I had a
tapeworm.
I've never had a tapeworm, nor have I ever known someone who had a tapeworm, so I don't know the
symptoms, and I don't know how you get rid of them. But in this dream, I had a tapeworm, and the only way I could get rid of it was to
puke it up.
So I stood over the
toilet, feeling my
gorge rising, and I started to
vomit. Immediately, the tapeworm starts to come out. But it isn't a small
worm -- it's damned
colossal. It completely fills my
esophagus, bulges my
throat out enough to force my
windpipe closed. It almost
distends my jaw as it pushes out my mouth. It's
colossal. No mere worm, this is an
eel -- a
lamprey -- and surely it's the
King Dog Daddy of all the
Slimy Gut-Dwelling Eels, because it just keeps coming and coming. Its head plunks down into the toilet, but it keeps coming. Its
oily,
greenish-black hide, flecked with bits of
vomit and spatters of my own
blood, keeps surging out of me. I'm
terrified,
horrified, unable to breathe,
crying, making little choking sounds that would be roof-shaking
screams if I could only breathe around this
monster eel.
It seems to take
forever, but surely only 30 seconds to a minute have passed by the time the thing's
tail (or head -- god help me, it's got a mouth on both ends) slides out of my throat. Its front end is still sunk in the toilet, but the rest of it is humped up over the rim and
coiled
wetly on the bathroom floor. The thing is
eight feet long, and this little voice in the back of my mind is
gibbering
surely you've lost weight now, boyo, who needs diets and exercise, just barf up a sea monster every now and then.I lean out of the bathroom, drained physically and
emotionally, surely feeling like a few years drugged up in the
psych ward would feel
just peachy right now, and I call for some assistance. My
mother comes over, glances unconcernedly into the bathroom, and calls for my dad. "Say, how should
J-P dispose of that?" she asks. (And a good question, too -- No way in hell our
plumbing can handle that, har har har). My dad looks in, shrugs, and says, "Put it in a
plastic garbage bag and throw it in the
dumpster." They both move on, leaving me wondering how much of my
sanity will be left after shoving eight feet of dead eel into a trash bag...