A good surgeon has an eagle's eye, a lion's heart, and a lady's hand
Which is why good surgeons are only as common as expert gene splicers want them to be.
The famed Thomas Doblerton was just such a man. His heart beat only forty times per minute, pumping leonine volumes of blood. His fingers were long and tapered with the fine delicacy of a piano player. They didn’t fit his large, stocky build. Yet, all those who met Thomas Doblerton never noticed. They were too busy staring at those eyes.
His stare was piercing. Those eyes, too big for his face, never blinked. Nor did they seem to focus on the person before him. Instead, they were focused in the distance, as though seeing a speck – or a rabbit – several hundred feet away.
Doblerton had passed through medical school easily, as the instructors knew he had truly been born to this destiny. He was truly expert. He could name all that transpired in the human body, and describe the processes to a tee. When his sketches of the large organs seemed small and distant, like a dot on the page, his anatomy professor, Dr. Sevorsky, was forgiving. “It’s a bird’s eye view, eh, Thomas?” The man slapped Doblerton on the back. “Very clever.” Doblerton shrugged.
Then came the surgery rotation. It was a coming out party not only for Thomas Doblerton, but also for the gene splicer, who had enhanced several hundred future surgeons, though Thomas was the first. News cameras gathered from seventeen nations, all crowding the operating room, all waiting for the first fateful slice.
Doblerton inhaled. His lion heart pumped extra blood throughout his body, oxygenating his fingers and his brain in a process which he could have described in great detail. He flexed his hands, then grasped the scalpel with a dexterity unseen since…well, since forever. He stepped close to the body and began to make a perfect opening incision.
The cameramen and camerawomen clapped, the gene splicer cheered, the doctors stood back in awe. Then it came time to manipulate the heart valve. Doblerton stood back, at the limit of his arm’s reach, but all he saw was a blur. He retreated three paces; now he could see, but not touch. He stepped forward to perform the maneuver he could complete in his sleep, but once again he could not see. For the first time, Doblerton blinked. “Go on,” Doctor Sevorsky, who had insisted on being present for the historic occasion, said. “Do it.”
“I…I…can’t.” In his panic, his heart raced.
“You must.” Sevorsky applied a firm pressure to Doblerton’s back. “No need to worry, son. You’ll be fine.”
Sweat pouring from his mane, Doblerton applied the knife to the organ that was too close for him to see. He cut, blood spurted, the cameramen and camerawomen gasped, his vision fogged.
Thomas Doblerton slumped to the table. His leonine heart had burst under pressure never seen on an African savannah. While Sevorsky and the others attempted to save the patient, Doblerton rolled under the table, there to be forgotten by a crowd that had been following his every move mere moments before. Two men died that day.
He who sleeps forgets his hunger
The Carjida has seven feet. Perhaps they’d be better called paws, though they’re hairless. It prowls through the dark streets and alleyways, rattling trashcans and leaving oil slicks in its wake.
And awake you must remain, if you do not wish to provide its repast. For the Carjida feasts on dreams, good ones, bad ones, scary ones. Its favorite morsel? Why the dream where you’ve gone to school in your underwear, of course. The Carjida never feels the ache of emptiness in its belly.
Surely, there must be some way to stop this monstrosity, you say? Don’t sleep, perchance, and you will starve it. The emaciated Carjida will slink off to the country, there to die. In its moment of expiration it will unleash a torrent of sensual dreams that would make a teenager blush. If you can but bottle this nectar, great wealth will be yours. The hunter will be well-rewarded.
Make sure your neighbors cooperate in the plan, or you’ll be exhausting your resources to no effect. So exhausted will you be, that you may fall asleep despite yourself. And then, surely, your hunger will you forget.
The Carjida eschews dreams of hunger. He’ll steer your mind clear of such fare.
Nothing succeeds like success
There was once a bittiforque, an alien who looked vaguely like a cat with a fork sticking out of its side, named Gorvin. Now Gorvin was as friendly a bittiforque as you’d like to meet – which is to say, “not very.” He snarled at little old ladies in crosswalks, stomped on baby toes, and otherwise made a regular nuisance of himself. Fortunately, he was quite good looking as bittiforques go.
His dream, his one and only dream, was to play the violin at the grand ole’ opry. He started playing on the street corners. After several long cold months, through cold, and snow and ice, (nor hail would stop this bittiforque on his appointed picking), he was discovered by the local club owner. Gorvin was given a regular Saturday night gig, and tuppence a performance to boot.
Well, he was so successful at that, that before you could say “lickety-split”, he was touring minor dives all over the southeast of this fair country we like to call home. And, then, Gorvin’s big break came. A scout heard tell of this young bittiforque and his excellent picking, turning the rubber chicken tour upside down (and bouncy).
The scout came, the scout listened, the scout smiled. Gorvin, who recognized all the scouts down to the brand of their underwear by this point, kept on picking, but inside his heart sang. His success was nigh.
Then Gorvin hit a wrong note. The scout shook his head. He left before the set was complete.
Within three months time, Gorvin was back on the same lonely street corner where he’d first begun. Nothing fails like failure.
“Stick a fork in me,” he said, to any passersby who would slow enough to listen. “I’m done.”
