This Won't Hurt a Bit!
"You want to do a WHAT transplant?" asked Charles Wu, his hand starting to shake so much he had to put the phone down on his desk.
"It won't hurt a bit!" insisted former Senator Evermore Breadman, whose voice seemed to be singing out in a strangely jubilant fashion. "You're the healthiest guy I know!"
"I have a call coming in on the other line from Beijing--let me call you back." Wu felt something he had not felt since he had chicken pox at age five: vomit creeping up his esophagus. He ran out of his study towards the bathroom as his mother looked up with concern.
Several miles to the south, Angela de la Paz was staring out the airplane window at the cold gray rain greeting her return to Washington. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they operated on her shins to elongate her legs. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had used laser eye surgery to correct her left eye astigmatism. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had transplanted a pig kidney to replace the right kidney she had been missing since birth. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had implanted industrial grade plastic to fortify her elbows and feet for years of combat operations to come. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had performed plastic surgery to take away her Salvadorean characteristics and give her a less indigenous and more Spanish face--a face which could have hailed from a wide variety of countries. (ALL LIES!!!) But what hurt the most was when they had told her to change her name, the only thing she had left to link her to her mother and grandmother. "No," she had said quietly to Henry Samuelson when he had handed her the new passport and driver's license, and he had looked deeply into her determined eyes to gauge her resolve and had judged her a stronger person than what she was when he had first brought her out to Kansas for training. Alright, he had said after a couple of minutes, and he had not broached the subject again until they were in flight two hours later. She could now feel his cold blue eyes behind her, also looking out the window as the wheels hit the runway. She understood now that she would be given false passports when she went on missions, but these men were going to continue to call her "Miss Paz" when they addressed her; it was the only thing she had asked of them. She was a trained spy now, and she was not even going to ask permission to go visit her grandmother tomorrow because nobody could stop her and nobody would recognize her.
A couple miles away, Angela de la Paz's grandmother looked weakly at a bedside photograph of her long missing granddaughter as Consuela Arroyo prepared to insert a new i.v. drip. "This won't hurt a bit," Nurse Arroyo said quietly, and she did not view the statement so much as a lie but rather as a prayer that, God willing, it would not. The old woman winced silently. She liked the nurse very much, although she still could not understand how a woman named "Consuela Arroyo" was unable to speak Spanish. ("I'm from the Philippines," Nurse Arroyo had said multiple times, to no avail.) "The doctor will come see you soon," Nurse Arroyo said. Then she added, "I'm sure your granddaughter will come to visit you soon." This was also not a lie so much as a prayer, for the GW Hospital nurse had heard all about the mysterious story of the girl's being taken to Kansas, and "The Warrior" watching over her as best he could. Nurse Arroyo kissed the old woman on the forehead, and she closed her eyes to drift back to sleep. Then Nurse Arroyo had a premonition that the granddaughter would arrive tomorrow, followed quickly by a premonition that the old woman would die tomorrow. She crossed herself and anxiously went on to her next patient.
Deep in the nearby river, Ardua of the Potomac was brooding most grievously. "It won't hurt a bit," one of the river rats assured her. "I've had dozens of--" Ardua reached out and choked the river rat to death in an instant, enraged that the rodent would have the audacity to compare her own litters of babies to the thing growing uninvited inside the womb Ardua had not known she possessed. The other river rats swam rapidly away, leaving the demon alone with The Beaver--the only one who knew how Ardua had become pregnant.
"That girl is back," hissed Ardua. Ardua would do anything to avoid talking about her pregnancy, so The Beaver did not at first comprehend the statement. "SHE'S BACK!" screamed Ardua, rearing herself at The Beaver until at last she made him understand. "And she's stronger," Ardua said in a lower voice. Then she looked up as the limo carrying Angela de la Paz crossed the 14th Street Bridge. "But something else has changed," Ardua said, with a hint of a smile. "Something else has changed!"
Back at Charles Wu's apartment, Wu had gotten himself together enough to call back former Senator Evermore Breadman. He punched the speakerphone button and gripped the edge of his desk with both hands, then asked Breadman to repeat the request. "It's a revolutionary new treatment, Charles! They've only done it in rats so far, but I found a doctor in Switzerland who will do it for me. It just has to be fresh, that's all. So we go to Switzerland, you take a dump in the hospital, then they transplant your feces into my colon. Voila! All your helping bacteria will then establish colonies in my intestines, and I'll finally have a healthy digestive tract! Will you do it for me?"
Wu had done many things in his spying career that approached the boundary of his own sense of honor and dignity, but nothing he had done had prepared him for this. He wracked his brain, but could find no plausible excuse for refusing the request. He had nothing left to vomit, but that did not stop the gall from rising in his esophagus anyway. Would their relationship ever be the same? No...but saying no could terminate the relationship. The amount of trust Breadman had in Wu to make such a request was astounding--it was not just that Breadman thought Wu the healthiest fellow he knew, but that Breadman knew Wu would take the unsavory secret to the grave. "Sure, I'd be happy to help!" Wu found himself saying carefully, swallowing the bile back down. "I love Switzerland--we can do some skiing," he added, then regretted the cavalier comment.
"Fantastic!" shouted Breadman! "I feel like a new man already! I have a good feeling about 2011!"
Outside Wu's window, a catbird laughed uproariously, then flew off to tell his friends: Wu has been reduced to peddling his own shit!
"It won't hurt a bit!" insisted former Senator Evermore Breadman, whose voice seemed to be singing out in a strangely jubilant fashion. "You're the healthiest guy I know!"
"I have a call coming in on the other line from Beijing--let me call you back." Wu felt something he had not felt since he had chicken pox at age five: vomit creeping up his esophagus. He ran out of his study towards the bathroom as his mother looked up with concern.
Several miles to the south, Angela de la Paz was staring out the airplane window at the cold gray rain greeting her return to Washington. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they operated on her shins to elongate her legs. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had used laser eye surgery to correct her left eye astigmatism. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had transplanted a pig kidney to replace the right kidney she had been missing since birth. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had implanted industrial grade plastic to fortify her elbows and feet for years of combat operations to come. This won't hurt a bit, they had said when they had performed plastic surgery to take away her Salvadorean characteristics and give her a less indigenous and more Spanish face--a face which could have hailed from a wide variety of countries. (ALL LIES!!!) But what hurt the most was when they had told her to change her name, the only thing she had left to link her to her mother and grandmother. "No," she had said quietly to Henry Samuelson when he had handed her the new passport and driver's license, and he had looked deeply into her determined eyes to gauge her resolve and had judged her a stronger person than what she was when he had first brought her out to Kansas for training. Alright, he had said after a couple of minutes, and he had not broached the subject again until they were in flight two hours later. She could now feel his cold blue eyes behind her, also looking out the window as the wheels hit the runway. She understood now that she would be given false passports when she went on missions, but these men were going to continue to call her "Miss Paz" when they addressed her; it was the only thing she had asked of them. She was a trained spy now, and she was not even going to ask permission to go visit her grandmother tomorrow because nobody could stop her and nobody would recognize her.
A couple miles away, Angela de la Paz's grandmother looked weakly at a bedside photograph of her long missing granddaughter as Consuela Arroyo prepared to insert a new i.v. drip. "This won't hurt a bit," Nurse Arroyo said quietly, and she did not view the statement so much as a lie but rather as a prayer that, God willing, it would not. The old woman winced silently. She liked the nurse very much, although she still could not understand how a woman named "Consuela Arroyo" was unable to speak Spanish. ("I'm from the Philippines," Nurse Arroyo had said multiple times, to no avail.) "The doctor will come see you soon," Nurse Arroyo said. Then she added, "I'm sure your granddaughter will come to visit you soon." This was also not a lie so much as a prayer, for the GW Hospital nurse had heard all about the mysterious story of the girl's being taken to Kansas, and "The Warrior" watching over her as best he could. Nurse Arroyo kissed the old woman on the forehead, and she closed her eyes to drift back to sleep. Then Nurse Arroyo had a premonition that the granddaughter would arrive tomorrow, followed quickly by a premonition that the old woman would die tomorrow. She crossed herself and anxiously went on to her next patient.
Deep in the nearby river, Ardua of the Potomac was brooding most grievously. "It won't hurt a bit," one of the river rats assured her. "I've had dozens of--" Ardua reached out and choked the river rat to death in an instant, enraged that the rodent would have the audacity to compare her own litters of babies to the thing growing uninvited inside the womb Ardua had not known she possessed. The other river rats swam rapidly away, leaving the demon alone with The Beaver--the only one who knew how Ardua had become pregnant.
"That girl is back," hissed Ardua. Ardua would do anything to avoid talking about her pregnancy, so The Beaver did not at first comprehend the statement. "SHE'S BACK!" screamed Ardua, rearing herself at The Beaver until at last she made him understand. "And she's stronger," Ardua said in a lower voice. Then she looked up as the limo carrying Angela de la Paz crossed the 14th Street Bridge. "But something else has changed," Ardua said, with a hint of a smile. "Something else has changed!"
Back at Charles Wu's apartment, Wu had gotten himself together enough to call back former Senator Evermore Breadman. He punched the speakerphone button and gripped the edge of his desk with both hands, then asked Breadman to repeat the request. "It's a revolutionary new treatment, Charles! They've only done it in rats so far, but I found a doctor in Switzerland who will do it for me. It just has to be fresh, that's all. So we go to Switzerland, you take a dump in the hospital, then they transplant your feces into my colon. Voila! All your helping bacteria will then establish colonies in my intestines, and I'll finally have a healthy digestive tract! Will you do it for me?"
Wu had done many things in his spying career that approached the boundary of his own sense of honor and dignity, but nothing he had done had prepared him for this. He wracked his brain, but could find no plausible excuse for refusing the request. He had nothing left to vomit, but that did not stop the gall from rising in his esophagus anyway. Would their relationship ever be the same? No...but saying no could terminate the relationship. The amount of trust Breadman had in Wu to make such a request was astounding--it was not just that Breadman thought Wu the healthiest fellow he knew, but that Breadman knew Wu would take the unsavory secret to the grave. "Sure, I'd be happy to help!" Wu found himself saying carefully, swallowing the bile back down. "I love Switzerland--we can do some skiing," he added, then regretted the cavalier comment.
"Fantastic!" shouted Breadman! "I feel like a new man already! I have a good feeling about 2011!"
Outside Wu's window, a catbird laughed uproariously, then flew off to tell his friends: Wu has been reduced to peddling his own shit!
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 12:08 PM
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