Back in the Saddle.

"I don't know why they called me," he was saying, "This guy is MEAT. I'm a 'borg doc. If he needed a circ re-section or a limb switched out, then you call me, got it?"

"Sorry." The intern stammered, "We--we needed a consult and-"

"Kid", he said. "Forget about it."

Priest exchanged looks with the attending, who was shaking his head. The serv-nurse whirred nearby, keeping pressure on the wounds while changing the empty IV bag out of its little carousel. Another bag snapped into place almost instantaneously, the flow of drugs virtually uninterrupted.

"They cost a bundle, you know. Full body prosthesis."

"Really? I didn't know--"

"If they don't have the money to buy a Ferrari, then they sure as hell can't afford a new body. They go into hock to the government for the rest of their life. They send 'em wherever, to do whatever. In the end, they take the parts out of 'em and give them to poor people. The poor buggers end up just chunks on a coroner's table. "

The intern blanched. O'Brian, the attending, looked amused. They had worked together on an off for nearly fifteen years.

"IF they can't pay, kid. If."

The intern looked forlorn.

"Look, it's not like I can do anything for him. Like I said, I'm a mechanic."

Priest pushed away from the table and got up to leave, snapping the gloves from his hands and tossing them into a hopper. He drew his slate from it socket on smart bed and ran a finger across it, bringing it to life.

"What I can do," he said, keying commands into the device, " is send him up to surgery. He needs a new kidney. "

The orderlies appeared almost immediately to wheel him away, the smart bed silently maintaining his vital functions. Katherine Hollister was stepping around them to check the man's vitals on the display. He nearly bumped into her.

"Priest?"

"Yeah Kathy?" he looked up from his slate, noticing her for the first time.

"What're you doing here?"

"The kid here called for a consult, I drew the short straw."

"Well, it's good to see you."

"You still flying evac?

"No, I'm back in the ER, now. Have been for a while now."

"It's good to see you too, Kathy. You look good."

"So do you." She said, turning to follow the smart bed. The thing was already halfway down the hall, making its way around the various obstacles toward the elevators. "I'll see you later, okay?'

"Sure thing." he smiled his lopsided half-smile. She alway made him feel like he was twenty years old again. "Take care of yourself, Kathy."

"You too, Priest."

The Spirit World....

I've always been fascinated with the folk tales of other countries; the stranger and more outlandish the better. I suppose part of it is that America is such a new country we barely have any ourselves, and certainly no folk beliefs of any substance that are uniquely ours. 

Heck, the only things we have that come close to being castles are either prisons, factories, mcmansions, or data vaults.

Now sure, some people point to the cute, folksy americana that gets babbled by people with weird accents, but none of it has the quite the same flavor that those of other cultures and creeds do. There are no bogies, brownies gobbledy-gooks or pretas in those stories, no underground realms, avaricious kobolds who jealously guard their gold beneath the smoking cracks in the earth,  or witches who raid graveyards for the teeth of the dead. Tales of half-seen things from people with a frame of reference centuries before the the pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Even then they brought their old world stories and sensibilities with them, but where are they now?

Nowadays, we have cable, video games, movie special effects and the internet. Gone are the wonders of your own mind, the half seen things in the shadows and around the corner. Tales told by the fireside. The old days, the old ways. 

Just... gone. 

Well, at least we have Guillermo del Toro.

Born of Necessity....

Not always the best cause to start anything, as haste is usually involved, but... well, there you go. 

Certain people (you know who you are)  have told me I should blog because

1)  I write so bloody much anyway it's ridiculous. It's true. I do it as a hobby. Whole unfinished chapters of fiction. Not bad stuff, but better than you'd think would come from someone like me. Thoughts. Descriptions of things that aren't. Dialogues that should perhaps stay internal. 

2) They think I'm absolutely hilarious/insane/serious and can't wait to see what spills out of my mouth next, let alone what I'm thinking. To those people I say "Be careful what you wish for..."

To be quite honest, the term Blog has always annoyed the heck out of me because it sounds like the noise someone makes when trying to eject something foreign from their own throat. Also, a lot of people are pretentious, self-important, dull, humorless, and/or just plain boring. Working part-time in retail when I was in college has taught me just how stupid and pedestrian 90% of everybody else can be. Working in office buildings has reinforced that.

Really, stop shaking your head. You've seen it. You agree. Otherwise you wouldn't find Dilbert and Clerks so hilarious.

Plus, I can't stand blogs. I really can't. 

Regardless (or irregardless) I'm a blogger now.

God help us.