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A Tale of Four-Foot Needles
A Tale of Four-Foot Needles
It was a dark and stormy night, or it
should have been, when I was escorted
into the good Doctor's inner sanctum. Hunched over my chart like Lon
Chaney
with a crick in his neck, he bid me to tell of recent maladies. My tale
of
woes was brief but he gleefully wrote page after page of potions,
lotions and
bitter pills to swallow before next we met.
As he prepared to depart, I cried,
"But wait! What of my hands?" Truth be
spoken, more digit tips had numbed and wrists popped like firecrackers
at
Chinese New Year.
"Ah, yes," he squeaked,
grinning like a mortician meeting his first customer
after a slow week of dying. "Let us use the needles today!"
I shuddered involuntarily at the
delighted elongation of the word
"neeeeedles"! Two months of unrestricted imagination had
lengthened the steel implements of
torture until, in mind's eye, they glinted with four feet of cold
terror! I could hardly wait.
"First we spray it with
this." Cold mist enveloped my palm in an icy fog.
Fluid dripped down my smallest appendage, making pale its color and
reminding
me of liquid nitrogen hardened rubber balls we had shattered in Physics
Lab
101. "That should make it less painful." He flicked the palm
of my hand with
his fingertip producing a dull "thud!"
While my eyes were otherwise occupied,
the man whipped his other hand from
behind his back! Though startling the move was, only a small stinger
nestled,
plunger to barrel tip, between thumb and forefingers. "This will
hurt not a
bit, my friend," he said, chuckling with that affectionate,
fiendish laugh so
dear to aging malcontents who lined up weekly to confess and do penance.
No spike did I feel as more frigid
frost grabbed my grip like Arnold Palmer a
nine-iron, Robert Palmer a microphone or Emerson, Lake and Palmer aging
instruments of audio interruption. Oh, what a Lucky man I was... to have
such
a caring counselor of physical repair!
Had I not looked just then, I would
never have suspected such evil intent in
so kind an inquisitor. For, out of thin air he did produce a skin drill
of
such length it would have served Oprah well for weekly liposuction!
To say that terror did grip my heart
would not be too great an exaggeration!
I don't mind telling you, friends, that I grew faint from fear. Great
drops of
sweat, like blood, did burst upon my brow. My feet also swelled.
Now, the sadistic pleasure danced upon
his countenance as he described the
journey said instrument would travel within my epidermal shell--through
flesh
and tiny bone, under carpal saddle and into sheath of message-bearing
but
entrapped wires of nerve. With each new morsel of information his neck
arched and he bayed at yon third floor dental clinic.
I feared for my very soul as fang
entered palm. What midnight dance of undead would I now find myself
awakened within?
My bonesmith braced his hand against
the posterior wall for support as he
plunged deep. Inches--Nay, feet were breached! Silent silver derrick
sampled
core whilst delivering noxious substance of sweet relief to the tunnel
of
painful memory.
Just as I could stand no more of this
ordeal, needle struck nerve. Wind
whistled through clenched canines as fire did envelop my hand. Then...
blissfully, 'twas over.
As I arose, palm bandaged to stem the
flow of lifeblood, I turned towards my
keeper. Slumped over desk. Now exhausted, the great reducer of aches and
sorrows was spent. But soon he raised his head wearily and smiled.
"Thank you, good doctor," I
said as I bade him farewell. "My gratitude lays
upon you. I am now, and always, in your debt, sir"
I strode from his quarters then. Past
neat rows of iron maidens awaiting
other tearful travelers upon which to close door and teeth.
Wrist still in pain, digits still numb,
but with hope of recovery in my
breast, I reached for the handle of the door. I was conscious of a new
sense
of well-being permeating my soul.
As I crossed this worldly sill, I did
hear a sweet voice call to me, "Sir!!
You forgot to pay your bill!"
~John
Walker
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