It’s official, the diagnosis is in, I have a severe case of lime disease. Before you ask – no I’m not talking about the disease named after some groggy town in Connecticut transmitted by deer ticks. I have lime disease, L-I-M-E… lime, not L-Y-M-E diseases, and in my opinion my disease is much worse.

It all started in my very backyard. It was summer. I finally moved out of the bleak basement I once called home, and into a modest one story house painted in a shade of brown reminiscent of the 1970’s. If the outside wasn’t enough to bring you back to the time of disco and bell-bottom jeans, the interior did the trick. The walls were made of fake vinyl wood, the cabinets were painted some putrid shade of yellow, and a hideous orange shag carpet draped the floor. Despite the house’s minor mishaps, it was a home and that was all I could ever ask for. There was strange thing about the house (other than its outdated decor) though: a giant lime tree growing in the backyard. Upon moving in I was amazed, I never have seen a lime tree before. In fact I have always believed limes were some sort of root vegetable that grew 5 meters underground. Yet, I was wrong. The tree amazed me, there must have seven dozen limes sprouting from its luscious branches. It offered free food, and saved me some money, as my video-store job did not pay well.

My first lime from the lime tree was a sensation I can’t describe. It was a couple days after I moved in, and I was really craving some fruit. While I don’t typically choose to snack on limes, I really needed some vitamin C, and figured it couldn't hurt. I mean old sailors used to suck on limes to prevent themselves from getting scurvy, how bad could it be? I walked up to that golden tree, and plucked the limey-est lime I could find from the trees wooden limbs. The lime looked decadent, it was pulp, the perfect shade of green, and had that pleasant yet unpleasant smell which gently stung the nostrils. Naive to the lime I bit right in. It was revolting, the skin was tough, bitter, and difficult to swallow. It was like eating a rubber ball with a juicy core. Quite disgusting indeed. After that subpar experience I briefly gave up on the lime, and we lived separately but in peace.

I continued to nurture the lime tree, making sure it had plenty of water, fertilizer, and I even went to the extent of plucking excess limes from its branches. The strong citrus odor of the lemon’s green cousin was beginning to grow on me. I would find myself venturing outside more and more often to get a whiff of the lime tree’s sweet perfume. I eventually went out every hour on the hour and shoved my face in the thick of the lime tree, capturing every molecule of whatever makes up the scent of the lime. It was pure bliss. After a while, I became ill of walking outside to the tree to get my fix of its citrus smell. I then came up with an ingenious idea. I began to pluck limes from the tree’s seemingly endless branches. I would return to my house with buckets full of limes. I then proceeded to squirt the lime’s acidic juice all over my belongings. Covering my house with a thin film of lime juice, the stench of the lime took control of my nostrils. I could smell nothing else, not even the foulest of odor could penetrate the permanent layer of lime that resided somewhere deep in my nostrils millimeters away from my brain.

It was not until this point that I reconsidered consuming a lime. For obvious reasons I was not able to get my fix of that sweet lime scent at work. Being a video-store, the building was drenched in some sort of popcorn perfume on a bi-weekly basis, and even the slightest odor of citrus would send my delusional boss in a yelling frenzy. Yet those long grueling hours would send me into a frenzy of my own. I would shake and quiver in a state of lifeless anxiety, constantly checking the clock to determine when I could race home and have a hot date under the lime tree. However, this got old really fast; I really needed to solve the issue. I eventually mustered up the courage to bite into a lime once more. Yet, this time I did it a little differently. I once again plucked a lime from the tree’s ever growing branches, and took it indoors. Welding an unsharpened butter knife in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other, I sliced the lime’s coarse skin with ease. What I held in my hands afterwards, was the pulp juicy flesh of the lime. I took a deep breath, held in a nervous sigh, and stuck my chompers deep into the lime’s membrane. It was exquisite, sour and bitter, yet ever so sweet. I have never eaten anything like it before, it was by a large margin the best thing I have ever eaten. After consuming the lime, I could not get its taste out of my head. It was purely divine, a taste that would call me all ours of the day until I satisfied my cravings with another lime.

After a week or so of consuming my first lime, I could feel the disease slowly infesting my body. All I could of think of limes, every thought that made its way into my head was linked to limes in some shape or form. It was impossible to concentrate on anything. Being constantly surrounded by the taste and smell of the lime surely didn’t help, but was it my fault why was this fruit so goddamn good. I couldn't get it out of my head, an impending fear of losing was crushing my body.

My first episode occurred two and half weeks after I ingested the first lime. At this point my diet was strictly composed of limes, I bathed in lime juice daily, and my entire home was engulfed in the citrus smell of lime. I remember sitting on my couch watching the eleven o’clock news. I was quite tired, and as I was fluttering in and out of consciences giant green flashes speed across my vision. The green was the shade of lime. At first the green only appeared for a split second but the color was stuck permanently in my closed eyes. I snapped out of it. I knew what had to be done, and the next morning I drove my car to the local hardware store and purchased several gallons of lime green paint. I speed home, took a bathed myself in lime juice, and proceeded to paint every object I owned the color of that divine fruit. My entire was house was green… effing green. After the episode was finished and the credits began to roll, I felt disappointed. What was I doing… I’m losing it. This feeling of disappointment was brief, the lime tree like a beacon of light in a cloudy night began calling me. Without a moment to spare I continued to speed along the highway of destruction.

My vision began to change. Ever object I laid my eyes on was tinted in the shade of green. Green mornings, green afternoons, green evenings, green everything. I couldn’t get it out of my head. The image of a lime flashed before my eyes without warning. I would see trucks driving on lime wheels, old men wearing lime spectacles, and giants limes standing in the sky like some sort of skyscraper. Every song I heard involved a singer repeated stating the word lime in some sort of rhythmic pattern. I even visited my local museum, and to my surprise every image featured a lime. This continued to get worse, limes began to pop up more and more. Humanoid limes appeared from thin air, living in giant lime homes, and driving a large lime with four smaller limes as wheels. The news was about limes, the books were about limes, even the movies featured limes. During this, my cravings were ever present. I would probably eat about 100 limes a day, and began misting myself with lime juice throughout various parts of the day. I was the lime man. Limes were my life, that was it.

I started to become a lime. All the limes I have consumed seemed to have built up in my system. My skin was littered with pours and becoming a shade of green. My hair began to recede into my head, and my body was taking up the shape of a lime. I was becoming a lime. My arms and legs fell off, my eyes, nose, and ears vanished into thin air. Lime juice spewed from my body. I was a lime. A goddamn lime. The disease ran its course. I became what consumed me. Embodying the shape of a lime I merely a fruit, suddenly all went white. There was nothing except me. I am telling my tale from this dimension. A blank dimension contacting nothing, nothing but a giant talking lime sitting ever still. I am lime a lime a lime a lime. Lime that is what I am. I will be a lime, permanently a lime.

I wish I had lyme disease instead.