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Serial Stories
Earlier this month, 11 intrepid first-years came together for an experiment in writing. Each person was given a one-sentence prompt to use as the first line of a story and allotted four minutes to add a few sentences to that prompt. When the buzzer rang, each person passed his or her paper clockwise and began again, spending four minutes continuing whatever the previous person had written. Seven cycles later, the stories were finished. Here are three of the editors' favorites.
She Could Barely Feel Her Toes
She could barely feel her toes. She had her toes in her hands, but she could not feel them. It had started as soon as she woke up. Now she was thinking, "23 year old woman presents complaining of not being able to feel her toes." She imagined a snapshot of her toes on a Powerpoint screen. They were pink and modest and the nails were too long.
"I need a pedicure," she thought, as she grabbed a lancet off the shelf. She pricked the side of her index finger, and a bead of red oozed out.
"You know what," she thought. "This would be a good time to take the HbA1c test for blood sugar. I haven't done a great job of keeping my diabetes under control." She could see it now: the next slide on the Powerpoint would be "23 yo female with history of diabetes presents with diabetic neuropathy." This couldn't be good.
Immediately, she thought of strategies to enable her to feel her own toes. Her first idea was to call in the heavy artillery: a reciting of "This little piggy."
But when the last little piggy failed to call home, she started getting frantic. She hopped to the garage and pulled out her dad's toolbox.
There had to be something in there to reawaken her toes. A nailgun? Hammer? Chainsaw? She imagined the next Powerpoint slide: "23 yo female with diabetes attempts to cut off her toes, but cuts off her arm."
"Stop presenting your own case," she said to herself. "Stop." She tickled her toe with the feather of an eagle. She'd found the feather in the toolbox. No response. She tried again. No response. She called 911. When they came, they asked her what was wrong. She sighed.
"I can't feel my toe!" she screamed repeatedly at the EMT.
"Ma'am," the EMT sheepishly retorted. "It is because you dropped your prosthetic big toe. You no longer have your big toe."
A moment of clarity came over her. She must've had selective amnesia. She just remembered that two months ago, she shot herself in the foot, blowing off her big toe.
"That's why that little piggy had to be buried."
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He Had Always Wanted to Make Headlines
He had always wanted to make headlines. He furrowed his brow and gazed nervously at the traffic and city milling away in the street, so far yet so close to the roof of the skyscraper upon which he stood. It was not supposed to end this way.
When he was a kid, Jason wore scrubs to school and a green-blue beanie on his head. "My dad saves lives every day, and I will too," he'd say to the bullies who asked.
In the fourth grade he had been sent to the principal's office for pinning Stacia Eggleton down and trying to press a speculum into her. "How else will I learn!" he complained.
"Besides, she had cooties."
As he grew older, he got into the habit of offering unsolicited diagnoses to anyone who would listen. "You have fatty liver," he told the prettiest girl in junior high. Little did he know how great a pick-up line that was. After all, she was a secret fan of the hepatobiliary society of America.
Now, 8 years later, she was four states and 12 hours away by train — and his baby was growing inside of her. He didn't know it, of course. He just thought she was getting chubby, and told her to check her TSH levels. Not that he knew what that really meant — of course he didn't. He knew how to recite facts authoritatively from his Up to Date iPhone app, but that was about it.
His life had been a series of missed opportunities. Until now. He was going to take a stand, or rather, a fall. So he jumped: down he went, free-falling 102 stories to his gory demise. Then he picked himself up, wiped the sweat off his brow, and vowed never again to play Grand Theft Auto — skyscraper edition.
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Mr. C's Hypertension Was Uncontrollable
Mr. C's hypertension was uncontrollable. Sometimes it was too high. Sometimes it was too low. But sometimes, when he would chew on bubble gum, it was just right.
Mr. C's doctor did not believe him when he said that bubble gum optimized his blood pressure. So Mr. C pressed used bubble gum into the hand of his doctor and his doctor put it in his own mouth. After a few minutes of chewing, the doctor said, "My BP is ideal...if you know what I mean."
Ideal to his doctor must have matched the rising blood pressure Mr. C was experiencing. Their eyes locked, and the tension in the room was thick. Hyper, even. "I'll have to change doctors if anything happens," thought Mr. C.
The last time something like this happened, Mr. C had to move to Mexico for a few years to avoid the advances of his last doctor and wait for things to cool down. And here it was again, the exact same bubble gum blood pressure situation that had caused all of his previous problems.
Mr. C could not help himself. He pulled out a piece of his double-the-pleasure doublemint gum. He needed to chew, chew fast. He put the gum in his mouth and chewed and chewed. Faster than the HMS Society Olympians did in the bubble race. Faster than ever. He had to lower his BP before anything magical happened with the doctor.
"What's the point?" Mr. C suddenly roared. "Why are we trying to prevent magic?"
The doctor looked uneasy.
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"You just said, 'My blood pressure is ideal...if you know what I mean'," Mr. C said. He was hurt. The doctor who had sent him to Mexico had been more willing.
"I did not say that," the doctor said.
"No," Mr. C said.
"Your blood pressure is high," the doctor said.
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Writers:
Allen Chen
Sean Duffy
Neir Eshel
Grace Malvar
Sarah Messmer
Adeola Oni-Orisan
Mitalee Patil
Sor Piawah
Roshan Sethi
Zeba Syed
Rena Xu
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