Unspoken Pressure

There you are, away from home.  Perhaps you are on a walk.  Perhaps you are on public transportation.  perhaps you are shopping.  Whatever you are, there is a pressure growing, a pressure you cannot talk about, a secret terror growing within.

You start making contingency plans, what you might do if the worst truly happens.  There isn't a good answer, but there are some truly horrifying possibilities.  You look around for surcease, but there is nothing out there.  You are alone with the pressure.

The pressure builds.  You try to ignore it.  You try to deny that this is really happening.  You just need to fight it, keep it secret, no-one must know. 

You start to wonder if you are the only one who ever feels this pressure?  After all, it is never mentioned.  Is there something wrong with you?  It builds and builds, roiling away in your innards.  You can feel it in your gut and nothing else matters.

Finally it reaches the point where the question is unavoidable.  This is your only hope.  The only possibility of avoiding the worst case scenario.  The question. 

"Is that a fart?"

So much rides on the question.  For a start, there's a very good chance that you will ride on the answer.  If the answer is "no" there can be no greater public humiliation.  There is no greater social faux pas then to carry around with you a stench.  The odor of the outcast, the misfit, the irredeemable social failure.

But what if the answer is "yes"?  How do you find out?  Perhaps the answer is both "yes" and "no".  How do you go about finding the answer?

You will find out soon enough.  Even with the heroic struggle you are undergoing, time is running out.  Something must be done, and quickly.  It is almost time to put those contingency plans into effect.  Either the answer is "yes", or you need to find an alley, a dark corner of a parking garage, a place thick with foliage.  it is time for the experiment.

This will take an act of supreme muscle control.  The mind is keenly focused.  You become unaware of the world around you.  There is just you and the task at hand.

With all the precision you can manage, the valve is released just a tiny fraction.  The evaluation is immediate and intense.  Ah!  What glory!  All the gods and angels have taken mercy!

But the roiling pressure continues.  You are not out of the woods yet, and the woods may yet beckon.  The experiment is repeated, with just a tiny quantum leap of increased relaxation.  This is working.  Everything is going to be all right.  Just be careful.  Don't reach for the stars and you won't fall like a shooting star.

Wait!  Holy  .....!  OK, calm down.  Got that just in time.  OK, OK.  Just calm down now.  Things are better.  Just keep that back straight and make sure that gait is as stiff as a guardsman at Buckingham Palace.

The porcelain altar awaits with an open heart, ready to take you into its warm, loving embrace.