Day 67 - Eating Disorder

 Eating Disorder 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

George was fairly certain the meat had gone bad. Overcooked all day in the crock-pot, the color was a putrid dull grey and the aroma was off. Not bad or nauseating, but ever so slightly not what it was supposed to be. Just a little bit wrong. He thought about smothering it in barbecue sauce and seeing if that would mask the scent. He was afraid he’d just be wasting more resources on a lost cause.

His stomach was already on tender footing. The previous night had been one of acid reflux, an overabundance of Tums, and very little sleep. Something was going wrong as the symptoms were getting worse. A week ago, it was a bad belch. Now, he felt turmoil every day, for more and more hours. George had cut out coffee and switched to baking instead of frying. It wasn’t helping. He thought soft tender meat from a crock-pot might work to bake all the fat and oils out. But that wasn’t working out as planned.

George was making himself paranoid. His insurance was terrible and the nurses at his doctor’s office hadn’t returned his call yet. Normally it would be weeks before he could schedule an appointment. And that might could end up being the first round of visits or tests. He had been hoping that things might heal on their own. That didn’t seem to be the case. He was starting to worry that his esophagus was about to burn through.

Little twists and turns came from his stomach. George couldn’t believe he was hungry at a time like this. What did his stomach know that the rest of him didn’t? He couldn’t bring himself to taste the crock-pot mystery he had prepared. He certain that it would do his acid issues no good either.

George began to cut Brussels sprouts, deciding that roasted vegetables was a much safe way to go.  

Safe that is, until he ended up nicking the end of his index finger.

The blood ran down into the sink. He pressed his thumb against the wound and tried to contain the bleeding. He hurried to the bathroom where he had Bacitracin and a fake skin spray that was supposed to help seal small wounds in spots where a Band-Aid might be hard to apply – like a fingertip for instance.

There was too much blood and he had trouble spreading the Bacitracin. He kept trying to put pressure on his finger at the same time and just seemed to just make it bleed more. The spray was empty and his fingers seemed to be too wet and he couldn’t get the Band-Aid to stay on.

Temptations arose and the urge overtook George, and he put his bloody finger in his mouth and began to suck on his own blood. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to make things feel better. They say blood tastes metallic, but he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that his stomach seemed settled now. Something deep inside seemed to like this.

That scared him. He wasn’t sure what that meant, what was inside him. He didn’t want to find out.

George ended up wrapping his finger with toilet paper and used several loops of scotch tape to keep it in place. He threw the meat away, but couldn’t get the taste of his blood out of his mouth.