Middle Age

Zero. The great cipher, the great ring. The anus, the great nought of our corpus, how strangely it resembles the zero in both appearance and properties. I am 30 now. It has been years, many years since I allowed myself the pleasure of thinking about that which binds us all. My freedoms have all but disappeared. My joy has dwindled. Toil has became my daily sup. But one thing remains, one remarkable thing. Every morning, and most every night, I shit. For each of these 30 years I have shit regularly, almost daily. Sometimes I shit more than once a day. But as long as I am breathing, I am shitting. For most of these glorious expulsions, I have had the pleasure and responsibility of cleanup. Paper, that glorious invention that allowed so many men jobs, has made this event mostly painless. Some might even consider the use of paper in cleaning the anus opulent. To me, it is a chance not only to clean the filthy shit off the walls of my butt seal, but also a much needed reminder to vigilantly inspect these walls for any signs of tampering, degradation or foreign objects. For 30 unbroken years I have had the satisfaction of confirming after every shit that my anus was in perfect shape. It terminus always taught and puckered, the paper always void of any sign of blood or other strange substances.

In my 30th year, this chain of perfection ended. 3 nights ago I discovered a small hemorrhoid on the lower, right wall of my rectum. As I encountered it during the first wipe, I knew immediately. It was tender and ripe, pregnant with the knowledge that it was the first invader. Like the brave men that first reached the moon, it faced all odds and squarely made a stand against all my vigilance and experience. It won. In that moment I sat there probing the small growth, fearful and outraged, concerned mostly with the utilitarian problem of how I was to completely clean my anus while avoiding this painful bulge. Soon after these tertiary emotions, something struck me violently. An unmistakable sense of longing. The appearance of this hemorrhoid is a symbol that can be appreciated universally. I confirmed this by asking a number of delivery drivers at work the next day.

The arrival of this hemorrhoid signals the end of the beginning. Like so many other things that have occurred since my return to this country, this hemorrhoid reminds me that I no longer have any choice but to become a man. It admonishes me to face responsibility, regardless of deciding whether or not to accept or deny it. This hemorrhoid shows me that my 26 or more years of wiping and the occasional use of my father's Japanese washlet, are not nearly enough to guarantee rectal health. In fact, it shows me that nothing, nothing at all, can stand between my anus and the march of time. And it is this display that makes me long so much for the freedom of yesterday. The freedom that seemed to stretch on endlessly, to assert itself not so much in presence, but in the mystery of its hazy absence. Even now, 3 days after the discovery, I can still sense that deep longing for the lazy and carefree attitude that has been dwindling every day for the past months. This roid, this blister, this mar tells me precisely, violently, absolutely that I am free no more. I have passed into the shackles of this world. Not of society, not of one group or another, not of my family, but distinctly those shackles that bind all of us mere mortals, with our skin and our bones and our buttholes. Yes, I am speaking of the certainty of death. This explicit farce that has played out on the lower right wall of my anus has shown me, I now see, that I too must die. It shows me many other unfortunate things too, but mostly this.

I can still remember when I first plunged my finger into my asshole, some 4 years ago. It seemed like the last frontier, the last great mystery I faced about my own body. Now it seems like some platitude concocted to mask my own guilt at having waited so long to encounter the great void beneath my crude meniscus. It was a dull moment, compared to this ridiculous beast, this fucking hemorrhoid. At once it is my salvation and the devil himself. The devil in my ass, come to remind me of my mortality. How dare he! At once I must dash him away with exercise and correct diet. I must consume fiber and fruits and vegetables and go running and do things that promote anal health. Ha, it laughs at me from below. It knows the futility of it all. This barnacle on my ass is the first of many signs that will progressively appear in the coming years. My load has been shot, and now I come sailing down slowly and peacefully. The expectations of our age have grown, but I don't believe for a moment that the velocity at which our children fire out of their mother's pussy has changed. Our vectors are predetermined, only the quality of the parachutes has increased. All this the hemorrhoid tells me, grudgingly. And I believe it, every dirty word.