Starfish Digestion
By Heather A. Dawes
One of Jack’s acquaintances loved to do all kinds of things with pot, but usually brownies were insisted upon when he was invited to parties. People loved them. This time, he ignored everyone’s suggestion and decided to bring pot tea. It is super concentrated and seems to have fermented slightly. You see the other people make faces when they try it and laughter ensues. You will tell yourself you will not make a face. You’re going to “man up!” But you, too, will make the tiniest of icky faces. You can down cheap tequila with a straight face, but not this pot tea. Pot infusion? You want to ask the acquaintance, but he is talking to everyone at once, and everyone to him. Maybe you have asked him already. You can’t be sure. Did you ask him?
Seriously, you can take fake tequila with no limes, no soda or any kind of chaser. You pound it and high five people and feel like an idiot the next day remembering high fiving people. You high fived people? How old are you?
“Hey! Jack’s friend!” You slur, wondering where that dick got to. He is probably outside, no smoking in the house allowed! Giving alcohol and pot to underage kids and vomiting indoors is totally okay though. Screw that, he should smoke indoors, because you’re not sure you can get out of the living room. You seem to need to crawl. You do it, you crawl towards the door. You rue the three strong screwdrivers you drank too quickly to lubricate your social interactions. Not even sexy interactions, just regular conversation. Damn it. When did you drink those? Over the space of, what, an hour? Oh crap. This was all a terrible idea.
You are next to the door somehow, the door to get outside. The door itself is open, and woe, the screen door is shut. Cigarette smoke is coming in, drafting up your nose, and encouraging your stomach to push up into your mouth. You are like a giant starfish. You picture your stomach inside out yet smooth, billowing up from your throat, being punctured by your teeth? Please lord no, that sounds painful and maybe similar to ulcers, which you hear aren’t very fun. Ulcers are not party-conducive. You can’t talk to people if your stomach comes out of your mouth and is lacerated and oozing acid and mucus lining. You have shot all potential flirting in the foot. Flirting is a lame mythical creature now. Now your stomach is inside out of your face and you are very far from the toilet. Your hand crunches something as you crawl. Someone has spilled all of the potato chips. They’re ruffled. You know what? Floor chips sound good right now. You can concentrate on that. Can you eat them with your stomach coming out like this?
Someone asks if you are okay, and you realize you are vomiting in the hallway next to the door, all over the chips. The chips are not being absorbed into your digestive system. This is no good. It’s not how you thought this would go. You apologize. Your starfish eating habits were misguided.
You stand up, amazingly, feeling somewhat improved after a healthy vomit. Maybe the pot water all came out of there. At least the potato chips are absorbent. It’s those ridges. You nonchalantly stumble past the concerned/grossed out person, and you are self aware enough to hope they are really drunk too and won’t remember this very well, but you also don’t give too much of a screw about it. Look at you, you’re totally fumbling towards the kitchen, where there must be paper towels and mops and shit to clean it up with.
In the kitchen, you lean against the fridge. Someone’s hand rubs your head, catches some of your hair in their fingers and pulls it upwards, which tugs at the knots and confuses you as you blearily look side to side, no person close to you seems to be doing this. You get an epiphany and look up. There’s a guy in a suit sitting on top of the fridge. How the hell did he get up there? He might fall on you, the fridge seems to be twenty feet tall and he’s leaning over precariously and telling you something you can’t hear. You just stare at this fridge gargoyle as he switches to shouting: “I have mixed feelings about this song. No, actually, I hate this song. Listen. He just repeats the same sentence a million times over a repetitive bass line.”
Why is everything in this story defined by hate, you wonder? No, you liked your starfish stomach, but that was all lies. It was just hallucinations of grandeur and vomit. “His name sounds like…the T-Zone of someone’s face is in pain. But from sinus pain or acne?” You wonder out loud to fridge guy. You’re making horrible attempts at being witty.
“Sinus pain?” Fridge guy looks confused, and thoughtfully rubs his cheek. Three lipstick marks are now smeared. “I can only hear half of everything you say.”
You dismissively flap your hands around and try to open the fridge. Fridge guy has to help, you keep missing the handle. You want to eat some kind of vegetable. They only have baby carrots, your root veggie nemesis. Screw baby carrots. They aren’t ever even real babies. They are usually adults, you suspect, carved into baby sized carrots. They’re all tough fibers and shit unless you buy expensive organic ones and feel like a smug douchebag for spending that much on carrots, when you could have bought a 99 cent bag of scruffy non-washed full grown ones.
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Heather is currently putting herself through college in gloomy Seattle. She likes to write about terrible things while wearing cardigans and granny glasses.
By Heather A. Dawes
One of Jack’s acquaintances loved to do all kinds of things with pot, but usually brownies were insisted upon when he was invited to parties. People loved them. This time, he ignored everyone’s suggestion and decided to bring pot tea. It is super concentrated and seems to have fermented slightly. You see the other people make faces when they try it and laughter ensues. You will tell yourself you will not make a face. You’re going to “man up!” But you, too, will make the tiniest of icky faces. You can down cheap tequila with a straight face, but not this pot tea. Pot infusion? You want to ask the acquaintance, but he is talking to everyone at once, and everyone to him. Maybe you have asked him already. You can’t be sure. Did you ask him?
Seriously, you can take fake tequila with no limes, no soda or any kind of chaser. You pound it and high five people and feel like an idiot the next day remembering high fiving people. You high fived people? How old are you?
“Hey! Jack’s friend!” You slur, wondering where that dick got to. He is probably outside, no smoking in the house allowed! Giving alcohol and pot to underage kids and vomiting indoors is totally okay though. Screw that, he should smoke indoors, because you’re not sure you can get out of the living room. You seem to need to crawl. You do it, you crawl towards the door. You rue the three strong screwdrivers you drank too quickly to lubricate your social interactions. Not even sexy interactions, just regular conversation. Damn it. When did you drink those? Over the space of, what, an hour? Oh crap. This was all a terrible idea.
You are next to the door somehow, the door to get outside. The door itself is open, and woe, the screen door is shut. Cigarette smoke is coming in, drafting up your nose, and encouraging your stomach to push up into your mouth. You are like a giant starfish. You picture your stomach inside out yet smooth, billowing up from your throat, being punctured by your teeth? Please lord no, that sounds painful and maybe similar to ulcers, which you hear aren’t very fun. Ulcers are not party-conducive. You can’t talk to people if your stomach comes out of your mouth and is lacerated and oozing acid and mucus lining. You have shot all potential flirting in the foot. Flirting is a lame mythical creature now. Now your stomach is inside out of your face and you are very far from the toilet. Your hand crunches something as you crawl. Someone has spilled all of the potato chips. They’re ruffled. You know what? Floor chips sound good right now. You can concentrate on that. Can you eat them with your stomach coming out like this?
Someone asks if you are okay, and you realize you are vomiting in the hallway next to the door, all over the chips. The chips are not being absorbed into your digestive system. This is no good. It’s not how you thought this would go. You apologize. Your starfish eating habits were misguided.
You stand up, amazingly, feeling somewhat improved after a healthy vomit. Maybe the pot water all came out of there. At least the potato chips are absorbent. It’s those ridges. You nonchalantly stumble past the concerned/grossed out person, and you are self aware enough to hope they are really drunk too and won’t remember this very well, but you also don’t give too much of a screw about it. Look at you, you’re totally fumbling towards the kitchen, where there must be paper towels and mops and shit to clean it up with.
In the kitchen, you lean against the fridge. Someone’s hand rubs your head, catches some of your hair in their fingers and pulls it upwards, which tugs at the knots and confuses you as you blearily look side to side, no person close to you seems to be doing this. You get an epiphany and look up. There’s a guy in a suit sitting on top of the fridge. How the hell did he get up there? He might fall on you, the fridge seems to be twenty feet tall and he’s leaning over precariously and telling you something you can’t hear. You just stare at this fridge gargoyle as he switches to shouting: “I have mixed feelings about this song. No, actually, I hate this song. Listen. He just repeats the same sentence a million times over a repetitive bass line.”
Why is everything in this story defined by hate, you wonder? No, you liked your starfish stomach, but that was all lies. It was just hallucinations of grandeur and vomit. “His name sounds like…the T-Zone of someone’s face is in pain. But from sinus pain or acne?” You wonder out loud to fridge guy. You’re making horrible attempts at being witty.
“Sinus pain?” Fridge guy looks confused, and thoughtfully rubs his cheek. Three lipstick marks are now smeared. “I can only hear half of everything you say.”
You dismissively flap your hands around and try to open the fridge. Fridge guy has to help, you keep missing the handle. You want to eat some kind of vegetable. They only have baby carrots, your root veggie nemesis. Screw baby carrots. They aren’t ever even real babies. They are usually adults, you suspect, carved into baby sized carrots. They’re all tough fibers and shit unless you buy expensive organic ones and feel like a smug douchebag for spending that much on carrots, when you could have bought a 99 cent bag of scruffy non-washed full grown ones.
- - -
Heather is currently putting herself through college in gloomy Seattle. She likes to write about terrible things while wearing cardigans and granny glasses.
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