Emissions/Kilian Doyle: Man stumbles into the lobby of a doctor's surgery. He appears in a bad way. "Doctor, help me . . . " he moans. "Oh dear," says the medic. "Come in and we'll have a look at you."
Our friend clambers onto the examining table and, lifting up his shirt gingerly, reveals a chest swollen beyond belief. It looks like his heart is about to pop clean through his sternum.
"It's my heart. It feels like it's doubling. It's hard to explain - it feels like every bit of my body is just rushing into it. Every morning, it starts. It swells and swells throughout the day, hits a point of saturation, and begins emptying in late afternoon. Slowly. And painfully. Fridays are the worst, for some reason."
"Lord above. I've never seen the likes of it," says Doc. "We'd better scan you immediately."
Ten minutes later, the doctor, CAT scans
in hand, breaks the bad news. "You're not well. See this?" he says, pointing to an object the size of a springer spaniel's head. "Your heart is triple the size it should be. A third of all the cells in your body have moved around it. If I may be flippant, it appears they've decided home is where the heart is."
"Doctor, please..." the patient groans. "What's the prognosis?"
"Well, the rest of your organs are a bit swollen, but seem fine. But there are huge empty spaces around your body where the cells should by rights be flourishing. Look," he says, pointing to a lighter area roughly ringing the heart that's striated with lines of cells marching inwards from its extremities. "It appears they're even coming from beyond the pale. I'm sorry to say, if we don't do something to unclog you, it's curtains. You're just going to grind to a halt."
"But what's causing it?"
"In my humble opinion, and don't be offended, your brain's a mess. I think it's triggered all your cells to move towards the heart, without working out the consequences. And see those flourescent yellow cells? Their technical name is LUAS cells. The brain sends them in like troubleshooters when it sees a heart blockage. In most cases, they're in and out in a flash. They cause minor problems for a short space of time, then disappear, leaving a far more efficient, clear passage. But not in your case. They seem rooted to the spot. Most bizarre, so it is."
"Is there anything you can do?"
"Let's see," he says, rummaging through his notebooks. "Ah, here we are. There was a case of a gentleman with a similar, if not so pronounced problem, in Bombay. It seems they performed a new procedure on him. Operation Freeflow, they called it. Snappy, eh?"
"What's that?"
"Well, your body has a limited amount of these things called blue guard antibodies. Lazy things, but of some effectiveness if deployed correctly. They control the cells as they rush in - they can't stop them, but they can help things run a bit smoother. I could inject you with loads of them. I can also give you something to make the LUAS cells disappear."
"Will it work?"
"Err, not exactly. It'll be moderately effective for a few weeks, then the antibodies will lose interest and, if antibodies can be said to sit around, just sit around. And ditto for the LUAS chaps."
"So it's only a stopgap?"
"Precisely. As I said, it's a brain thing. Unless your nerve centre gets it out of its silly head to keep encouraging cells to move to your heart, no amount of freeflow operations will save you. It's a psychiatrist you need, or possibly a brain transplant."
Patient groans. In desperation, he grabs a scalpel and lops his own head off.
"Ah, a wise move," says the doctor. "I was just about to suggest exactly that."