Slow Motion Pop

It's been fantastic and fascinating.

Before they did anything else, I had to put on the skintight red PVC jumpsuit. It was really snug.

First they stuck a tube under my skin and started pumping air in. I went puffy all over. This gave them room for the second bit, which was to pass a tube into my abdominal cavity and start blowing that up too. I went up like a weather balloon with those two pumps on the go. Then they shoved a tube up my anus too and started pumping air in that way. I felt all bloated and farty after that. Then they stuck another hose down my throat into my stomach. That was the hardest part. I started to wonder if I really wanted to go through with it then because it really started stretching me out then and I felt a bit sick. Only a bit though, because it was really exciting to have all that air inside me too.

Then they had to start the heart-lung machine. They needed to re-route my blood so I wouldn't make a mess. First it went out through my neck and in through my neck too, and after only a few seconds, it was just circulating through the machine and my head. The rest of me started feeling cold and floppy and looking pale.

Then they stuck the last hose in my mouth next to the one down my throat, and blew my real lungs up. They put a clip on my nose and bungs in my ears. The air made me breathe in and in and in like there was no end to it until my lungs burst, but they still carried on. They forced more air into my stomach through the mouth tube, turned all the others off and sealed up the holes. My stomach burst inside me but I had no blood left in that part of my body to bleed.

Then they just kept inflating me through the hose in my mouth. Not really any insides left, no blood, really just my skin, my body wall and ever-increasing air pressure, blowing me up big and fat and round all over, a human balloon, just the way I'd always wanted it. That's all I am now, a gigantic round barrage balloon of a woman in this tightly stretched scarlet jumpsuit. And yes, OK, i'm never going to have to worry about being petite again - each of my breasts is the size of a watermelon - but that's not the best of it. The best of it is that I'm bulging out all over. A few seconds ago I started creaking and squeaking. I didn't believe that would really happen, but it actually does. I can't move at all because I'm totally stuffed with air like a sausage is with sausage meat. And there's no give left anywhere either, but just because I'm so massive now, I can see, from where I'm standing, the gigantic rounded shiny tight sphere that I've become, with a tiny head perched on top. The zipper stretches down and out of sight, starting almost straight forward from my chin and following the rest of the curve down my upper hemisphere, between the two ballooning boobs and out of sight. My arms are - somewhere. I can't turn my head to see them.

I'm squeezed so tight inside this jumpsuit that my skin is glued to the plastic. It's like it and I have become one because of the huge pressure pressing the skin and the synthetic rubber together. And still the air comes in. Now it's just being pumped straight into my mouth. Even my cheeks are puffed out and they've had to make sure the nose clip and the earplugs don't pop out several times. So much tension! Hardly any of me is flesh and bone any more. I'm all air and stretchy plastic. I'm a pneumatic woman.

The clock is counting down the last five seconds. It started at ten minutes. I can hardly remember what it was like back then. No more gas in me than the air in my lungs. It seems so long ago. Back then, it seemed too good to be true that this could really happen. I just thought it was some kind of joke when they said they could honestly do this if that's how I wanted to go. Then there I was, standing there in the catsuit and they said that in ten minutes time exactly I'd be so inflated that I'd pop like a giant balloon. I'm so glad I was wrong. Here I am as that balloon.

Four seconds to go. More dangerous creaking and squeaking. Well, at least I know when it'll be. That last second seemed to be as stretched out of proportion as I am. There are tiny stings all over me, outlining my ball of a body. I can feel where all of me is, stretched paper-thin, balloon skin-thin, the inside and the outside getting constantly closer. Yet still that second hand hasn't moved.

I wonder if I'll pop by ripping down the middle, or will it happen in one place and the rest of me will just ping back, leaving a little rag of plasticky skin? Or will it be all over at once? Will I even know about it?

Three seconds.

There's an intense shuddering, trembling sensation, a superfast wobbling. I can hear my zipper pull jangling through the air in my body even though my ears are blocked. I've gone firm now. It's like being pinched everywhere.

I notice myself in the mirror and wonder if I'll see myself explode. I can't believe a person can be so huge, and it's me. This is just amazing.

Two seconds.

How do they know when I'll burst? Will they suddenly prick me with a pin? Has it just been carefully calculated? Will it just happen? There are splintering, shooting feelings as things snap down my front, particularly round my middle where the most strain is. Just how much air is inside me? Ten minutes of being constantly inflated, under my skin, inside me, up my butt, through my mouth, everywhere. They just never stopped.

One second.

Nearly there! I steel myself inwardly for the final explosion. They've all got their fingers in their ears now, faces all screwed up. The pump's running even faster now. I told them it was important to me still to be conscious when the big bang comes and to do that they have to race against time with the air. Everything suddenly gives and the air thumps into me like a bomb. Time goes so slowly now, it's like watching a super slow motion film.

And...

ZERO!

There's infinite tension, then it's like a million pins are being stuck into me at once. I can see myself in the mirror and before my eyes. The PVC and my skin are a complex maze of cracks, hundreds of little rivulets of air running between them. Things are happening a thousand times more slowly than usual. Now the channels of air are pushing themselves wider and I'm disintegrating into countless fragments, all of which are starting to shrink and shrivel. It's silent at first, then a rushing sound keeps building, deafening even to my plugged ears. A tsunami of air pushes my smithereens up, down and out simultaneously. I'm made up of innumerable soft shards in a sphere and they're all shrivelling, shrinking, shifting out from my centre as they shred further. They point out like tiny jellyfish swimming away from the explosion and become branches of gossamer as they dash away from each other. Now each is surrounded by a cloud of translucent mist, which joins together. Now I'm a cloud. Now I'm fading...fading...fading....

gone

"Well, she finally got her heart's desire."

"Where is she?"

"Well she popped, didn't she?"

"OK, but there's nothing left."

"You're a rookie. Yes there is, look."

He waves at the faint haze in the air.

"Everyone was wrong you know. There's never any gore. They used to think popping would turn someone into an almighty pile of horrifying gunk, but that's not how it is at all, not if it's done right. When you pop, you're gone. And I'm told it's the most wonderful experience anyone can possibly have. I hope I get to go that way."