Story #19 - Never Get Nervous Again
Une petite bagatelle stupide qui vous a été envoyée de Paris.
This week’s story contains some NSFW language and imagery. It’s just kind of gross and scatalogical, not obscene or violent or sexual, but normally these stories aren’t even that, so I wanted to let readers know. I was in a good and silly mood when I wrote this, and I hope it shows!
Never Get Nervous Again
“Oh God, I got the bubble guts. I’ve been pissing out my ass all morning. All they got here is one-ply, I’m gonna be shitting blood on my wedding night.”
He paced back and forth in the dumpy little ready room where he’d been consigned, while above his bride occupied their suite with her friends. He could hear them cackling through the floor intermittently.
His buddy sat on couch, away from the unidentifiable stain that almost completely covered one cushion. Their matching suits hung from a portable clothes rack that someone had put there for the purpose.
“Why isn’t there more to do? Jesus, it’s gonna take me seven minutes to put on the suit, I already plucked every damn hair I don’t want, I’m like a goddamn sea otter at this point. I’ve taken three showers and if I take another one my skin’s gonna start falling off.
He activated his Neuralink and checked his social media by habit. Forty-six pictures from his guests—who were already drinking—had been posted since the last time he’d checked, five minutes ago. He started to look through them, but then suddenly felt overwhelmed by it and stopped, archiving the pics unseen. He’d look at them later. Or not. His gut bubbled again. He knew he didn’t have anything in his stomach, intestines, or colon, but it felt like he had a flock of geese in there.
“You don’t have to go through this,” said his buddy from the couch.
“No, it’s not that man, I know she’s the one, he replied, wondering why the hell his buddy would say that at this point.
“No, not go through *with* this, go *through* this,” his buddy repeated.
“Come on, I’m not taking drugs, I’m three years off that shit, what’s wrong with you?” He pulled up his social media again, already regretting having let the last set of pictures archive, but overwhelmed by the thought of actually finding and unarchiving them.
“Not that either,” said his buddy”. “There’s a hack for your Neuralink. It can block your nerves with the right program. I use it for performing. Here.”
His buddy paused and thought for a moment, and then a program appeared in his email. He ran the program in an isolated sandbox environment and was immediately impressed. The way it layered neuroelectrical impulses was impressive and minimal. It certainly wasn’t dangerous. If it worked….
He ran the program and found a new dial on the visual menu that appeared when he closed his eyes. There on the panel that monitored his vitals was an “anxiety” meter that bounced around as his feelings did. He thought about standing in front of his entire assembled friends and family, having to remember the words to his vows. His stomach rumbled, and the meter shot way up. He reached out with his mental hand and was about to try turning the dial down, but hesitated.
Instead, he opened his eyes, and found his buddy eyeing him.
“Did you do it? Oh no, I can see the sweat on your forehead, you didn’t. Why not?”
“What if, like, I’m supposed to be feeling this? What if it won’t mean as much to me if I don’t feel terrible for a while first?”
“Then you’re a masochist?”
“No, I’m serious. When you play and you’re not anxious at all beforehand, how does it feel after? Is it the same kind of high?”
“I don’t turn it all the way down. I need a little bit of that juice, sure, but you don’t have to be like shitting yourself.”
“So you get the principle! You see what I’m saying!”
They were getting excited. They both loved to argue.
“Sure, but the point is it’s not all or nothing.”
“But isn’t that what today is?! If there was ever a day to be shitting myself, it’s today!”
“Why do you think there has to be a day to be shitting yourself?” His buddy seemed genuinely puzzled and a little grossed out. “What if you just didn’t ever bleed from the asshole on account of your brain freaking out, like ever in your whole life? Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Would it though?” His stomach growled and it almost seemed like it was screaming at him that it would, indeed, be better, and he was an idiot for questioning it. He went into his interior space again and saw the dial, there, the meter spiking with every heartbeat. But something kept him from reaching out and touching it. He returned to the exterior.
“You need a little of the juice now, but you’re a pro now, you’re all dialed in. But the little bit of juice works for you because you have a *memory* of the full fucking juice box, and it just triggers that memory so you can get into the right space.”
“So what’s your point? You planning to get married two-hundred nights a year any time soon, or is this maybe not the right analogy at all?”
“My point is—after which I’m gonna have to head back to the bathroom by the way—My point is—“
“Sure, make your killer point about how great anxiety is and then go take a dry shit and stuff toilet paper in your ass so you don’t bleed through your tux and ruin the pictures. This is gonna be a killer bon mot, I have faith.”
“My *point* is that— Oh God, hold on.”
He ran into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and ripped a giant fart. His stomach felt instant relief, but he didn’t trust it. He heard gales of feminine laughter from upstairs. Was it at him? Could they hear his fart through the ceiling like he could hear them laughing? Oh God.
“Go ahead, Stud, what’s your point?”
His buddy’s voice from inside the bathroom made him start. He didn’t actually look but he felt the meter jump hugely anyway.
“Fuck you, Bro, that’s my point. Come in here and wipe my bloody ass for me, then go iron my shirt again.”
His buddy laughed his ass off, and he giggled too. Was he really going to get married in three hours?
“This can end any time you psycho, just turn the damn dial down and you’ll feel better.”
“My point, Dude, is that feeling better ain’t the point right now. *Feeling* is the point.”
“You think if you’re not anxious you won’t feel anything? Love, anticipation, euphoria? These are feelings, right?”
“But I’ll know they’re bullshit! He was practically screaming now, he was so involved in the argument, and his anxiety was momentarily forgotten. “I’ll know that what I should be feeling is like I have to shit in my pants, and the love will turn to ash in my mouth, the euphoria will be no different than a line of coke!”
“I’m not saying you should start doing it again, but coke is pretty fucking euphoric, Bro. That may not be the right—“
“But it feels terrible after! And it’s not just the cracked out sleep and the nasal problems—“
“Though those are in one sense, of course, terrible enough—“
“But it’s the fakery of it! You know the people you got off with weren’t really there with you, and if I turn down that dial, then I ain’t really here either! It’s the exact right analogy cause they both put a wall up between you.”
“You assume. I mean you literally just learned about this anxiety dial like 2 minutes ago and you’ve never even tried—“
“Dude, Coke even makes you shit, I gotta say this is a kickass analogy.”
“Point taken, but my point is, try turning it down and if it sucks, you can always—“
“Oh yeah, I’m so great at giving up relief once I get my hands on it. Never had a problem with that before!”
“At least this doesn’t make you bankrupt like coke does?”
“Just morally and spiritually bankrupt.”
“Thanks, that’s nice to hear about myself.”
“Sorry, Dude, I didn’t mean you.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, you know I’m kidding.” He could sense his buddy’s eyes rolling through the metal door of the stall. This was perhaps the longest conversation he’d ever had while pooping. “Don’t get me wrong, obviously I am morally and spiritually bankrupt, I just don’t need to hear it from you just cause you found Jesus and a nice girl ten minutes ago. I know where you’ve been.”
“I don’t think you’re bankrupt!”
“Dude, I’m not worried about it, I—-“
“You’re on moral and spiritual welfare, maybe. Not bankrupt!”
“Oh, fuck yourself.”
“Like you’re shopping at the moral and spiritual food bank.”
“Shit more, Fuck face.”
“And the people that work there know you by face and name, and they all have a special place for you in their hearts, but it’s not like you’re destitute, ya know?”
“I’m gonna tell your bride you’ll need help applying soothing cream to your ass tonight. Should really help her get in the mood.”
He was smiling now. The anxiety had receded. He was going to have to wipe gingerly, but his stomach was quiet now. He didn’t look to his interior space, but he knew his anxiety meter had calmed.
“You know what I’m saying, though. If I dial this down, I’ll dial something else down. And in every situation, it’ll be a good thing, but when I look back a year from now, five years from now, there will be something missing from my life that I won’t even be able to name.”
“Time to get your suit on.” His buddy’s voice was soft and low now, all the shit-talking grin gone out of it. “Your three hours of pictures starts in ten minutes.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna need to use your program after all. I feel okay now.”
“Good, it doesn’t work anyway.”
“What?”
“Vaporware, Bro. The anxiety meter just tracks your heartbeat. Turning the dial doesn’t do shit. I got the Moccasin A.I. to mock up some code that looked plausible. You just needed something else to focus on.”
“So wait, what do you use for performing?”
“Practice, Dipshit. I play two hundred dates a year; I don’t get nervous. I could eat a full turkey dinner five minutes before I go on stage and not shit for a week. Not that I recommend that for you today.”
“So wait—“
“Gotcha, Bitch!”
He finished wiping himself, stood up, and opened the door to see his buddy’s smiling face.
“Oh, fuck you then,” he said. His buddy just grinned even bigger.
“The only thing the A.I. will never take from us is friendship.”
“So, wait, what were you gonna do if I turned the dial and it didn’t do shit?”
His buddy rolled his eyes and headed back for the ready room, and their suits, and his destiny. He followed, mouth turning uncontrollably up into a smile.
“Like you were ever gonna turn it, you weirdo.”
END
Have a great week. My next story definitely has more serious themes and more heft to it, but this one sure was fun! Hope it put a smile on your face too.
Well that was interesting. Hope it wasn’t too autobiographical! 🤣