I am unable to stop breaking wind. This doesn’t come as a surprise since my new diet has been heavy with cauliflower, lentils, and beans. I am subjecting myself to this culinary hinterland as I attempt to eat things which are ‘good for me’, in what I increasingly think is a mid-life voyage into masochism.
Would you like to know a discovery I have made? ‘Healthy’ and ‘flavourful’ are repellent to each other. What a terrible design feature for our taste buds. Unfortunately, while the cost of heathy eating is great, so may be the reward. A plebian sentiment if ever there was one.
The sound is not the major problem. Suffice it to say that my body formulates so concentrate an effluvium as to render myself, as well as those around me, incapacitated. I no longer need do core exercises since my abdominal muscles have been enlisted in constant defence of the frontier. The risks in this strategy are all too apparent. Should I fail to maintain containment, the trombone performance comes with such vigour and force as to hurl my companions past humour and into utter shock. Perhaps sound is more of a problem than I had initially thought.
The embarrassment is what I find frustrating because it has never troubled me before. Yet for some reason I find myself reticent about this problem. I have taken to meeting colleagues and clients outdoors at coffee shops. As luck would have it, doing business in this way appears to be in vogue these days.
I am still seething with fury at the doctors who have inflicted this torment upon me. It can only be because of their ineptitude that I am thus afflicted. I consider myself to be dignified, aloof even. I would go so far as to say that my bearing gave people to thinking that I, like our former queen, do not make wind. From the point of view of the rest of the world, I am beyond these pedestrian, messy functions.
Well, no longer.
The debacle began when I had a heart attack. Let me be more specific: When I thought I was having a heart attack. Once upon a fine bucolic day, I was to be found explaining to a fund raiser from the Red Cross the multiple errors besprinkled across her latest application to my foundation. She seemed shaken by my tutelage. How someone is supposed to improve themself if they are chronically incapable of accepting constructive criticism I will never know.
All of a sudden, I was having difficulty breathing. Initially I thought my huffing was the result of the excessive vigour employed in my explanation of her failings, a theory vindicated by her ashen face. But then there was a monstrous pain in my chest and she dropped her notepad. I understood the meaning immediately. We who lead suffer under too much pressure. We care so much for those around us that we run ourselves ragged. “Alas,” I thought, “why now, when I am in my prime?” I cursed the god who had saddled me with a never-ending parade of buffoons.
My assistant, Sharon came in to see what the fuss was about. With a calm eye, she surveyed the room. She made a call from the phone on my desk and ushered the ridiculous fund raiser out. Sharon is extremely good at her job. I was wise to hire her.
An ambulance arrived followed by much hoopla, testing, and eventually a visit from my GP. “Finally,” I thought, “someone competent.” I explained how surplus stress from overwork had led to my sudden affliction. I included a detailed account of my lengthy bombardment with unnecessary tests. I expressed my shock that the hospital had not deigned to treat my heart attack immediately, instead having chosen to subject me to a barrage of prodding and poking with only an oxygen mask for comfort.
Then came a shock from which I have not yet fully recovered. My doctor did not dignify my complaints. She was, in fact, extremely rude. She attributed my condition to a lack of exercise, combined with what she described as an ‘unreasonably hedonistic lifestyle’. From this revelation, I was to deduce that I had only myself to blame for my current circumstances.
I felt fury and indignation welling up inside me: how dare this woman mock my graft, my suffering. I had built empires. With blood and sweat I had created wealth not only for myself but also countless jobs for others, not to mention the work of my foundation. How dare she. I would have her fired. This would be the end of her career. But not yet. I would allow her to treat me. She was, after all, a good doctor.
The long and the short of it then: not a heart attack, good news and so on. I went home simmering. What did she know of my struggle? Of my hours spent forging an empire. My driver was in one of his overly cheery moods, so I told him to raise the partition. I required isolation in which to plot my revenge.
He dropped me back at the office and I stormed inside calling for Sharon to get the hospital administrator on the line. I am a man of action. This quality has taken me far. You can imagine my shock when Sharon waved at me to be quiet because she was on the phone. Can you believe the disrespect? Sharon, my assistant, signalled me to shut up. I was left with bile in my throat as my world turned upside down. Was everyone going to disobey me today? I had no choice but to wait until she hung up.
I surfaced from my discontent as I became aware that something was amiss. My mind flashed back over the last few minutes. Sharon had gesticulated that she required my silence. I had began to fume. The gall of it. Who did she think she – wait. I noticed Sharon’s face. Concern was written large. I’d never seen her look concerned like that before. Weakness and shakiness washed over me. Sharon guided me to a chair and asked whether I needed to go back to the hospital. The doctor said it wasn’t a heart attack. The bitch had lied! Now she had to be fired, she was a danger to others.
Sharon was dialling an ambulance when the weakness began to pass. Alright then, not a heart attack. The bitch had not lied. I told Sharon that I was fine. She got me a glass of water and explained why she had been on the phone when I had arrived. My doctor had called, concerned that I had not paid attention to her pronouncements. Sharon explained that there was the possibility of an actual heart attack in future. I had to make changes to my life, including the malediction of my current diet.
Those first days were dark I can tell you. I couldn’t fathom how my body was managing to produce so much gas. I had no defence for the crippling embarrassment which washed over me every time I lost control. Sharon hired a private chef who succeeded neither in offering palatable dishes nor in reducing my body’s production of vapour.
Finding myself incapable of appreciating the best efforts of my overpriced chef, I was forced to admit that the doctor may have had a point. I am a hedonist. What bitter irony of fate that if I were to gorge myself now, I would die. Is there any point in being rich and stoic?
So be it then. I am a rich old fart. I know what you say behind my back. I understand the glances across the table, the barely concealed giggles. Believe it or not, I’m having a whale of a time. I want to boom great belly laughs at the absurdity of it. How delicious it is watching everyone pretending that I didn’t just let one rip. I know they will talk about it later.
I am having difficulty sleeping, though. Every night when I climb into my huge empty bed, I feel that something is pressing down on me and I think ‘this is it, tonight is when I go’. It is the same sensation as my not-a-heart-attack. I lie on my back and stare up at the darkness for as long as I can bear. When it becomes unendurable, I roll onto my side, reach into the space next to me and grasp at the sheets. They are expensive and soft, but they are not another person.
In these insomniac endurances, I find myself drowning in regret. Yet no other wished-for life takes shape in my imagination. There are some ghosts of unfulfillment though. I have never laughed till the point of crying with friends at the pub. I have no grandchildren to spoil. My bed is utterly empty.
I wake up the next day decidedly not dead. As I go through my morning routine, I slip back into the old me, the person who rose to the top by any means necessary. It is the only way. I have not asked the doctor for sleeping pills. At first, I thought it was because I was ashamed of having such a failing. But human failings arouse anger in me, not shame. I think instead that I am exacting a punishment upon myself. In the graveyard hours, my still small voice whispers that maybe I deserve this.