The Theater of Wellness

Bottle up your mercurial potions for another dupe. I have waded through the mercies of countless examiners. The boast of their alma mater did not materialize into wholeness. Forgive my spite, but watching brilliant reputations be crushed between the same mortar and pestle used to dished out scam prescriptions was a splendid pleasure few could bestow. Medical journals were wise to treat my condition with redaction instead of remedy. Before childhood instructors fixed your tongue to speak cogently, I sneezed blood upon your birth papers. No doubt your mother has given you an alternate explanation for the red speckle. These are death droplets with an unfinished assignment. Name the smoke of a burnt substance that I have not inhaled to improve tricky maladies. Pick any combination of spice meant to drive away pathogens by rite of aromatic exorcism. You are not the first to confront me with a cross of potpourri. Fear of contagion has made me rural against my consent and has forced my work hours to a nocturnal schedule. Is a basket full of elderberry going to restore spent health or lost cheer? Do not busy yourself gleaning the springtime fields for an organic cure. I am a most unnatural man. A handful of private meetings will prove this beyond question. There is neither root nor bark that can alleviate my unsettling ailments. No matter how vigorously your shaman stirs the cauldron of sodden leaves, or how stringent the council of your physician sounds, I will remain a prisoner to this wretched cough that coheres perfectly with my utterance to form an odd dialect. Now be a dear and go to the corner store. Purchase a toothy grin to paste over my interminably sour puss. Meet me near the outhouse with a bubonic beak to receive my living will and testament. Keep away the womenfolk. I am in no shape to play suitor. Only gift me twelve pictures of Typhoid Mary of which I may scrap together a pin-up calendar. This will be your kindness to me exceeding all sham antidotes.