The United Colon Vlog

*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.

I was out in the rural countryside in a small house. It was late at night and I stepped outside with two other men. We were near the intersection of two quiet, divided highways. We could see by the moonlight and noticed that a large cottonwood tree, a hundred feet tall, had fallen down. And under the top tree branches, under the heaviest branch, was a man on a motorcycle, crushed and dead.

“This tree fell down on that man!” I said. “We need to help him.”

I walked over to the tree but the older man with me said, “We can’t help him! He’s already dead. We need to leave!”

“We can’t just leave,” I said. “we have to get this man out from under the tree.”

“Why did this tree fall on that man?” the older man said. “Where was God to protect him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes things just happen and there’s no explanation. It’s just like ulcerative colitis. It comes out of nowhere and hits you.”

The older man said to me, “Why didn’t God stop your colitis?”

“I don’t know!” I yelled. “God has His own plan. Maybe He was punishing me. But if He was punishing me, what was He punishing me for? The punishment doesn’t work very well if I don’t know what my crime is.” I started to get upset and I didn’t pay attention to the dead man under the tree anymore. “God is always doing these kinds of things. How are people supposed to learn when God doesn’t tell them anything?”

Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch. It was perhaps the most theological dream I have ever had.