Today’s prompt: “Did you check the date before you used it?’
It was when he emerged from the toilet for the fourth time and looked purpler than he had on his last exit we began to question the cause of his obvious change in colour, personality and demeanour.
He had rung to ask me over, as he was not feeling well and needed a bit of sympathy.
By the time I arrived whatever was going on had well and truly taken him by the short and curlies and he was reduced to a shadow of his usually cheerful self.
It was clear to me he had eaten something that was not agreeing with him. I looked over at his dining table and saw what I assumed was a bag of dried fruit.
He said he had had a tough day at work and after going to the gym on his way home had not felt like cooking himself a big meal but decided to stay on the health kick he’d been on for the past month.
He had some dried figs and decided they would be a healthy meal in light of his feeling a bit fatigued. He found the ones he knew he had in his pantry and ate plenty to satisfy his love of dried figs and his appetite and commitment to a healthy diet.
It wasn’t long before he felt the rumblings in his stomach and the irresistible urge to get to the toilet. And there he found himself, parked you might say.
I gathered up the opened packet of dried figs and looked the packet over. On the back, it said ‘use by June 16th’. That was a good six months ago.
“Did you check the date before you ate these?” I asked
He shook his head to say no and with it bowed and he feeling worse as time went by it was clear the culprit was the old packet of figs.
“They’re way out of date,” I announced which didn’t do anything to help the situation as that seemed to make things worse and he looked at me as his stomach sent an urgent message to his brain that his bottom needed to be in the toilet pronto.
Off he went slamming the toilet door behind him, and it was sometime before I saw him stagger out and head to his bed.
In the meantime, I disposed of the tainted figs and looked for something I might give him, as one of my fears now was dehydration. He had a little cordial in a bottle in his pantry, and so I mixed it with some water and suggested he drink that while I went to the pharmacy to get him some hydrolytes.
By the time I returned he was back in the toilet and started to fear the poisoning may be worse than I at first thought.
When he came out this time, he announced he was going back to bed and when he did he fell asleep.
He woke some hours later and said he felt a lot better, his stomach had settled, and he felt less nauseous.
While he slept, I did go through his pantry and removed several packets of foodstuff that were well out of date. When I showed him, he muttered a “chuck ‘em” before placing his head on his pillow and falling back asleep.
Written for: https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/story-starter-challenge-17/
Morpethroad 