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“Water!” I called out, only because Rocky promised he wouldn’t sing another word about Eridian schooling until I had some water (I may or may not have had some all day but who’s to say really), and Armando quickly complied. I took a sip as Rocky continued, pointing to another Eridian figurine he’d made, but this time much smaller to represent an adolescent. Side note; Eridian babies at their youngest stage could fit in the palm of my hands!! Imagine!! I happily took a sip of water— or tried to.
It went down wrong, carrying a large, unpleasant air bubble with it, and immediately had me crumble into a coughing fit, followed by the most painful thing that can befall a man— a hiccough (a hiccup and a cough at the same time). I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my chest with a hand until the pain subsided. Then, finally, my brain let me hear Rocky’s panicked screeching.
“—OKAY, QUESTION? GRACE HURT, QUESTION? WATER HURT GRACE, QUESTION?!?!??”
“Ugh,” I groaned, waving a hand to waft away his worries. “I’m okay, bud. It’s fine.”
“NOT FINE, STATEMENT! GRACE MAKE BAD SOUND AND MAKE PAIN ACTIONS.” Rocky tapped on his barrier impatiently. “GRACE EXPLAIN NOW, STATEMENT.”
“Okay, okay, jeez,” I sighed. “I really am fine, though. That just happens sometimes.”
“Water hurt humans sometimes!? Why, question!?”
I laughed. “No, no, it’s not the water. Sometimes we’ll just swallow wrong, or accidentally swallow an air bubble, or some of the water will accidentally get into the air pipe in our throats, and that triggers an involuntary bodily response to get the water out.”
“Mmm,” Rocky toned with a huff, “understand, tentative statement. What called, question?”
“Well what I did was actually an extremely unpleasant combination of two things,” I sighed. “That would be a cough and a hiccup. A cough is what’s supposed to expel the water, but a hiccup… we don’t actually know exactly why we hiccup, yet. But we know it’s usually caused by eating or drinking too fast or by drinking carbonated drinks.”
Rocky cocked his carapace to the side a little. “…How humans not know function of bodily response, question? Humans stupid?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re telling me you know the function of every single thing your body does?”
“…Yes.”
“…”
“…!”
“Oh.”
Rocky tapped again when I seemed too tongue-tied to say anything more. “Why cough-hiccup hurt, question?”
“Uh, I actually don’t know if we know that,” I said helpfully.
Rocky tittered at me, annoyed. “Grace bad bad bad at explain. Back to topic. Rocky explain much better.”
“Rude,” I huffed, but, somehow a smile creeped onto my face anyway.