When your diet consist of around 50% things that cause constipation and 50% things that cause diarrhea, you may need to perform The Ritual.

Those nights where any time you lay down to try to sleep the small excess heat from your abdomen pressed against the bed causes the magma-poo to expand and press against the solid shitcrete barrier blocking everything in and cause stabbing pains in your gut, and you can’t sleep but you can’t poo.

You go from the toilet to the bed time and time again. Nothing happens on the toilet and the pain recedes, but as soon as you try to lay down again it comes roaring back.

At last you accept that you will not be getting to sleep until you defeat this demon. You go to the bathroom and strip off everything before sitting on the toilet. You must bear yourself and hold nothing back in this fight.

Sometimes you notice how your cast off clothing is laying on the floor and you remember that at times like this in the past it covered certain tiles or lines on the floor but that it isn’t quite in that position right now. You adjust your clothing to into the ‘correct’ position. It has become part of The Ritual, and The Ritual must be completed.

You cross your arms and press them against your stomach trying to squeeze the poo out from the top. If you have enough of a gut you place your arms under the bulge, with the vast weight of your shameful love of pizza and Ben & Jerry’s lifted up and out for the shower head to stare at with clear but silent judgement.

You ask your God or the universe itself what you’ve done to deserve this and beg for mercy. You promise to eat better. You never want this to happen again. Ages pass. Finally a stream breaks free. The first layer of magma-poo has reached out to become a weak stream of lavashit. You push and grunt and press your arms right into your lower abdomen, the gelatinous bulk of your gut quivering in shame as the shower head stares down at you.

The flow of lavashit helps to erode the shitcrete blockage, and eventually the wall breaks and the chunks of boulder pass. The young and naive may celebrate here and try to return to bed, but the demon has a second phase so they will soon be back on the throne. The older and more knowing don’t even consider getting up. They know the night is not yet won.

Time passes before anything else seems to happen. The next layer is more shitcrete. Fortunately, this time it’s rigid inflexible nature makes it weak. Those first two layers spewing forth from the sphincter created a gap of space in the colon, and this time the remaining magmapoo layers pushing against the shitcrete layers are pushing towards that newly opened space instead of the exterior wall. Slowly, the shitcrete is defeated by it’s own rigid nature. It bulges in the center until a break forms, allowing more lavashit to erode it and assist in it’s agonizing passage.

Eventually, it is done. The demon has been cast out. All shits have been shat. You uncross your arms and remove them from under your tubby bulk. You look to the shower head and meet it’s scornful gaze with the self-assuredness of one who has just defeated a demon and won the day. It nods slightly to accede to your victory, but reminds you that you need to keep those promises you made to all of the Gods and change your diet. It warns that if you fail again, you will be back.

The Ritual concluded, you wipe up and put your bed clothes back on.

It’s the middle of the night now. You will get some sleep, but not near enough. Tomorrow will be a long day. At some point before the end of the day tomorrow you will decide you don’t feel like cooking. You’re exhausted.

You decide to order a pizza.