Another boring meeting. Another 3+ hours of sitting in an ice cold room, listening to self absorbed yuppies praddle on about production goals, standards, quarterly percentages, more and more boring stuff. As i absentmindedly zone out from the drabble, my eyes scan the room. Suits, blouses, skirts, slacks, coffee, white boards with arbitrary scribblings all over them. Then there’s my coworker, Sage. A beautiful girl with a mocha complexion, reddish brown hair, freckles, and emerald green eyes. But she looked….different today. Almost off. She didn’t have the vibrant, bright glow to her today. Not even a smile. She looked….dull. Almost ashen. Are those circles under her eyes?
My attention was brought back to the meeting when the board asked a question about manufacturing demands. When going to answer, I heard a belch. Stifled, but still a belch nonetheless. My eyes darted to the source of the noise as I answered, and I noticed the burp came from Sage. Her delicate fingers were pressed against her bubblegum pink lips. The meeting continued, and in the somewhat quiet move, I heard another noise. An odd, wet gurgle. And another belch. It’s Sage. She’s sort of slumped in her chair, and I notice that underneath her skirt, her tummy is bloated. The fabric of her clothing is stretched against her soft, rounded belly. I look at her face. The ashen gray from earlier has turned into a sickly sort of green. We lock eyes. She lowers her gaze in a sort of embarrassment. Concerned, I pull out my phone and send her a text from underneath the table. “What’s wrong? You look kind of green?” Send. Her phone buzzes, she looks at the phone, then at me. Then back at the phone. She taps a reply and sends it. I check my phone. “Felt bad since this morning. Think I have the belly flu. Ate the catered lunch to try to settle it. Not feeling good.”
Oh no. A stomach bug? With a full stomach? She’s a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. And it was hitting hard. Her bloated tummy was releasing angry, sick gurgles all throughout the meeting. Her complexion only grew more and more green tinged as she continuously would stifle wet burps, her cheeks puffing out as her unwanted lunch rose into her mouth, only to be swallowed back down with a grimace. Her stomach would respond to the sickly slurry being returned to it with an indignant gurgle and a nauseous slosh. The meeting had at least another hour left in duration, and I wasn’t sure if her tummy could hold out. Her burps were getting more and more frequent. More and more wet. Her stomach continued to gurgle and churn furiously, and I could swear I could visibly see the nasty sloshing happening inside of it. Every swallow of nasty sick caused her stomach to slosh and writhe, resulting in the green spreading across her face to deepen. She slumped back as her belly gurgled pitifully, mixing around the sack of vomit she called a stomach inside of her. She burped again, placing a hand on her tummy. Then, it happened. A belch, a gag, and another belch. Her tummy clenched, her cheeks puffed out with a sickly *glurp* noise as her mouth filled with the churned, unwanted lunch from her flu sickened belly. Her hands clasped over her mouth, her face a deep, sickly green. Her belly was sending more and more puke up her system, and she wouldn’t be able to contain it for much longer. Will she make it to the bathroom? Will she release the load in her sick tummy all over the meeting table? Do I sit and watch, or do I jump to the rescue? So many thoughts coursing through my mind, and yet, something about this situation is oddly arousing….