Dysentery

Your intestines are burning. Cramps move through your abdomen like an inner eruption that will not stop. The stool is bloody, the body is losing fluids, minerals, strength. Medically, dysentery — also known as the flux — is a severe intestinal infection caused by bacteria or amoebae. It is a condition that requires medical treatment, without question.

But the question BodySignal asks goes deeper: why does your body react with such force? Why does your innermost dissolve — literally — why do you lose through the intestine what holds you together: substance, nutrients, blood? Your digestive system is the place where you take in and process the world. When it empties itself with such violence, that is more than an infection.

Dysentery is an inner uprising breaking its way to the outside. It is the moment your body shows what has been simmering in you for a long time.