Very Fast Food

There is no mercy in food poisoning. The street meat beat down hits home, lights out, I am now considering the suicide option. Do I have the cajónes to keep moving forward? One sock, two sock, despair. Tetris blocks falling round, there is no cohesive option. My flight is in three hours, this is very bad. I lunge for the cool stainless-steel bowl and hurl out my dinner’s final stand. Not much left, I’m on the ropes. Punch in, punch out. I feel much better, but this calm state is fleeting. Minutes from now I will heave again, the stomach bile to dinner ratio will have increased. I toss back several glasses of water in hopes of stifling the inevitable dehydration, but to no avail. At least I can take a stand on the bile ratio front.

I am on the train and can’t get off. The brief clarity after each convulsion allowed me up to a fraction of a moment to continue packing, but at this rate it would take all day. Assuming I didn’t pass out first. I have a flight from the free and sovereign state of Kashmir to Delhi, which would not be the end of the world to miss, if I did not have a plane to catch back to JFK from there. I needed help. Thankfully I formed many beautiful friendships here when skiing the steep powder bowls in the Himalayan backcountry, so I phoned a resident ski bum.

The conductor killed himself and the train was barreling downhill, fast. My body was out of control and had nothing left to expel. Dry heaving, curled into a ball on the floor, everything going in and out. When my friend arrived, I committed the remaining railed thoughts to explain what I needed packed, then we were off. By this time the train had derailed and the up and up no longer seemed in the cards. I was brought to a third world hospital. As a tourist of comparable wealth, I was treated at the expense of the locals. Against my delirious pleas, they tossed a dying old man out of the heated bed and kicked him to the curb. Stomp! A nurse came in but couldn’t find my vein. Must be her first time on the needle. The head hancho came in for the alley-oop and found my vein after a concerning amount of effort . An hour of IV drip and the full drug works later, I was back on my feet. Was it not too late to catch my flight? I had one hour to reach the gate, and the airport was 45 minutes out.

In the foreign lands of white privilege, I was granted celebrity status. Barreled though the National Indian Army, I was dropped on the front door red carpet with a security expert tied to my hip. Every line I was shoved past, even my bags had the privilege of remaining unscanned. The money-power complex at work, oh the privilege of wealth. But who am I to complain when the leverage is on my side. The train skidded to a stop, and by the miracle of God or whatever, nobody was harmed. I made my flight.