Plum Echoes

I was reading Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear this morning, through the part where the protagonist Kvothe had a lingering reaction to something nefarious someone had infected him with (trying to not spoil story specifics as I would enthusiastically recommend his King Killer Chronicle series).  There was a distinctly visceral sensation that was brought on by lingering fits of his condition was a sudden taste of plum in his mouth. He referred to these as "plum echoes" and didn't consider himself beyond the effects of the condition until those completely subsided.

Atypical Nausea

I rarely get nausea. Most foods agree with me. Even stomach bugs affect me with a lesser frequency and intensity than they do with my contemporaries. The few occurrences of food poisoning I've encountered were short lived and fleeting. So on the particular occasion that I got an extended multi-day nausea it was very memorable.

This experience occurred when I was still flat roofing in the Rockford, IL area. The specifics was some mild flu that passed in short order with one lingering symptom: a mild nausea brought on by a persistent gaseousness that manifested as a frequent burp. It was the burp that was memorable.

What Came Before

The burp had the distinct after-flavor of the meal I had eaten right before the onset of the flu. Unfortunately, that meal was fried chicken. For the span of three days, I had the frequent misfortune of tasting the after effects of fried chicken with each sporadic burp. They did not subside until the gaseousness passed. It was a many passing months before I was able to enjoy fried chicken in the way I had before this experience. Such is the lingering nature of such adversely visceral experiences.

The Compassion of Shared Experience

It is because of this that I found myself oddly relating to the fictional character Kvothe and his lingering "plum echoes". I could almost taste the after-flavor of fried chicken while reading this section of the book. This appears to be the way of things, that we uniquely relate to people through shared experiences, real or fictional.

This post is an Aside and is to be regarded under those conditions.