The Boil - a Meditation

Boils.

They hurt, don't they? Wow. Especially when they're on the part of your leg where the fat bits rub together when you walk. The fat bits hurt too, but it's more a vanity issue than anything else.

So the boil hurts but it's like a tooth - you poke and prod it even though you know it hurts. What the hell is that all about?

And so you Google what to do with your boil and it says, "apply hot compress". And so you apply the water on a face washer as hot as you can bear, and you see with delight how a head forms. And you can't resist but to squeeze, but nothing really happens.

You hate having pimples, not that you really get them anymore. But when you did, you would squeeze them and mangle your face and have a big blotchy mark. It was like you had been invaded by something from Alien and you had to get the pus out of you or die.

You have grown up now and are able to defer your gratification and so you leave your boil alone and go and live your life. You wonder if maybe your boil will not offer up its pussy goodness at all, and will just grow and grow until it explodes and you die. Or else you'll wake up in the morning and it's deflated like a pair of octogenarian breasts and you will feel very hard done by because you did not get to squeeze. But there's nothing for it, and so you leave it.

You wonder if your pussy imaginings aren't the result of being a bit creatively out of sorts. Just a poem squeezed out here, and a journal entry there and a blog post over there but really, it's just been a trickle and nothing like the everyday bit of creativity you need to indulge in to stop the readers of your blog thinking you're a bit mad. You think when you return to being creative every day, then you will stop having these weird thoughts - like, for example, every time you turn the light on lately you have this weird thought that appears in your mind that you are going to be electrocuted. You need to rein your imagination in like it's a wild crazy cloud monster and hone it into something edifying.

But until then you continue applying compresses to your beautiful boil the next day and oh, it's almost worth the pain when out spurts a large blob of disgustingly gross pus mixed with blood. And the boil deflates somewhat like a balloon, except harder and not made of rubber ... so nothing like a balloon really. But whatever it is like, it has gotten a bit smaller. You poke and prod at the boil. It sort of grosses you out how hard it is. It makes you want to squeeze your leg insanely until it drops off and the disgusting pus gets out of your body where it has invaded. But it is not to be.

You take a photo of your pus and send it to your cousin Andrea. You thought she might appreciate it, seeing she wants to be a pus doctor when she grows up. Every time you think of how you sent a photo of your pus to someone, it makes you laugh.

The next day you apply more hot compresses - and again, oh joy, you are rewarded with another stream. You wonder how on earth you managed to walk around with what seems to be at least 500 grams of pus in your left leg. And it deflates a bit more, and then a few days later you get to squeeze again, one last time, and then that is the end of the interesting slice of fun, the most fun that's been had in your inner thighs for many a month.