Part 3: The Carnivorous Oyster

And begin it did. For inside my sacred chassis a six-headed baby was in its early stages of development. Writhing around silently in the tenderloin of my belly, its host unaware of its secret rise to power...

And as Sunday’s Saga of Salacious Savor ebbed into another Monday, I began my week as a refreshed new spirit—donning shiny medals, brandishing new weekend memoirs like so many pearls. Let my indifference to hung-over exhaustion give proof that such magical weekends exist!!! Lo!!! And on what should have been yet another anti-Monday of licking wounds and Kostner movies, I reveled in my exploits and threw my rock fist high into the dreary Taipei sky, shouting, "Oysters!!!!!" 

But begin…it did. It started simply as images warping in and out my mind; dreams that were not dreams. Pictures with no form, yet awash with vibrant colors rose and fell, and seemed to be coming from a place deeper than my mind. And out of nowhere came a feeling I can only describe as a ‘nameless dread’. A puzzling montage of reds, pale pinks, tides shifting, jelly wobbling, and something like a living conscious being writhing around in my guts. And it steadily worked its way into my joints, bringing a bruising ache. My stomach hardened, and my oyster-slashed finger began throbbing, as if it were some silent red alarm—announcing that the six-headed baby devil had finally come.

I couldn't move, yet to stay still was pain enough. Cold sweat, as salty and thin as the oyster’s juices, covered my body. The viscera of the newborn beast of ocean meats…And then I exploded. And from both ends issued a substance I can not describe. Some horrors are better left uncolored. Yes, that last plate of oysters did it. What gluttony and abandon.

I was sick. Lord Salmonella had gutted me with his talons from somewhere deep in my shell. My body heaved and grumbled like a paper furnace. My head reeled in twisting hallucinations. Always rising and falling, like the ocean itself. I reached for water; took the smallest of sips, and purged the exact amount almost instantly. I moved a leg to find some relief from the aching, and my pain was converted into a disgusting liquid measure. I lay on the cold spackled floor of the bathroom, wishing for an end to the agony. Wishing for a two-headed toilet. Wishing for my mommy. Wishing for death to reach its arm from the bile and bog and pull me down once and for good.

And somewhere in my delirious state, far away, I heard my phone ringing. It was way past 2am at this point, but I instantly knew. I was not alone in my pains. Out there somewhere, were two-- maybe three other victims; raped and bashed by a separate, single and bad oyster. 

Wo is he that brazenly tucks into sweetmeats of the abyss...

I have since learned some extremely helpful rules to proper oyster eating (although I can barely imagine ever eating another). For one, raw oysters should only be eaten in months ending with the letter R. Then, you have to take into consideration the depth and temperature of the waters they are found in. The deeper and cooler the water, the better. So, basically eating raw oysters in Taiwan---in the summer---in the south---should be avoided! It’s no wonder that the locals don’t eat them raw. 

In the end, with new knowledge and fading flashbacks, I impart this thought. Perhaps such heavenly rare food should be respected with the same penitence one might reserve for a violent god.