Hiccups

A small jolt. Then another. Your diaphragm twitches without asking you. The air catches in irregular beats, a quiet, almost comical sound escapes — and you suddenly stand beside yourself, because your body is doing something you did not order. Medically, hiccups are an involuntary spasm of the diaphragm, often harmless, often following too-hasty eating, cold air, a fright. They come, stay a few minutes, go again. For a doctor, a trifling phenomenon.

Viewed psychosomatically, they are something entirely different. They are a small uprising in the centre of your body. The diaphragm — that large breathing muscle between chest and abdomen, which literally marks the dividing line between upper and lower — loses control for a moment. What was supposed to run smoothly just stumbled. Something doesn't want to pass through. Something you just swallowed comes back in small spasms and knocks.