Bowels of Mercy

My wife has been sick for two days. This morning, Katie sat on the couch, swathed in a blanket, a robe, and pajamas. She checked email on her laptop while eating a bowl of oatmeal. Suddenly, she stopped eating in mid-spoonful. Katie coughed on some heartier grains that had stuck in her throat. I assumed that she had swallowed too soon, but then I saw her color change. She got that unmistakable look in her eyes: a vague commingling of meditation and fear. It's a look that a person never forgets once he's seen it stretched across the face of someone seized by nausea. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to sweep the computer from her lap just before she rose to her feet and hustled to the trash can in the kitchen. As she disappeared around the corner, I hummed to myself and focused on my book. The last thing I wanted to think about was what she was doing into the trash.

After Katie had excused herself and gone upstairs, and after I had cleaned the kitchen, I again sat on the couch with my book. I found myself unable to read, however. The Germans seem to have a word for everything, and I'm sure the Germans have a word for the ordinary experience that sends a person's mind off on a philosophical jaunt. The episode with my wife and my unpleasant chore that resulted had poked my brain. As a result, I sat and pondered one of life's most profound mysteries: "Why does vomit smell so bad?"
I am not interested in the obvious scientific answer to this question. My attitude toward the scientist is like that of a character in a novel by Walter Moers: he watches a scientist experimenting on animals and then turns the animals loose on the scientist so that he can write a short story about the experience. I understand that vomit smells bad because it contains stomach acids. That does not interest me. I want to know why vomit smells bad for our sake. Why does it smell awful when it could just as well smell good? Vomit could smell like soap or lavender, but instead it smells like carrion. Why? And why do the revisited contents of our stomachs resemble smashed brains when they could just as well look like rose petals, or a basket of fruit, or at least the pizza we ate in the first place?

For most of us, the sight of our vomit is the closest we will ever come to seeing our own insides. In that pained moment, as we involuntarily heave to purge ourselves of every last bit, we feel our weakest. Against our will, we have emptied ourselves. The effort leaves us breathless, moaning with stinging breath, as we clutch at a toilet bowl for support. And the thing that we cannot help but look at is something that we made ourselves. The foul mess, with its stench and discoloration, was once a part of our bodies. Into us it went, attractive, fragrant, and appetizing, and out again it came, mutilated and polluted by the contact. I don't believe that man is wholly bad. Yet I believe that even vomiting says something about the nature of human beings. We are warped creatures who seize, devour, and distort the world around us. Our insides are twisted and dark, and we seldom ponder the nature of our own souls. I can't stand being sick, and retching is as abominable to me as having my nails pulled, but the next time I toss my cookies, I plan on doing something new. When I am finished, I intend to look long and hard at what came out of me. And then I'll think about how it got there.