Choking on Cheese

The slimy, smooth cheese glides too easily back into my throat then stops dead in its tracks, stuck. My tongue involuntarily spasms like a dying bug twitches immediately after death. It swells, filling my mouth, suddenly too big for its home. For all its struggles, my tongue only coaxes the intruding food farther down. My head jerks back and my eyes convulse. They water just enough to keep the tears hanging precariously over the edges of my lower eyelids. Now, if I were smart I would take shallow, measured breaths to stretch out what breaths are left. Instead, my breath rasps out in bursts and chocked sobs, no pun intended. Mucus is building up in my throat trying in vain to move the cheese in any direction, instead of just stretching it. My throat is a marsh, the slick, smooth cheese sloshing around in sticky, warm, thick, stomach-churning mucus. Small dots appear in front of my vision and begin to grow, like they do after staring at a bright light for too long.  This reaction triggers a chain of events that, up till that moment, my body hadn’t even thought to initiate. My pulse starts racing, and I can feel each beat resound in my neck like a small man trying to pound his way out of me. It beats faster and faster; the man is determined to smash his way out. My sweat squiggles out and squirms down my body. It clings to my clothes. They stick to me, absorb the sweat until they are replete with the odious odorous substance of fear. The damp fabric sends chills up and down my spine. Mucus, much like that currently multiplying in my throat, creeps out of my nostrils and begins the trek down my face. Now I know how the ground feels when a slug crawls over it. The snot slug reaches the mountain of my upper lip, approaches the peak, then slowly starts to drip into my open, gasping mouth. When my mouth slams shut, the mucus just fills the little crevice between my two lips, wriggling  horizontally back and forth.
Not particularly wishing to continue down this path, I decide on a course of action, and having no time to consider different approaches, immediately follow through. My hand jerks up and my mouth flies back open. I try to ignore the sickening, salty, sweet snot that rushes into my mouth and resonates with the stuff coming from my throat. I try to force my hand into my mouth, and find it doesn’t fit. I pull my pinky finger out and manage to push all my remaining digits to the back of my throat. My fingers are dry in contrast to the moist cave they are in. They taste dirty and almost metallic, like unwashed silverware. My nails scrape across the roof of my mouth in their hurry to reach the offending intruder. The pads of my fingers glide across the bumpy sick surface of my tongue. As I reach the back of my throat, my gag reflex overwhelms me. My tongue thrashes against my fingers and the cheese is hurled ever-so-slightly upwards. I keep pushing on. I grasp at the cheese and manage to grab the end of it. I yank as hard and as fast as I can. My teeth scrape my fingers and catch my knuckles on their way out. The cheese could have stretched for miles, from all the way down in the pit of my stomach to as far out of my mouth as my hand could pull. I feel the cheese leave my throat and snap out of my mouth. I gasp for breath and my newly opened air-passages rejoice as they refill. I suck the sweet air in, slowly, and exhale. I wrap the cheese in my napkin and continue eating.