In memory of my friend Jacob.

Quick note for the squeamish, I’m going to be telling the story of my buddy Jacob and his death. It contains lots of bathroom talk, and not in a humorous way. This may be disgusting for some. Here goes nothing.

I had a friend called Jacob who is no longer with us. I was there for his death, and I want to tell his story since I saw it from start to finish; well, as long as the end of his story was concerned, that is.

Jacob and I were close friends. We were at my house, alone, spending time together and fooling around as two males tend to do. We got bored, so we went to Walmart and bought a pack of 40 water bottles. Returning to my house, we challenged each other to drink as much as we could and see who could down more water before either vomiting or using the bathroom.

I got through bottle number 4 when I felt it coming back up, and I lost all the water I had taken in, down the drain of my kitchen sink. Jacob was ecstatic he had won, and decided to rub it in my face by continuing to drink. He drank a fifth bottle. And then a sixth. I was getting worried. He always took competition too far.

“Dude, isn’t water poisoning a thing?” I concernedly asked.

“Yeah. But I’m a freaking beast, I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to risk that. Please stop drinking all that water before you hurt yourself.”

“You’re probably right… But hey, at least I beat you.” We shared a chuckle. “Now if you will excuse me, I need to take a piss.” He stood up from the couch, nearly falling over in the process. He stumbled to the bathroom, complaining about his stomach hurting the whole way. I loved that idiot.

I heard him starting to pee, and out of curiosity, I checked the time to see how long he would pee for. A sigh of relief was heard from within the bathroom, and I again shook my head at ourselves and the stupid fun we were having.

One minute passed, and his stream was still going. Wow.

A second minute. That was obnoxiously long, but I’ve had a 2-minute pee before. Surely, this was fine?

Minute 3 passed and I needed to check on him. I knocked on the door. “Jacob, you alright in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man… It’s not stopping.”

“You’ll be fine, just wait it out,” I reassured him. “Time is on your side.” Another minute passed.

“Dude… How long has it been?” He asked.

“About… Four minutes,” I told him.

“Dude, I don’t feel like I’ve pissed at all. I still feel full of water.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Would you mind… like… coming in?”

Oh, Lordie. “You sure?”

“Yeah, man… I’m getting scared.”

I entered the bathroom and aggressively avoided looking directly at him. His pee stream was completely clear, as to be expected. The toilet bowl was slowly filling, and was about 1.5 inches above where the water level normally rests.

“Damn,” I offered.

“Yeah.” I could hear the uneasiness in his voice.

“How do you feel?”

“… Kinda light-headed, actually. I’m super thirsty. What if I fall down?”

“You won’t fall over. Your body is probably just recovering from all the water you drank.”

“No, like… Dude, I recognize this headache. This is a dehydration headache.”

“No way. You’re still peeing! How are you dehydrated?”

“I don’t know… Could you please pass me a bottle, though? I can feel a migraine coming on.”

“Dude, you’re fine. You don’t need another-”

“GET me one,” he snapped. My eyes darted towards his face to find he was glaring at me, his lips pulled tight. He was serious. “Please,” he added.

“O- okay, sorry, I’ll get one.”

“Thank you.” I left the bathroom, wondering what his deal was. Did he give himself water poisoning? Why was it all coming out his urinary tract and not his mouth through vomit? Did I need to call someone? I brought him another bottle.

“Sorry dude,” he started, “I’m not gonna have you waterfall that to me. I’m gonna let go with my hands and hopefully not spray all over your floor.”

Are you kidding me? I took a deep breath. “Okay, sure, fine, whatever. I just hope you feel better, man.” He brought his hands up to grab the bottle. His stream continued feeding itself into the bowl. It was still clear. My eyes returned upward to see him chugging the water, groaning in satisfaction. I was appalled, but said nothing. He finished the bottle, and released an exhale of pleasure.

“Man, that hit the spot!” he said. “I wonder if it’ll come out, too?” he jested. He was joking but at the same time, I could tell he wasn’t. “Anyway… Here, take this,” he requested, handing me the bottle. As I took it from him, I noticed something was off.

“Uh, Jacob?”

“Yeah?” He looked at me sideways, his left hand floating between us.

“Your hand is… Uh…”

He looked at it. “It’s dry?” He asked, bewildered.

“But how is that possible? That makes no-”

“I’m scared,” he said plainly, locking his eyes with mine. A flame of fear flickered in those eyes, and his eyebrows confirmed his feelings to me. I didn’t know what to say; luckily, he said something. “That headache is still here. I know it normally takes a second to stop hurting after drinking, but what if it doesn’t stop? Why are my fingers dry? Am I losing water?” In his rambling, his pee stream dribbled a bit on the floor. He corrected himself. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda scared too. Should we call someone?”

“Maybe… Get me some more water first, please? My mouth is dry again.”

“Sure thing, be right back.” I dutifully grabbed the open plastic packaging of the bottles and hauled the whole thing into the bathroom to Jacob. I saw repressed panic on his face, the expression of someone tamping down their anxiety but still feeling its potential bubbling up within them. I wordlessly set the bottles on the counter.

He turned and looked at me again before grabbing another bottle, careful to keep his stream angled into the toilet bowl. Unscrewing the cap and drinking the next bottle, there was a faraway look in his eye. He was thinking hard about his situation. Neither of us really knew what to do, but his body was losing water. His symptoms were unusual, and the toilet water had now nearly reached the bottom of the lip of the toilet. I was afraid for him.

With a shaky hand, I flushed the toilet and we solemnly watched the water disappear into the hole and observed as the bowl refilled itself, aided by Jacob’s never-ending pee stream.

“I’m uh… I’m gonna call someone,” I said.

“Yeah, do that,” he replied, his dejected eyes never leaving the inside of the toilet. He reached for another bottle and I looked away, trying to convince myself this was a dream but knowing that it wasn’t. My phone screen proudly announced that eleven minutes had now passed since he’d begun. That’s a lot of water.

Pushing that aside, I dialed 911 and listened to it ring. After two rings, the line picked up.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Hi, my name is Steven and my friend Jacob is really dehydrated and we don’t know what to do.”

“Have you tried giving him sips of water?”

I peeked back into the bathroom, seeing a sweaty Jacob chugging another bottle.

“Uh… Something like that. He’s gone through 9 bottles of water now but he’s still going.”

“9 bottles of water? Like 16 ounce ones?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s seriously dangerous, he could be poisoning himself.”

“Yeah we thought of that. He’s still losing water. Can you please send an ambulance over? And tell them to bring buckets?”

“All of our units are currently occupied, unfortunately, but I can take down your address and send one over as soon as I can.”

“Sure.” I told her my address. Unfortunately, we live really out of the way and the concerned tone of the operator agreed with me that it was going to delay an ambulance. It was 20 minutes away from the city when the roads were empty, with nothing but desert until that point. The operator recommended that I try and get him to the hospital myself if I could. I asked her advice.

“For starters, talk to him. Keep him calm the best you can. If he asks for something, try to get it to him. Don’t touch him unless you need to, so you can avoid injuring him further; though it doesn’t sound like physical trauma is an issue here, it’s better safe than sorry. If you want to stay on the line with me, I can update you as to how far out that ambulance is.”

“Yes, please,” I said. “I’m going to put you on speaker with him and I’m gonna get him into the car.” Jacob looked at me in apprehension.

He asked, “What about the pee?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I assured him. “We’ll figure it out. At least it doesn’t smell.”

The operator interjected, “Did you say he’s peeing?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “He uh… He’s been peeing the same stream for twelve minutes now.”

The operator did not reply. Jacob broke the silence, saying “Well, I still feel the same as I did at the start… May as well get it over with,” he said, twisting his body and directing his stream onto the tile. He looked at it in disbelief and embarrassment. He looked humiliated. On our way out, I grabbed the water bottle package, which had 20 left, as well as a bucket for him to pee into.

We began driving into town, and I inquired the 911 operator, “How busy are those ambulances?”

“They’re still unavailable. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I replied. Jacob and I sat in silence, broken only by the sound of urine filling the metal bucket I’d grabbed for him. At one point, he rolled down the window and dumped the pee into the wind, managing a small smirk at the spectacle of it all. He peed on my car floor a bit. It was fine.

Five minutes had passed when the operator chimed back in, “Alright, there’s a paramedic team who is now available, wh-” when static cut off her voice.

“What?” I asked. She kept talking but she was cutting out too badly. I waved my phone around, cursing the service this far out. “My signal is bad! I can’t hear you!” I yelled, but it was futile. My phone dropped the call, and I returned my eyes to the road to see a truck’s headlights staring back at me. Before I could act, we made a head-on collision and my car spun off the side of the road.

I don’t remember too much of what happened next, only that the truck stopped, then started again and left the scene. Hit and run. Bastard.

Neither Jacob nor I were hurt in the impact. My memory fails as to what we talked about, but my phone was continuously incapable of getting any kind of signal. My car was unable to start, and the driver’s side was crumpled inward. Luckily, I was able to exit the vehicle through Jacob’s side door. He halfheartedly suggested walking, but I didn’t humor the idea, nor did he.

I do remember when he finished that last bottle, though. His eyes were bloodshot, and the fear had taken over his face. Both of us leaning on the side of the car, he looked at me. “I’m so thirsty. I need more.”

“I know, buddy,” I replied. I put my arm around his shoulder.

“Steven?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I…” Oh God, please don’t say it… “Am I gonna… die?” His voice cracked on the last word and he began to shake, no tears escaping his eyes but it was clear he was crying.

“Honestly… I don’t know,” I offered. He nodded his head in solemn agreement, beginning to moan through his sobs. His stream was still going.

We continued to talk, I won’t say what about, because that moment seems sacred to me. We’d look side to side for any passing cars but none ever came. Out in the middle of a desert roadside, stickers in our socks, one man trying to console the other, it eventually came to an end when he collapsed onto my shoulder. I tried to wake him back up, but he never did. His pee stream continued after I felt his breathing stop, and his skin was wrinkly with dryness. That was when I lost my cool and sobbed all over his. I sank to the ground, cradling him in my lap, not caring that my shoes were slick with piss.

A car eventually pulled over to find us, and at that point, he had stopped peeing. His skin was cracked, his lips splitting. His hair was crackly and fell out when touched. The horrified family called the police and the rest is history.

​

Jacob told me what he’d wanted to do in life before he died, his greatest fears, and that he regretted trying to “be a man” all the time. I will never forget that moment on the roadside with him. I’ve done research in the aftermath, and have never found anything online about this sort of thing. His body just kept draining itself of water. I don’t know if he ever felt relief, silly as it may sound. I hope he did before passing.

Please, be safe with your friends. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t try and one-up each other, and tell each other how much you love each other before you can’t anymore.