An accusatory finger of sunlight exposes a dust toupee gathering upon
Caesar's ceramic pate, and what passes for a carpet of fallen ash
beneath Churchill's glazed cigar. In fact, all my fine furniture and
collectible figurines are covered with these great white sheets of
dust, as if they were the contents of some country house abandoned
until the springtime.
It is unswept flakes of my own dead skin,
of course, that form these microbial tarpaulins, and, alas, it is
mostly skin from my best and most photogenic side. Indeed, I have
started to notice that I am slowly becoming asymmetrical. The flesh on
the right side of me is definitely meatier than the thin, dessicated
tissue on my left.
Dr Gleedle informs me that this is a romantic
wasting disease common to sea-faring folk such as myself, including
Palinaurus, Jason and the Argonauts, Ahab, Blind Pew, Captain and
Tenille, the Flying Dutchman, Horatio Hornblower, the Owl and the
Pussycat, Admiral Nelson, and last but not least, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.
The only remedy, so Dr Gleedle tells me, is to coat the infected regions of my body with giant squid ink extract, and then soak myself in a luxurious briny bath with a holistically-trained and buxom mermaid for five hours.
This is what happens when you live in a state with mandatory healthcare laws.
"Let me have men about me that are fat, on both sides." is what that bewigged Caesar is likely thinking.
Posted by: Anna | February 18, 2008 at 03:24