Sometime in the middle of the night, as I was deep asleep, I felt a strange sensation. I felt a tumble, a rumbling, like that of a small earthquake, as if the bed was shaking. And then I felt like something punched my stomach! I squirmed, folded in pain. I opened my eyes and searched for an offender in the darkness of our Love Shack, but there was no one around. Then I felt it again. I realized that the seismic trembling was going on in my stomach. There was a battle that was being fought. The epic battle of good against evil (bacteria, that is) was taking place in the middle of the night and my sleep was the unfortunate collateral damage. My stomach was aching and it was loud. It sounded like there was a microwar being fought with microcannons and somewhere my antivirus were being ambushed by evil invading forces. My stomach was trying to repel the attack and its brutal enemies that were trying to take over. So, I immediately got up and ran outside, ran as fast as I could, in the middle of the cloudless dark night, going only by instinct towards where I knew the bathroom was located. And I guess my immune system repelled the first huge wave of attack, if you know what I mean. After a long while, I dragged myself back to the hut. My stomach was hurting still. I laid down for a couple of minutes and repeated the previous scene over and over all night long! But each time, I felt weaker and weaker. Ouch! Monica would sympathetically groan what sounded like “Are you OK baby?” and go back to sleep.
When light came over the island I felt very weak. I felt hot, feverish almost and cold at the same time. I shivered at times. I had a headache and was very nauseous. I felt terrible. I couldn’t sleep because my head felt it was going to burst. My body was aching; it was a cold empty pain that settled in my bones. And that pain that felt like a tear in my intestines, as if something had scratched it. What do I have? I asked myself. For a moment there I thought I had Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever, Cholera, Malaria or one of those diseases that only tourists pick up in the jungle. What is going?? Did I get bit by a mosquito? Monica answered me: “I told you not to eat that fruit from the floor! Yup, I remember clearly, ‘Don’t eat that’ I told you, but no, you didn’t want to listen!” She was right. It must have been that fruit that was succulent, ripe and juicy. As a married man, I should have said “Yes, Dear.” As a result of my whim, I was paying the price. I laid there, maybe 10 lbs lighter and hurting.
I tried many times to fall back asleep but I could only sleep 15 to 20 minutes at a time. I would wake whenever my stomach felt that a twisted hot metal was moving within or when I would move in my sleep and thus my body reacted with pain. Monica would come wake me often, which didn’t make sense to me. She would wake me to find out if I was feeling better or resting comfortably. Argh! Anna , the owner, gave me some burnt toast, boiled rice and ginger tea: a homemade remedy. I still felt bad. Monica then grabbed that plant that our former guide said was a miracle plant and put it on my head. It felt cool and like it was absorbing the heat from my forehead. I was trying to get up because we were supposed to go the Dolphin Dive Shop to go on our dive. But I knew that I wasn’t going to make it across the jungle with that volcanic trembling in my stomach or have enough strength underwater. I was hating life. I was even more disappointed when I was later told that the dive team went to a dive spot and saw a pod of dolphins swimming around! Man, I am still upset thinking about it. It’s one thing seeing dolphins in an enclosed environment, but how ideal, how magnificent would it have been seeing them in the wild.
Being sick in paradise sucks!
And so, I got back to my aches and laid in bed for hours and went into a deep sweaty sleep. It turns out that while I was asleep, Monica went to take a shower. The shower’s here weren’t a real shower. They were in an enclosed space with no ceiling or running water. There was a barrel full of water and a bowl. Well, while Monica was taking her peaceful shower she encountered a pervert peeping in on her! When she told me that, I was livid with anger! Forget the stomach sickness, forget the dashing to the Throne, forget the bursting headache, I was just feeling anger! I asked her how she found out she was been peeped on and she explained that the culprit had climbed a tree and since there was no ceiling, everything was visible from the tree. And to make matters worse, this pervert didn’t even try to hide, instead started whistling at her! She didn’t know where it was coming from until she looked up. She told me that she felt violated and immediately wrapped herself in a towel and came to our Love Shack, waking me up. I got up and went outside with blood boiling, stomach raging and met face to face with this perv! I stood there watching. The bastard was casually walking towards me like nothing had happened. And then whistled when Monica came out the Love Shack. I thought to myself, “Oh man, this is it. Is paradise lost? First, I get sick and now this! I get disrespected by a parrot!” Monica was cracking up. She got me. But I warned her that the parrot was going to pay! That I wanted fried chicken for dinner! Soon afterwards, I decided to go back to bed and quickly feel back asleep.
