Category: surgery

Here’s a very short story for medical types and conspiracy theorists…

Dr. Riley Rhon and Dr. Ernie Urst watched the first patient of the day come down the assembly line, prepped, and ready for surgery.

The paperwork in the file next to the first patient, a sleeping young man, called for a half-brain removal and replacement with a synthetic digital brain that mimicked the functions of the part it was replacing.

The team of Dr. Rhon and Dr. Urst was one of a dozen in the large treatment facility known as Metro-Medical Services, Inc. All a person needed was money. Lot’s of it. Then anything was possible. But that wasn’t a problem, as they served rich clients from all over the world.

What was left of it.

After sixteen more partial brain-removals it was time for lunch. Both doctors were ravenous.

The last half of the day was spent on replacing other body parts like hearts, limbs, eyes livers, pancreas, kidneys, spleens, gall bladders, colons, lungs, bladders, rectums, anuses, and large and small intestines.

As the work shift came to an end Dr. Urst asked Dr. Rhon why people willingly gave up body parts, even when they were alive?

As they walked to the locker room to change, Dr. Erst looked out the clear plastic panels that separated them from rows of naked desperate-looking people of all ages and races in lines.

“Are you really asking me a question when you already know the answer?” Dr. Rhon asked, as he peeled his operating scrubs off and tossed them into a nearby waste container.

“I know they’re hungry and jobs are few, but how did we get here? To this place in America where people are forced to die a slow death while fighting to survive?” Dr. Urst ruminated.

“I’m not much on history, but I suspect it probably happened sometime during the 21st century.” guessed Dr. Rhon as he slipped his right shoe on.

“As you know, there was massive changes after WW III. Dead zones that will last for eternity. Those that lived through the terrible times were wealthy people from all over the world who’d been hiding in deep concrete reinforced bunkers, or tunnels miles under the ground.” 

“And those people we passed in the corridor, the ones in lines, are the poor who somehow survived this far.”  Dr. Ernst observed, a note of sadness in his voice.

“Do you realize how lucky we are not to have to worry about surviving on a daily basis?” he suddenly asked.

“All things considered, I do. The idea of being a vulnerable human doesn’t appeal to me at all. As the first-bots use to say, ‘It does not compute!'”  Dr. Rhon agreed.

As It Stands, this is my brief nod to the apocalyptic genre that seems so popular these days.