As one gets older, one's eating habits can change, usually for the worse. We either eat too much, or we eat the wrong kinds of things. Fats of course are the most disagreeable, and sugars equally so. Yet oftentimes it's hard to avoid either.
Having punished my digestive tract with too much junk for more decades than I care to think about, I now have to do penance for my sins. Antacids are a necessary and frequently used item in my medicine cabinet, my intestinal growling after meals has become a commonplace, and a former steady regularity has taken on a more urgent and irregular turn.
What is especially interesting of late is that my interior noises have acquired a distinctive sort of sound. Quite different from the low rumbles and mild quakings of just a few years ago, they seem now to have adopted a higher-pitched, almost puerile, and — dare I say it — a quite noticeably feminine quality. It is as though my gut has been transmogrified from a baritone to a countertenor, or worse yet, a soprano.
I can be sitting in my easy chair watching the evening news after dinner, and there comes this small voice from the inside roughly between the sternum and the umbilicus. Sometimes it even surprises me during a nap. Is it my imagination or a dream? It seems to be calling my name!
My unease is compounded by the recollection of a story titled "Lukundoo" by Edward Lucas White. I first read this story as a teenager, and even today it can still give me the creeps.
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