Black Tongue

My tongue, she was a black tongue, twice this week. The first time I was hung-over and talking to Alyssa while I bathed. The water was too shallow. When I’m severely hung-over I feel the need to pamper myself with a bath. I was busy watching my stomach respond in jerky fashion as I breathed. It wasn’t just the fat, but the way it always seems somewhat quivery when I’m hung-over, it has always fascinated me. Alyssa was asking me questions. I was stuck on my gut. Chin touch chestish, mostly. I responded and Alyssa seemed concerned, “What’s, -- You’re tongue is black, let me see it, you’re tongue is black!” I stuck it out, “It’s black!” Alyssa promptly went to the internet like a good little me, to find, the remarkable remedy. With my weak arms I raised myself just high enough out of the tub to see the remarkable feature. Indeed, my tongue was black. I wasn’t really impressed, but neither was I concerned. I was feeling so low, and with the proposition of my shift getting nearer and nearer my mind was on just how shitty it was to be 28 and hung-over hours before work. Twenty-eight years, 10 years drinking, hung-over in the tub with a sickly, twitchy stomach countless times before, probably with a black tongue but rarely noticing it on account of absent girlfriends or apathetic ones. Plural generosity sing Singular insecurity.

Alyssa came back after 5 or so minutes. I was sweating too much for a guy whose dreams themed water lapping, water want. She informed me nothing was wrong, black tongue was benign enough, she said it had something to do with, “Paleod, umm, pal-ido, I don’t know but they say it’s nothing to worry, to worry about”. I don’t remember how I responded. I think I probably just got up, out of the tub, too hot. I dried myself with the smallest and ugliest of the three towels. The other two where mismatched, but they were both what I would consider my good towels. The towel on the towel bar was stinky, had been for a while. The towel on the floor was still folded but the underside was soaked, presumably from the party the night before. I remember seeing some asshole of a beer flipping down the stairs. And I might have just filled in the blanks, but I seem to remember some stranger wiping the liquid up with the good towel, still folded.

I brushed my teeth, paying extra attention to my tongue. I remember thinking it sure was a good thing I didn’t throw away my 1 ½ year old toothbrush, because of its special tongue-scraping head. The toothpaste frothed and foamed to a purplish black, almost grey, between the toothbrush bristles. It poured down the corners of my mouth. I’m a child when I brush my teeth, the paste, it goes everywhere.

I went to work. I was late by five minutes. 50% of my coworkers didn’t care, 50% of them did. 75% of them shouldn’t have. Work was nice. Surprisingly, I felt capable and partially healthy.

Skip ahead many hours later, about a day and a half later. I woke up at 8am and I had some literally nightmarish and strong diarrhoeal pains. I forced myself from a dead sleep and made myself remedy the situation. Pooping when mostly asleep on the seat is awfully hard work. 30 minutes later, I went back to bed, but not before I took one of the remaining “Pepto-Bismol” tablets that sat on my TV. The other tablet I then recalled taking just before I passed-out, at the end of the party, the night before. So, I woke up this morning, or afternoon rather, and I went to the mirror and began to brush my teeth. My toque, she was black--- Again. This time I was concerned. I thought my liver had ruptured or some malignant bilirubin was vile, or blood’n’bile had piled so high up my digestive tract that it went into my mouth as I lay sleeping. I brushed it away. I quickly walked to my computer and did a thorough web-search. Sure enough, bismuth was the culprit, time the antidote. I use to adore Pepto-Bismol, and all its digestive remedial properties. Black tongue doesn’t hurt. Truth is you can’t even taste the inky film. You can’t feel it either. But you must know sooner or later that a black tongue can’t possibly be anything but a bad sign. A black tongue, that’s gotta be a sign from God or something, your body saying, “Fuck, enough with the poison!”