Sword Digester
I am a professional sword digester. I also swallow swords, but unlike sword swallowers, the spectacle of my performance comes from the digestion of the swords, not the swallowing of them. Because the sword swallowing element isn’t part of my act, I am allowed to cut the sword up into bite-sized pieces and even chew it before I swallow it offstage. If I’m not in the mood for a sword, I have my assistant sneak morsels of it into spoonfuls of peanut butter throughout the day and feed it to me like I’m a dog. Somehow I fall for it every time even though it takes over two hundred spoonfuls of peanut butter for her to sneak me the entire sword.
After swallowing the sword offstage, all I have to do when I get up in front of the audience is digest the sword. The human digestion process is complex. It takes between 24 and 72 hours for food to be broken down and eliminated from the human body. That digestion process only becomes more complicated when the food is a sword – a thing that is not a food at all. As a result, my performances are often very long. In order to keep business flowing, the venues where I perform enforce 100-drink minimums for customers who come to watch my performances. If you don’t drink, no worries. The exit is in the back.
When I perform, my number one goal is not to make the digestion as fast as possible – it is to make it as believable as possible. Even though digesting the swords doesn’t hurt me because I am so used to it, I have to act like it does. If I didn’t, there’d be no show. So, for the entire time that I occupy the stage, I lie on my side – writhing in pain and clutching at my sides – screaming things like “Lord have mercy” and “AN ANGEL HAS TRIPPED AND DROPPED THE DEVIL’S OVEN OPEN ON MY HEAD. HELL HAS FALLEN UPON ME, BUT I REFUSE TO DIE IN VAIN.” If I didn’t do this, the audience would probably think I was a fake. If I emoted the things I was actually feeling, I would not be emoting at all. My insides are so calloused now that when I digest a sword, I feel nothing at all.
Thank you for reading this piece about what I do for work. If you have comments, questions, or if you know any events coming up where I can go to bob for apples please email me at gableburger@gmail.com.