Biodegradation

As I awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, I found myself transformed in my bed into something even worse than a gigantic insect.

At first, everything seemed the same. The squeaky single bed in a six-bed dormitory was the same squeaky single bed I had collapsed into the night before after consuming too much phat kaphrao and Chang beer. The thin blue-grey curtain that offered a modicum of privacy from the other backpackers in the dorm was still drawn closed, with the morning light breaking through it in a grim, blue-grey refraction.

I could see the vague outlines of the other bunks in the dorm through the blue-grey light. Four of the beds were filled with other travellers. An adventurous German, a foul-mouthed Australian and a polite English couple made up the other guests in the room, with the bunk directly above mine empty.

And in my bunk...only myself. But myself transformed into sheer horror. Hundreds of sharp yellowish-green-brown spikes prodded into the mattress. An undulating imperfect oval hefted its awkward bulk as I looked down and saw.

I was a durian.

A slowly rotting durian fruit of unnatural size, stinking the place out.

How perfectly horrifying. And as the horror of my situation settled in and made itself uncomfortable, the smell hit me.

A repugnant pungency filled my nose, except there was no nose on my face to smell it. Which then led to me having to face the fact that I no longer had a face to hold a nose in the first place. No eyes, yet I could see. No nose, yet I could smell.

The smell. Oh god, the smell. Everyone in the dorm must be smelling it. You know, durian is a very unapologetic fruit, for a fruit with so very much to be apologetic about. Really announces its presence. Fills all the space in which it finds itself and tells the world to deal with it.

The other guests in the dorm were starting to notice.

'OK what the fuck is that?' demanded the Australian bluntly.

'It smells like durian,' replied the English woman.

'Yes, I would recognise that smell anywhere,' agreed her boyfriend from the bunk below.

'I think that is not allowed,' added the German helpfully. 'There is a sign at check-in saying you get fined if you bring durian into the hostel.'

I tried to speak up and explain the situation. I discovered to my dismay that even though I could still see with no eyes and hear with no ears and smell with no nose, I could not speak with no mouth.

Meanwhile the conversation between the other guests kept going.

'Seriously, though, durian. What's the go there, champion? What made you the way you are? What led you to believe this was an OK way to be?' asked the Australian, with whom I had got extremely drunk with the night before.

Honestly, I thought that was in poor taste, considering my current state of poor taste. At first I thought he was addressing me directly, until I remembered my curtain was closed and there was no way he could realise I had been transformed into the terribly-odoured fruit. I hazily remembered his habit of including inanimate objects in the conversation like they could take part in it from our drunken discussions into early hours of the morning.

'Durian's fine. It's really OK. It's like eating ice cream while you're on the toilet,' said the German, who prided himself on trying new things.

'Ok but...that's disgusting, right? You have to know that's disgusting. Why did you just say that like it...wasn't? Who scoops themself a big bowl of chocolate ice cream then heads to the toilet to take a massive shit while they eat? Fucken no-one, that's who,' replied the foul-mouthed Australian, unimpressed.

'That thing they say about durian - how the smell is bad but it tastes great - that is a lie. They are lying,' said the Englishman, politely outraged at this terrible deceit.

'Filthy lying liars telling awful fruit lies,' agreed his girlfriend from the bunk above. 'We tried some a few days ago and it's like...you can taste the smell.'

Oh god. The smell. Every now and then I would kind of forget about it, then it hit me all over again. The smell. It's so grim.

Rotting flesh. Fruit and vegetables in an advanced state of biodegradation. Sewerage. Perhaps even silage. Yep, definitely a touch of silage in there.

And I was hungover.

Really, waking up as some monstrous vermin would have been a blessing. At least I could have scuttled away to hide in some dark, cool corner somewhere. At least there wouldn't be the smell.

It had clearly become too much for my dorm-mates. The curtain of my dorm bed was thrust back fast, with highly-offended energy.

'What the actual fuck...where's...what is...what?' the foul-mouthed Australian trailed off, perplexed into a state of stammering nonsense. The other backpackers all peered down silently at my miserable state of being - a slowly rotting durian of unnatural size, stinking the place out.

The long silence competed furiously with the smell to see who could fill the room more completely.

'It's what's-his-name,' said the Australian at last, forcing the silence to finally admit defeat. 'He's turned into a bloody durian!'

'Someone should go down to check-in and get the manager,' said the German.

'What's the manager going to be able to do about it?' asked the Englishman.

And as they discussed my situation amongst themselves and argued about what to do about it, I lay there.

I lay there, unable to move or speak or do anything to help myself. Only able to see the horror of the moment.

And smell it, of course.