubers. Unsure whether to go on. Unsure what I’ve accomplished here. This morning’s weigh-in, aided by a solar-powered forklift, revealed that the water trapped in my bowels has already taken on a viscous, or semi-solid, form, which, Dr. Rangou prophesied, is a sure sign that the hydrocolloidized fat has metastasized into porous fat molecules and is propagating at an alarming rate. Please pray for me.

Yesterday’s Meal
Breakfast
Greg Louganis’ tubers

My weight: 410 lbs