[jgreen]

As I shakily moved forward towards the agent for a pat down, my stomach began to illicit sounds that can only be described as otherworldly. It started off a sort-off bubbling sound heard from afar and grew in pitch and intensity at an alarming rate. My jaw dropped in shock as what I can only describe as the sound of an agonized wailing alley-cat in heat with a persistent Doppler effect added to it's voice emitted from some nether-region of my intestines. The officer's eyes widened in alarm, and she kept her eyes glued to my stomach as she thoroughly patted me down. As she reached my shins, I felt my innards suddenly expand, and plummet towards my rectum. With cat-like reflexes I squeezed my sphincter shut with what seemed like nano-seconds to spare, and I knew, I KNEW that if I didn't get the bathroom immediately I would s*** myself.

With a Herculean effort and all of the strength that I could muster, I forced my buttcheeks together knowing that one false move would open the floodgates. I began to walk like a duck, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible, not even caring now what other people were seeing in front of them - a disheveled, barefoot 40-year-old business man, red-faced and bulgy-eyed, sweating profusely, shaking slightly and walking without bending his knees. With single-minded intensity I grabbed my carry-on, shoes and socks from out of the plastic tub that had passed the x-ray inspection, and without putting anything back on, I turned on my heels with the intention of finding the nearest restroom and slowly dying there one squirt at a time.

But that's not what happened.

I turned to go and found myself staring at three armed agents who stopped me and asked if I would follow them. "Why, what's the matter?" I stammered, wincing slightly as the act of speech seemed to strain the tenuous and extremely fragile truce I had negotiated between my bowels and the tempest that raged within. "I have to go the bathroom, RIGHT NOW" I pleaded. "Just follow us please", they said, leaving no room for argument. The other travellers clearing the security check stared with curiosity and revulsion at the spectacle unfolding before them, whispering amongst themselves and hurrying to pack up their belongings and get as far away from me as possible, no doubt assuming that the airport had nabbed some sort of domestic terrorist. If I hadn't been feverishly trying to hold back the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, I likely would have died of shame.

With each step I took towards the room that they ushered me into, I felt that my legs would give way. I marvelled at how strong the human will could be. Marvelled at what was essentially patching a hole in the Hoover Dam with bubblegum could actually be sustained indefinitely. Maybe I would make it through this ordeal after all. The room they brought me into was an examination room. I had pretty much stopped registering details of my environment as my consciousness closed off all but the absolutely necessary functions - breathing, ability to walk - but I snapped back to reality when I heard the snap of rubber. The slow dawning of realization poked through my agony and stoic resolve as I turned to face an agent dawning rubber gloves.

"Sir, we are going to perform a cavity search on you", a young fresh-faced agent stated in a firm but emotionless voice. His short-cropped, blond hair was immaculate and for a crazy moment I wondered if he was an actor and this was all some sort of elaborate practical joke done to amuse bored kids watching Youtube. He must have taken my tortured silence for resistance because he looked at me sharply and said "Lower your pants and underwear please, and face the desk". Panic started to grip me in it's icy grasp and the sudden adrenaline threatened to destroy my sphincters bulwarks and rend my anus in two. I inhaled sharply and with a pained gasp I doubled up my efforts to clench my cheeks together. "Sir, please", I begged deferring to this kid in an act of desperation, "I have to go to the bathroom. You can follow me into the stall if you need to but I had some bad "Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears" and now I feel like'", but they had stopped listening and smirked at each other, two of the other agents - a tall, dark-haired female and a shorter, balding fat man - looked away from me and I could see them shaking a little as they stifled their laughs. "Sir, face the wall, put your hands on the desk and spread your cheeks" the young agent stated, a lop-sided grin on his face. "But'", I began to protest, and then a fresh shock of pain forced me to stop and lean on the table for support as an ungodly howling rose from my stomach, something between the dying moans of a Wholly Mammoth, and the sound of bubble-wrap popping underwater. I exhaled shakily and my focus began to narrow, as I rallied for the final battle. Shaking uncontrollably and sweat literally raining down onto the tabletop in from of me, I turned to face the wall and heard a meek childlike voice, pleading from somewhere in the room. "Please", it said, and then again, "Please". From somewhere within me my mind recognized that this sound had issued from me, although my consciousness had now begun to separate from my body and I held my breath and prayed to God for strength.

"He probably has some heroin or something up there that opened up", the female guard said as a part of me that hadn't escaped into the ether yet acknowledged that she was behind me to my left, "probably high as a kite, LOOK at him", she said. The shorter guard agreed with a snort, off to my right.

"Spread your cheeks" the young agent said, his voice directly behind me and lower than the other two, "and bend over".

"Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegodpleasegod", I whispered in a desperate, maniacal mantra, not even aware of my surroundings anymore. I felt like I was lost in an opium fog with half-snatched images and sounds filtering through to create a nonsensical version of reality. Another volley of pain tore through me and I involuntarily leaned forward over the desk, my focus completely narrowed now to a spot on the wall two feet in front of me, a curious imperfection in the what seemed to be white-washed stone wall. It was a dark blotch about five millimetres long and shaped like a smiling bear, a yellow dancing bear. No, a green bear. No, red. It was all the colours of the rainbow. My god, it was beautiful.

It just took something as simple as a slight breeze to trigger Armegeddon. That's all. No trumpets, no fanfare, no fire raining from the heavens, no dogs and cats living together in harmony, no finger on the button, no prophet to predict it, no nothing. As I stared at the rainbow bear smiling and dancing in front of me, my mouth agape, drooling, eyes glazed and blood-shot, face coated with a sheen of sweat, I heard the softest sound, an exhalation from the young agent behind me, and then at the same instant the warm air of his breath feather across my butt cheeks. For just a moment, maybe less, maybe a split second, even a nanosecond, I felt the presence of God there with me in that room as neurons began to misfire at a blinding rate, nerve ending bristled and muscles twitched reflexively. I stood on the brink with one foot hovering over the edge, and then without taking a step, I found myself plummeting.

With a sound like an extra large plastic ketchup bottle being run over by a Mac truck, my sphincter released. The pressure of the blast pushed me hard into the desk and the legs of the desk screeched as they scraped across the floor. My body remained rigid for a moment and I experienced a relief that can only be described as orgasmic in it's purity. My eyes rolled back in my head and my tongue lolled out of my head like a half-retarded dog and I emitted a low, sustained groan that grew in pitch as the filthy torrent pushed its way out of my body. Tremors wracked my body and I must have looked like a fish out of water with an endless stream of s*** firing out of its ass. Other sounds and sensations started to filter in now as my consciousness began to materialize once more. The muffled scream of a dungeon filled with prisoners near death radiated from my stomach, the rushing sound of litres of liquid trying to escape through an aperture too small to accommodate it all at the same time, the omnipresent sound of chunky liquid spattering against a hard surface with great force, the high-pitched screaming of a woman's voice calling out to God, another voice sobbing uncontrollably imploring to "make it stop!!!" and my own ecstatic, monotone wail.

When my ordeal had eventually run its course, I was left panting for breath and wobbly legged, half-crying, half-laughing with relief, barely lucid and feeling as if I had birthed an elephant. My colon felt like someone had poured chile sauce all over it and then sent in a colony of fire ants to eat it. Through my sobs I heard the sound of dripping, like when the sprinklers are eventually turned off after an office fire, or after a thunderstorm when the willow that overhangs a pond continues to rain down long after the sky has stopped. From behind me, the sobbing continued and I heard someone trying to speak into a walkie-talkie but nonsensical words were all that the man could speak, which sounded like the ravings of a lunatic.