Bangalore, India. The land of the free, home of the brave. Germs, that is.
I boast of phenomenal immunity levels, probably in the realm of the unreal. I haven’t been sick ever since – this gift bestowed upon me by a brief visit to the refuge of the city’s refuse.
The reason for such an atrocity to occur can be attributed to a college party at a rather pricey hotel, my friends and I were partially invited to and partially crashing; only one was well acquainted with the host, the rest piggybacking off the efforts of some well-to-do yuppie’s son to provide atonement for his overly freckled face and radical case of Alopecia among his affluent contemporaries.
A jammed car with butts and appendages of overly-zealous party goers hanging out the window is no good for me, I propose to take my trusty motorcycle and my ever so glamorous pillion rider, my then girlfriend with copious amounts of makeup ready to turn heads and propel my ego. However, before I could rightfully claim that she ride with me, I realized that one of the aforementioned butts slash appendages was hers. I ride alone.
The venue was bustling with drunkenness and revelry. Dismounting my motorcycle, I visually scour the arena for my gate-crashing rat pack; it took all of two seconds – crumpled clothes and bad hairstyles were an eyesore at this soiree. Quickly joining them, I realized that the mortal enemy to free hands for various social commitments – holding a glass of intoxicating drink, or punching the odd douche bag for making ‘love me’ eyes at my gal – my helmet was destined to be more a torture device than a safety device. Upon voicing my inconvenience, the owner of the car chucks me the keys, and in a flying swoop that would be deemed unnecessary to the secure minded, I heroically grab them in mid air, and in my mind’s eye, it all happened in slow motion. All in a strange, premeditated sort of way. When I landed on my feet, it dawned upon me that my epic gesture was deliberately ignored, by what my lightning fast mind at that instant dubbed them “the pack of rats”. I sprint my way to the car.
Going down the ramp to the parking garage that adjoined the hotel, I practice my “Sorry, I’m taken” smile that I was to flash at the plethora of vixens that would soon be legless and seeking orgasm donors – although I was missing out on teenage sex-god action, a steady girlfriend was a guarantee of incessant premarital sex, something of an anomaly in a country that frowns upon even at the mere mention of intercourse, but has a population count that would make rabbits foam at the mouth. At the corner of the ramp, my mind began to advocate reasons why I must forsake my ladylove – the fact that I was a…
Whoosh!
At first I perceived it was my imagination, one of the darkest ones at best; my nervous system on overdrive with the tenacity of a telephone operator with autism, trying to make sense of it all.
A quick survey of my surroundings, my suspicion was confirmed at the sight of a banana peel on my right shoulder and a piece of feces floating right by my eyes – I had been baptized in the hotel’s cesspool. The exodus from the sump was quick – with no one to help me out, my body suddenly gained animal like strength; it was the walk of shame back to the party that was long and agonizing. Breaths were held in shock, but mostly out of the putrefying muck of human emissions taking accommodation in every pore of my soiled attire.
The look on my ladylove’s face was one of sheer embarrassment. I deduced that it was impossible for anyone to not notice the person who was swathed in all forms of excrement from head to toe. But while the whole world turned quiet and relished the moment, she conveniently spotted a friend she hadn’t seen in the last ten minutes. A transition had occurred due to the resolute decision I had effected in my humiliated state of being - she was now christened “the mother of all whores in the land of whoredom”.
That night, I gained immense popularity, and so did that manhole. I dumped the whore.
I haven’t had even a cold since. The word on the street is even AIDS has nothing on me.
J Thomas
