All Aboard

Jeff had never ridden on a train before, and even though the Acela Express, number 2173 was more than half-way to Boston, this was still technically true. He had died before the train even left the station. 


Jeff had been nervous about this job interview. He had just blown the last of his savings on this train ticket (he sold his car well over a year ago), and if he didn’t land this position he was pretty sure that Stacey would take the kids and move to Chicago. In with her mother, that unbearable old-hag, who always said that he’d never amount to anything. Why was Stacey wasting her time on a loser like him, and isn’t it the man’s responsibility to support his family? Well, Jeff B. Hollows would show her; he’d show all of them. He was more than qualified to be a Data Entry Clerk at Boston Medical. Hell, he’d written programs to handle the interoperations between servers that handle the damn data. That is until the company he worked for got bought up by some faceless conglomerate. Then it was “sorry, really hate to do this, but we’re going to have to let you go, corporate downsizing and all, it just a tough time all over.” Bullshit. They were shipping his job to some underpaid pion in some piss-ant country that probably broke every labor law in the book, if there even was a book. Damn bean-counters, didn’t they care that he has a family to take care of, not to mention a psycho-hag-mother-in-law to keep at bay? They might as well have cut off his balls.

Damn, his ulcer was killing him. Jeff checked his watch, and winced when he saw that he had a good three hours before his train arrived. Man, he needed some Tums, or Pepto-Bismol, or both. Geez, was his stomach acid eating through his shirt?
Having grown up in Philadelphia, Jeff knew the area well, and headed off to CVS on UPenn’s campus. It was less than a mile away, and was next to a Starbucks, where maybe he could afford a Chai Tea Latte, which really was no substitute for his preferred double-shot espresso, but his doctor told him that he should lay off the coffee. Doctor’s orders or not, he still felt like a pansy ordering tea. 


Cutting down Woodland Walk, and encountering a throng of revolting fit and trim co-eds out for a jog, Jeff felt that weird combination of nostalgia and regret that is created when one makes an irreversible, life-altering decision and then second-guesses it from that moment on. What if he had stayed and finished his degree? Would he have still ended up as a beaten-down, slightly pudgy, jobless schmuck with a hole in his stomach? Maybe. Who knows? Really, who cares? He’d had enough of people telling him “I told you so.” Yeah, maybe dropping out his junior year was stupid, but wasn’t it the responsible thing to do? When Stacey destroyed his world with the bombshell that she was pregnant, he could have just ditched her, but he didn’t. Instead, they got married (even though Stacey lied to him about being on the pill), and he went out into the real world and got a job while she stayed on to finish her degree. Of course, when Lisa was born there was a lot of fancy footwork for both of them, juggling schedules and passing the baby off like a football. But they made it work. Damn-it he made it work. His grip tightened on his briefcase as he thought about what he’d given up, what he’d sacrificed, and how he was still paying for it.


His mind adrift, Jeff didn’t even realize what he was doing until he found himself on what his just turned 8 years old son, Jacob called the “cures for burps and farts aisle.” This was usually said with accompanying sound effects, which Jeff had to feign disapproval of. It was kind of funny, and actually, if you threw in constipation and diarrhea, then you had a pretty accurate description of the aisle. 


Since every drug store on the planet had basically the same layout, he quickly found his calcium-carbonate tablets of salvation. Jeff initially grabbed his usual fruit flavored variety, but then thought better of it. It was probably a good idea to go with the mint variety. He didn’t want to go into his interview with breath smelling like he just ate a bowl of Fruit Loops; it might give the impression of immaturity. He had to skip the Pepto as well. It always turned his tongue black, and that was just weird looking. 


He made his purchase (and no, he didn’t have a “rewards card, and no, he didn’t want to sign up for one either), and headed next door to get his tea and waste another two hours thinking hopeful thoughts.


The place was surprisingly empty, but then again it was a Starbucks on a university campus. All of the hipster college kids would be at some local coffee place that was “authentic,” whatever that meant. Naive, idiots didn’t even realize that more and more of the small, seemingly private owned coffee shops were really just fronts for the big guys. They might as well call it the New World Order of coffee. 


The mopey dude with the black eyeliner and pierced lower lip (Jeff refused to call them “baristas”), dutifully took his order and Jeff paid from what little cash he had in his wallet. Stacey always checked the credit card statement, and he didn’t need to be bitched at for wasting money.


Having the place to himself, Jeff took a seat by the window and effectively ended his life with the decision. 


Sliding his briefcase beneath his chair, Jeff took the bottle of Tums out of his pocket, and when peeling of the inner safety seal, spilled three tablets on the table. One of them rolled a little ways before coming down flat on a small spot of moisture. How it got there was anyone’s guess. Maybe from someone’s carelessly uncovered sneeze. Maybe a drop of sweat from some Adderall laced student as he crammed for mid-terms. If “Mopey-Dude” had done his job by properly cleaning the tables it wouldn’t have mattered at all. But you really shouldn’t assume that any does their job nowadays, and if Jeff’s ulcer hadn’t been trampling on his ability to think straight he probably wouldn’t have done what he did next.


Scooping up the three tablets, he popped them into his mouth, thoroughly chewing them into a chalky paste, and swallowing them down. He was going to chase them with a sip of his tea, but when he put the cup to his lips he nearly scalded himself. Why the hell do they have to make these things 300 degrees so you have wait half an hour before being able to drink to? It’s too bad that in this case, that temperature likely would have saved his life has he been able to get it down his throat. The heat would have been more than enough to kill the microscopic colony of bacteria he just ingested.


While the bugs couldn’t stand heat, they handled the acidity of Jeff’s stomach just fine. In fact they thrived in it. See, in all of their previous carriers they ended up in trapped in the people’s respiratory system, or if somebody didn’t wash their hands, on their skin. In those locations the bacterial species didn’t do so well. The single-celled organisms would sluggishly divide, not doing any real harm, and most of the time would die off without the carrier even being aware of how close they came to an untimely and gruesome demise. In the low pH of Jeff’s stomach however, they took off like a nuclear chain reaction. Sure the calcium-carbonate he’d ingested neutralized some of the acid, but the effect was mostly relegated to the area around the lower esophageal sphincter. The conditions in the rest of Jeff’s stomach were more than favorable for his newly acquired colonizers, and the epithelial cells that formed the organ’s inner lining served as fine-dining.


The bacteria soon began releasing a toxin that was quite similar to the one produced by Clostridium botulinum, otherwise known as Botox. By inhibiting the release of neurotransmitters, the toxin effectively destroyed the enteric nervous system. The nociceptors that detected pain fell silent, and the stomach itself relaxed, as it no longer received commands to contract. Gut motility ceased, and the bacteria were trapped in a limp bag of acid. As far as Jeff was concerned, all he felt was the subsidence of the burning pain that had been an ever present reminder of the stress he was under. Of course, he attributed this to the antacids, forgetting that he’d been popping them down like candy for months and they never worked this well before. Hey, maybe the damn thing was healing on its own. About time something started going his way; he sure as hell could afford any more trips to the doctor. He reached for his tea but found that he no longer had any interest in it. While Jeff chalked it up to nerves, in reality this was due to the fact that his brain was no longer receiving any input from the Vagus nerve that connected to his stomach. No sensation meant no internal motivation to ingest anything. 
While Jeff ruminated over blowing four dollars on tea, his gastro-pals were having a field day. Dividing like mad, the single cells clustered together, forming a biofilm that lined the many folds and crevices of Jeff’s stomach. An unfortunate byproduct of this fast-paced, metabolic orchestra was hydrogen gas. As it accumulated the stomach began to expand, but due to inhibition of the stretch detecting nerve cells, Jeff remained completely unaware that a time-bomb was slowly building from within. 


A pair of scantily-clad teens bounced past the storefront window, hypnotically swinging their hips. Jeff stared of course, not out of any sense of arousal, but of thoughtful analysis. How did they manage to walk like that without throwing out their back? Speaking of which, the chair he was sitting in certainly wasn’t doing his own back any favors. And off he went down the rabbit-hole of strung together thoughts and random musings on the vagaries of his own life.
Jeff broke out his trance when his watch beeped on the hour. His train should be arriving in another 30 minutes. As he bent down to pick up his briefcase, a massive belch escaped from his mouth. While this relieved some of the pressure that had been building within, and actually bought him another 10 minutes of life, it was incredibly embarrassing. Jeff quickly jerked upright, and gave a sideways glance to Mr. Mopey behind the counter. Fortunately, he was plugged into an iPod and was humming along to Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” which when you think about it, is surprisingly well suited for a deserted coffee shop. Giving one final, disapproving look at his untouched tea, he hurried out the door and began his walk back to the station. 


Along the way, Jeff noticed that his pants kept pinching at his waist. He really didn’t want to start having to replace his wardrobe, so he vowed to start back up on his jogging routine first thing tomorrow. A new job, a new Jeff, but damn he’d put on a lot of weight. He figured that was the reason he was so short of breath just from walking. Well, that and his pack-a-day habit, that at least he had cut back from a two-pack-a-day habit. 


Of course, the real cause of his most immediate problems was the hydrogen gas that was continuing to accumulate in his stomach. As the organ expanded, it bulged not only outward but upwards against Jeff’s diaphragm. His lungs were slowly being compressed, reducing the amount of air he could take in with each breath, and with each exhalation, the stomach took hold of just a little more space.


He had slowed his pace considerably, and was huffing like a winded basset hound when he dragged into the station. Jeff was relieved to find that his train had arrived early, and he was able to board right away. He needed to sit down soon or he thought his lungs would explode, which of course, was entirely off the mark, but a logical assumption. He staggered to his seat, ignoring the uneasy glances he received from the few passengers already aboard, and collapsed down. By this time, the bacterial emissions had squeezed their way past the pyloric sphincter and made it into Jeff’s intestines, which fully distended and took on the appearance of an overstuffed sausage casing. They did not take kindly to Jeff’s rough landing, and as expected, forcibly expelled their contents directly into Jeff’s pants. This would have been horrifying if not for the fact that Jeff was facing a much more serious predicament than a sewage leak. His diaphragm was pressing up against his heart with such force that it was inhibiting its normal contractions. At the same time, Jeff’s lungs were reduced to shriveled sacks that had nearly collapsed against the thoracic cavity wall. Unable to speak and incredibly weakened, Jeff couldn’t signal his distress to anyone. Not that there was anything anyone could do besides punching a hole in his abdomen. Surprisingly, Jeff was conscious when his heart stopped. As his vision tunneled and greyed, his last thoughts were of the job interview he had been going to. He died truly believing he would have nailed it and gotten the job. Fortunately for him, he would never be aware of the fact that the position had already been filled.


While Jeff’s life ended here, the residents he housed went about their business as usual. Eventually, they would have chewed through the epithelial cell layer, and the acidity that spurred their activity would be neutralized. The bacteria would slowly die off, and by the time Jeff’s body made it to the coroner’s for an autopsy, most of the gas would have escaped into the atmosphere. The doctor would take a look inside, determine it was a heart attack, maybe make a note about the sorry state of his stomach, and relay the message to the unlucky intern who had to call Jeff’s family with the news. But, like they had done all his life, things didn’t play out so well for Jeff.


Understandably, Jeff didn’t notice that when he plopped down into his seat the contents of his left pocket spilled out onto the floor of the aisle. Among those contents was a cheap, run-of-the-mill lighter that Jeff had brought along to light a celebratory cigarette after his interview. When the train pulled into Boston, the passengers disembarked. A teenager on a not so thrilling trip to visit his Grandma made his way down the aisle and spotted the lighter. Picking it up, and almost gagging on the smell of what had to be a dirty diaper, he did what any other kid would have done and flicked the wheel to light it. With that, the steady stream of flammable hydrogen that had been seeping out of Jeff’s two major orifices became the fuse to a bomb. 


Apart from the pieces that had to be scrapped off the windows and from the clothes of one traumatized kid (he would never again be able to watch any of the “Aliens” movies), nothing was left of Jeff but a charred corpse. While most unfortunate, his violent death did make something out of him; Jeff B. Hallows became known as the first person to have reportedly, spontaneously combusted while on a train.