Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
Acute Leg Sorrow: A Case Report
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
Acute Leg Sorrow: A Case Report.
Mrs M., a forty-five year old woman, reported to the Emergency Room with acute leg sorrow in her lower left extremity.
The examination revealed redness and emotional stasis in the leg, as well as pulsating anguish and some financial distress. The patient was not allergic to any medication, had no previous conditions and didn’t remember any leg trauma in the previous months.
Basic tests showed low platelets and self-esteem, left-leaning leukocytes and high introspection/physical exercise ratio. The patient didn’t report any addictions or compulsions, although she did admit to marital stress (football and beer related) and conjugal sexual dysfunction.
A number of treatments were proposed, including lymbic transmapheresis, Viagra treatment for the husband and divorce (with or without heterosexual-to-homosexual, sexual orientation reassignment).
Mrs M. wasn’t amenable to any of these options. Resistance to treatment in patients with organ sadness has been amply described in Medical Literature, and although more conservative treatments were suggested and Mrs M. was informed that she had to do something to appease her limb, eventually, the patient elected to sign a voluntary release form and leave Hospital, talking her grieving leg with her.
Parthenia Rook, episode VI: The World’s Fair
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
For previous episodes in Parthenia Rook, see the archive.
Parthenia, in her shiny leather pants and pineapple sunglasses for a disguise, scanned the crowds for signs of a barefoot chimpanzee in an Italian suit made out of chitin. The digital displays that flowed down the sides of her sunglasses assured her no zombie photographers slouched in the vicinity.
An anonymous tip had warned that the Bonobo King would “arrive today to rain on the world’s parade,” and Parthenia believed it. The Bonobo King always emailed his anonymous threats in assonance.
However, there was no hint of clouds in the pale sky above Vörpalsberg. Only the bittersweet scent of coffee wafted up from the four hundred cafes–reminding her of wasted kirchenstreuselkuchen.
Her stomach rumbled at the loss. No, it wasn’t her stomach, or else her stomach was making the silverware rattle and the dishes clatter. Earthquake? Probably more like the overgrown earthworms that Dr. Mandril had genetically engineered to attack Manhattan.
That’s when Parthenia saw the swift-moving cloud, the tail end of which twinkled like stars on a humid night. Parthenia turned her sunglasses to the dark mass, to allow the pineapples (actually, radar dishes with astounding pick-up) a chance to bounce and receive beams off the disturbance, but Dr. Mandril must have either devised a cloaking device or come up with something more sinister.
A plague of locusts? Not the Bonobo King’s style.
A gust of wind jostled the crowd. They looked up. That’s when Parthenia felt a lump in her throat. Dr. Mandril had engineered a Zemeros giganticus. A giant butterfly. Gorgeous. Parthenia stood paralyzed with awe.
But the twinkling that trailed the butterfly snapped her out of her reverie. Their plan was for Parthenia, the world-famous lepidotrist, to fall so in love that she wouldn’t protect the world from the Bonobo King and his minions. It might have worked if the Bonobo King’s zombies, harnessed in anti-grav devices, didn’t have to photograph the fair before wrecking ruin. Parthenia Rook tapped her platform heels to jet–Kung Fu fists first–into the butterfly’s maw.