Flatlined

Last night Luke Rabin and I went to Buffalo Wing Factory in Chantilly to partake in their famous Flatliner challenge. These wings are made with a mixture of scotch bonnet peppers and mace. They are largely inedible, apart from the context of this challenge and no one without a proven resume of spicy eating should even attempt to eat these for fun. You will be humbled.

Luke and I along with my friend Janelle arived around 9PM where we met my other friends Scott and Adam. We sat down and a waiter stopped by to take our order. Luke immediately announced in proud declaration "I am doing the flatliner challenge. Can I have some milk and water" The waiter came back a few minute later and apologized for the restaurant running out of milk. Things looked grim but we trudged foward. I settled for water. Luke quickly got up and told the table "I need to get dressed." and the table responded with looks of puzzled confusion.

Luke comes back a few minutes later in a red bandanna and trucker style muscle shirt. The clearly jaded wait staff is not amused. Our waitress comes back with our orders and she puts down the Flatliners before our eyes, and immediately the smell hits...and hits. We winced in pain.

To the naked eye they look like any other restaurant hot wing entree. But to the open nostril they reek of death and descruction. My entire life flashed before my very eyes and I suddenly realized that I had not achieved everything I wanted to do with my life. This was the smell of life assessing contemplation, which is the best kind. It reaches far beyond supercilious notions of self awareness, and moves you to a place of self sacrifice and brings you one step closer to the grandeur of the sublime. If Luke and I could get through 10 wings, our lives would be changed forever. We started our journey.

The first bite is not so bad, even the second and third. "These aren't so bad," Luke commented.
It's when the scotch bonnet peppers and mace are introduced to your body and are invited to its innermost sanctums, given a drink and a leather chair and a leather bound book and then allowed to settle in, that is when chaos hits. When chaos hits your body, the first result is knowledge of pain, then the pain intensifies, and the aftermath is usually fear. This is what separates the brave, from the cowardly, and proves the genuineness of the desire of the targeted goal. Do you want it? We wanted it.

After wing 4# Luke and I were ready to call it quits. Our bodies were screaming mutiny and our own sweat was starting to burn our skin. My vision was blurred from the tears that burned out of my eyes. My mouth felt like I had just gargled with tiny needles and then swallowed. Luke fared no better and paced around the restaurant, unable to sit still. The wait staff looked at us in horror. They brought a trashcan and put it beside Luke's chair in the event of vomiting.

This is where Luke and I diverged on wildly different paths. Luke chose to go outside and finish his meal by a trashcan outside, unable to keep down 1 out of every 3 bites. I have run marathons and was on the crew team for almost two years. I know pain. And I know that it can be overcome most times by denial. You focus on a goal, and you deny the pain until it is completed, and you deal with the repurrcussions later. I chose to get it over with and eat the rest in quick succession. The last bite felt like a mixture of relief and the realization that the pain had only just begun. Victory was mine, but the results made it hollow. The goal was completed, yet the results had to catch up. I immediately began shaking in cold sweat and was unable to stop for the next few minutes.

Meanwhile Luke was inching towards the goal, barely able to maintain or swallow the food. Frustration and anger set in, but his determination only grew. He soon finished and we returned to the horror of the wait staff. The materialism of our self awareness returned and we acquiesced. Our selfish epiphanies drowned in a lake of fire, self sacrifice turned into survival. And we realized we couldn't save the world and that we were needy. We were exactly where we were suppose to be, and that we just needed to keep on moving. To be consistent through the pain, because someday, if you live it right, others will depend on you when they are needy. And if we let it, we can move out of denial towards the embrace of assurance, that pain is only a season, but the glory of the sublime will heal your wounds forever. We drank our water with joy.

-Sher

*Luke only puked once if you count a series of pukes in succession one puke.