The Wheel of Fortune

            Every year at the fortress the king would host a game for the people of the kingdom.  The game was called ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ and involved a very large wheel which stood vertically and was spun around by contestants who would win whichever prize was painted on the wheel when it stopped at a wooden hand with an index finger pointing out.  Many of the prizes changed each year, and the villagers did not know what the exact prizes would be until the wheel, covered in a tapestry featuring a map of the kingdom, was hauled out onto the fortress platform and the tapestry was pulled down by the king on game day.  The prizes ranged in value, and the more valuable prizes were more difficult to win since they comprised smaller arc lengths on the wheel’s circumference.  The most valuable prize, for instance, was but a sliver on the wheel.  Only one member of each family was allowed to spin the wheel, and in order to do so the contestant had to hand in a special gold coin they were issued when they registered earlier that day.  Like the prizes on the wheel, the unique coins were only revealed on the day of the game and could not be used a subsequent year.  The contestants had the option of keeping the coin if they wished, but in the ten years of Wheel of Fortune no one had ever been known to do this because even the least valuable prize on the wheel was worth more than a gold coin.

            On the day of the game, thousands of people descended on the fortress from all reaches of the kingdom.  The game was open to all families, rich and poor, and none turned down this opportunity to participate in a potentially life-changing event.  For many, Wheel of Fortune was the highlight of their lives, and they spent the entire year waiting for the day they could have a chance to spin the wheel.  Due to the high value of some of the prizes, the event was known as the great equalizer, for every year a handful of peasants were lifted from immiseration to wealth exceeding that of bishops and knights.  Therefore, there was a huge incentive to play the game.  In fact, the only people who did not take advantage of a chance to spin the wheel were those that the king had explicitly prohibited from doing so in order to prevent suspicion of corruption within the kingdom.  This included the king himself and his entire extended family, as well as all those who lived in and frequented the castle.  What would it look like if an advisor to the king spun the wheel and won an all-expenses paid trip to Rouen?  Allegations of corruption would swirl and potentially tear the kingdom apart.  There could be revolt.  The rule to prohibit anyone who frequented the castle from playing the game was enacted after the court jester took to the stage one year and spun the wheel.  Although the prize he had won was simply a luxurious weekend stay for him and his family in the castle guest chambers, which amused the crowd, as the wheel was spinning the king suddenly realized the backlash that would ensue if the jester, a man he saw nearly every day, were to win one of the better prizes.  The reasons for the rule prohibiting the king’s family from playing were obvious and in place since the first year of the game, but not so obvious were the ramifications the game would produce on those in service to the king. Shortly after the first game, the king’s nephew and several castle guards renounced or resigned their positions in order to live amongst the villagers.  When they reappeared the following year to play Wheel of Fortune, the king made the decision to ban all extended family and anyone who had ever worked in the castle from playing.  Additionally, realizing the impact the game could have on retaining and attracting loyal and high-quality members of his castle staff and inner circle, the king remedied the problem of potentially losing defectors and new applicants who would otherwise be incentivized to quit or not join his ranks in order to play Wheel of Fortune by increasing tenfold their compensation, as well as boosting the already generous allowances he provided to his family and dependents, thereby assuring his confidants and staff that their annual salaries would always be greater than nearly every prize they stood a chance of winning. 

There were others prohibited from playing Wheel of Fortune as well.  Anyone caught cheating was forbidden along with their entire family and bloodline.  In the early years of the game some would lie about their family units (claiming, for instance, that they were two or more separate families living apart when in fact they were one living under the same roof), while others spun the wheel with lackluster force or vigor so as to calculate its landing point.  The king outlawed the construction of replicas of the wheel after a group of men had built one to practice their spinning techniques.  He made it clear that such petty attempts by the villagers to take advantage of the game and thus undermine the integrity of the kingdom would result in permanent disqualification.  A list of ‘Wheel Laws’ was drawn up in effort to clarify the game rules and regulations.  The more egregious crimes, such as unauthorized viewing of the wheel prior to the game or forging and distributing counterfeit game coins resulted in execution, a gruesome custom with which, if there were any offenders, the games occasionally began.  Those caught cheating were invariably well-to-do vassals, whereas the serfs seemed happy to simply spin the wheel and were content with whatever prizes they won.  Nowadays, very few attempted to cheat the game or circumvent the laws for fear of lifelong and generational disqualification or death, thereby jeopardizing an opportunity to attain fabulous riches.  Yet every so often the avarice and arrogance of a villager would prevail and the consequences were put on full display as a warning by the king and his executioner at the beginning of game day. 

While the Wheel Laws discouraged cheating, they did not prevent the occasional crime that followed when someone had won a valuable prize and induced envy and animosity in another who had not, even if the offended party was already well off.  There was the time when a knight had spun the wheel and won a horse, something that he already had.  He stepped off the platform and watched as a peasant spun the wheel which landed on one of the more improbable prizes of one hundred gold coins.  Seized by jealousy, several days later the knight murdered the peasant.  Every year without fail domestic disputes took place as a result of the game.  One year a farmer, despite the objections from his wife, concocted a plan to claim that his son had recently met and married a woman, which therefore qualified them as a separate family eligible to spin the wheel.  An investigation was launched and it was discovered that the alleged bride was actually the farmer’s daughter and brother to his son.  This crime carried the punishment of disqualifying the family and their posterity from playing Wheel of Fortune.  Soon after the verdict, the farmer’s wife strangled her husband to death.  Not all game-related disputes resulted in homicide, though they sometimes profoundly affected family dynamics and household tensions.  There was a nobleman who couldn’t catch a break with the wheel, and for four years in a row won the least valuable prizes, such as five bushels of ducklings or one hundred piglets.  The man was practically ostracized by his family who watched, year after year, peasants and serfs win fortunes with a spin of the wheel while they went home with mere barn animals.  If divorce were permitted in the kingdom, manifold women would have undoubtedly left their husbands and families in order to pursue men who had won some of the top prizes.  Indeed, many women endeavored illicit affairs with the high rollers, and in this way the game was also capable of tearing families apart.  Even for those who had won big, life could transform into a temporary hell in which they lived in constant fear of being assaulted for their riches until they hired proper security, procured sufficient weapons and guard dogs, and relocated if necessary. 

In addition to contending with problems presented and endured by his own people, the king realized that opportunistic outsiders from other realms would seek to capitalize on the games.  Therefore, anyone who did not reside within the borders of the kingdom and had not sworn allegiance to the king was prohibited from playing, though they were permitted as spectators.  Gradually, word of the game had spread, and merchants, soldiers, and barbarians alike entered the kingdom with their families or clans claiming that they lived within the borders, were loyal to the king, and demanded to spin the wheel.  It was obvious that they were lying, but instead of excommunicating them the king gave them a chance prove their loyalty by swearing allegiance to the kingdom and being branded in the forearm with a hot iron depicting the royal coat of arms, acts which were required of anyone who wanted to spin the wheel, even the lifelong villagers.  Not only that, despite being branded, the newcomers were prohibited from spinning the wheel that year, or the following year, but on third year they could return, present their scar, and play so long as they had not missed a consecutive year of games (in which case they had to start over), had not been convicted of any crimes, and had not committed census fraud.  All game participants were required to disclose their addresses and family details to the king whose horsemen would conduct random house calls and audits to confirm that these families did in fact live at their stated residences.  By requiring those who wanted to spin the wheel to swear allegiance, be branded with the coat of arms, and live honestly within the boundaries of the kingdom for at least two years, the king ensured that men of all walks of life did not travel from the ends of the Earth to play Wheel of Fortune for a day and then abscond with their prizes.  

The king had started Wheel of Fortune to simply provide some fun for the locals.  He had come up with the idea in the castle library whilst perusing a thousand-year-old scroll describing Zenobia of Palmyra who had orchestrated a series of games for Syrian commoners in Petra in 300 A.D.  He could have never anticipated the tremendous impact the games would have in strengthening his kingdom.  The games were like a magnet which served to retain the existing population as well as to draw in foreigners who were eager to become citizens.  Furthermore, because every new family unit was eligible to play, couples began to rapidly procreate and expeditiously marry off their sons and daughters who could then spin the wheel as well.  (Since only one family member could spin the wheel and had to be branded, after a son or daughter was married, thereby creating a new family unit, they were eligible to be branded and play.  The brandings took place on game day, and there were few moments in a father’s life that made him more proud than to watch his son be branded in the arm with a searing hot iron so he could play Wheel of Fortune.)  Therefore, the game had the effect of attracting emigrants as well as creating a sort of baby boom within the kingdom.  The influx of new residents and sporadic violence that stemmed from unscrupulous actors attempting to abuse the game were minor inconveniences compared to the immense benefits the kingdom reaped by hosting Wheel of Fortune.   The positive psychological effects that the game had on the population were innumerable.  People across the feudal board were more orderly and in higher spirits throughout the year.  They work diligently for their own personal good and for the good of the kingdom.  Commerce expanded and agricultural output increased as families were inspired to produce and consume more so they could live longer.  Often established by disqualified contestants, shops emerged which centered solely on business pertaining to the prizes people won, which meant that people were redistributing their prize money back into the local economy.  The king’s army grew and the soldiers fought harder in battle in order to defend their lives and chances of getting to spin the wheel again.  Because each registered contestant was required to provide their family details and address in order to play, the king was able to keep precise records on the demographics of his kingdom.  The king’s popularity soared amongst his subjects, and several sedition and assassination plots were thwarted by men whom desired to keep the peace for the sake of the game.  When other kings learnt of the success of the game they created their own versions of Wheel of Fortune, but were left behind the curve.  

            The games came with an enormous expense to the treasury.  The king learned early on that he must calculate beforehand the probability of each prize being won so he could have an estimation of how much treasure would be awarded.  Due to the strict entry rules the exact number of participants eligible to spin the wheel was known.  Although he could not control which prizes were won, he could try to determine their probability, and therefore budget accordingly.  In the weeks preceding the game the king ordered the wheel hauled into the great hall of the castle.  There, his advisors would update the prizes, tune up the wheel, and spin it for days on end.  Since they were officially excluded from participating in Wheel of Fortune, the advisors delighted in testing the wheel and tallying the results in a ledger. They knew that this year they should expect about five hundred participants, and repeatedly performed mock games in which the wheel was spun five hundred times.  After consulting the court mathematician, the advisors presented the ledger to the king and treasurer to inform them of the probability of each prize being won and thus an estimated quantity of prizes they should expect to give away.  They reviewed the ledger and saw that chances of winning a suit of armor was roughly one in fifty.   There was a one in three chance of winning a sword from the armory, one-hundred chickens, or a flock of a dozen sheep.  The chances of winning an ox were one in five.  The chances of winning an all-expenses paid trip to Rothenberg or Prague were one in fifty, to Siena was one in seventy, a cruise down the Danube was one in three-hundred.  You stood a one in twenty chance of winning the usual castle tour and weekend in the guest chambers.  There was also a one in five chance of winning two gold coins.  There was a one in twenty chance of winning five gold coins.  There was a one in one-hundred chance of winning fifty gold coins.  There was a one in five-hundred chance of winning five-hundred gold coins.  And there was a one in one-thousand chance of winning five-thousand gold coins, which was the most valuable prize.  Every year the treasurer attempted to persuade the king to reduce the value of the prizes lest an inordinate number of contestants got unusually lucky and bankrupted the treasury.  The king never wavered and always insisted that the prizes remain unchanged.  In addition to the money spent on the prizes and the increased salaries paid to his castle staff and family since the inauguration of Wheel of Fortune, the king allocated an exorbitant percentage of the royal budget to cover the operating expenses associated with hosting the game.

            Apart when they were under attack, the only other time the castle and fortress deployed maximum security and defenses was during Wheel of Fortune.  In the days leading up to the game, the fortress, village, and to a lesser extent the peripheral meadows and woodland turned into a madhouse.  Despite the fact that there were only five hundred people eligible to spin the wheel this year, around five thousand converged on the fortress.  In addition to the contestants and their family members were those returning for their second year as observers but still ineligible to play.  But the largest group of people by far were always those who had arrived for their first year.  An area of land between the farms and forest was cleared to accommodate the thousands of visitors.  A contingent of the king’s spies and horsemen would operate around the clock within the camps to surveil the visitors and prevent them from harassing the farmers and villagers.  Sentinels manned watchtowers and scouts patrolled the forests and coasts.  The king believed that no external force would be crazy enough to attack him during Wheel of Fortune since that would be expected, but he took no chances for if an attack or insurrection did occur, regardless of its success, the stability game would be called into question.  If the stability of the game were questioned, so too would the stability of the kingdom.  Alas, for all the advantages the game had bestowed, the inescapable truth was that it had summoned the angels of death.  The king knew that one day he would have to terminate the game before it brought about the downfall of his kingdom.  What troubled him was not the fact that he too was seized by the power of the game, but that he did not know if he possessed the willpower and wisdom to bring an end to Wheel of Fortune and walk away before it was too late.  

There were four lines for those wishing to enter the fortress on the morning of game day.  The first line was the shortest line reserved for previous contestants and their families.  The second line was for those that had observed the previous two games and would now be playing for the first time.  The third line was for those who had observed last year and would have to observe again this year before they could play next year.  And the fourth line, which was the largest and most chaotic, was for those who were attending for the first time.  Guards on horseback rode around maintaining order and reminding everyone that weapons were prohibited.  Before crossing over the bridge to the fortress, all were required to check in with one of the dozens of scribes that would interview each contestant and their family, cross reference their names in the record books, and confirm that the delegated family member had been branded with the coat of arms.  If everything checked out with a contestant in the first or second line, a scribe would inform one of the king’s advisors who then reached into a satchel and handed the contestant a special gold coin which they were to give the king in order to spin the wheel.  After registering with the scribes, those in the third line were admitted but would have to wait until next year to receive their gold coin.  Those in the fourth line required the most attention from the king’s guards, advisors, translators, and scribes who enrolled the new participants.  The scribes wrote down the names, family size, and residence details of the aspiring contestants and had them sign loyalty contracts to the crown.  They made sure these people understood that they would be branded that day, were expected to reside within the kingdom, and return next year as observers.  Once those in the fourth line had agreed to these terms, the family member who was elected to spin the wheel in the future and thus be branded was given a special silver coin and they were permitted to enter the fortress.

On the morning of the games the fortress was packed and bustling with food vendors, costume performances, puppet shows, and games, including one that featured a miniature version of Wheel of Fortune which people could spin to win toy prizes.  The real wheel had yet to be hauled out onto the massive platform, which was bare save the executioner’s block, but already contestants were lining up beside it and families gathered in front.  Beyond the platform was the castle from which the king gazed down and watched the people pouring into the fortress and screaming from the branding area.  In the past, the brandings were conducted on stage before the game, but because the number of new participants had swelled in recent years the brandings now took place before the game and continued throughout the day.  A crowd of people were gathered around the branding site, where men turned in their silver coins and guards lifted burning irons from the fires and shoved the red hot coat of arms in the forearms of the new participants, at which the crowd erupted in cheers.  In addition to new participants, a branding could also occur if a family decided to transfer the responsibility of spinning the wheel to a different family member.  In this case, the family member who was already branded would be branded again with an X over the coat of arms, and the other family member would receive their first brand.

By the time the game was ready to begin thousands of spectators faced the platform and hundreds of contestants had lined up beside it.  Any disqualifications or executions of men convicted of violating the Wheel Laws would kick off the game and would be overseen by the king who derived no pleasure from these punishments, especially execution.  He had modified the execution scheduled several times.  During the first years of Wheel of Fortune, executions were carried out prior to the main event, but the king realized that the audience was so pumped up for the game that he could have executed a thousand men without getting his point across.  So the king pushed the executions to the end of the day in hopes of concluding the game on serious note.  After realizing that not only had half the people already left by the time the last contestants were spinning the wheel, but that even a beheading failed to bring down the spirits of the largely intoxicated crowd, the king revised for executions to take place as an intermission.  The midday executions proved to be an even worse idea due to the time and effort wasted trying to calm and focus the crowd who were distracted by the wheel, were moderately intoxicated, and unfazed by any execution.  So the king returned to morning executions on the rationalization that at least he had everyone’s attention.

When the trumpets blared, the thousands of the people within the fortress settled down and watched the king and his men walk onto the platform.  The men stood back and the king stepped forward to greet the crowd who roared in ovation.  The king said that although Wheel of Fortune took place but one day a year and was still in its infancy, it was undeniable that the identity of the kingdom was now inextricably tied to the game.  As such, it had become increasingly crucial to interpret any violations of the Wheel Laws as an affront to the kingdom itself, and to fully prosecute any transgressions.  The king instructed his guards to introduce the convicted.  The crowd watched as the guards brought a dozen disheveled men onto the platform.  An advisor to the king announced the name of each prisoner, their crime, and their punishment.  Eleven of the men were being disqualified for offenses pertaining to falsifying census data, committing branding fraud, or attempting to exchange prizes (exchanging prizes such as tickets to amphitheater performances and trips aboard were prohibited due to the headache and complications created, but these provisions did not apply to those who had won barterable items such as farm animals or gold coins which contestants were free to use as they wished).  These eleven offenders were told to present their branded forearms, and one by one a guard carrying a hot iron burned an X over their coat of arms.  The king looked down with a broken heart as his advisor announced the crimes of the twelfth man, who was to be executed, as this man was the king’s nephew who had trespassed into the great hall of the castle and attempted to set fire to the wheel.  The nephew was brought to the chopping block and his neck was tied to the stump.  The executioner stepped forward with a large axe and lopped off his head which rolled on the platform.  The guards escorted the eleven former contestants off the platform and servants cleaned up the mess from execution and carried the body and block away.  

Having solemnly watched the brandings and execution, the crowd remained still.  The king took to the stage once more and announced that the game would now begin.  He summoned the Wheel of Fortune.  The crowd went wild as drums beat and soldiers pulled and pushed the great wheel up a ramp and onto the platform.  Covered in the tapestry of the map of the kingdom which was updated each year to reflect the growing borders and settlements, the wheel was rolled to the center of the platform.  The king walked to the side of the wheel, grabbed the tapestry with both hands, and dragged it down.  The crowd cheered again and pressed toward the platform to better see the prizes painted on the face of the wheel.  The game began and the first contestant stepped forward.  After greeting and thanking the king, the man was asked by the king’s advisor to present his scar and state his name so as to verify for a final time his eligibility and dock him from the game manifest.  The man, whom the king had remembered from previous years, handed his gold coin to the king who held out his arm, inviting him to spin the wheel.  Above all the contestants, the man who loved the game most of all was the king himself.  He had never once touched the wheel, but was genuinely happy to afford his people something in return for the hard lives they lived within the kingdom.  The king knew that most of his subjects would sacrifice their lives to save his, but often wondered if they would hold him in such high regard or even remain in the kingdom at all if it were not for the game.  Once the wheel had stopped and the first contestant had won his prize, the advisor recorded the prize in the manifest and the man walked off the platform to the applause of the crowd.  Another man stepped forward and the process was repeated over and over again throughout the day.  The contestants gave their gold coins to the king, who gave them to his advisor, who then placed them in a chest which was later brought to the treasury where the coins would be melted down and minted again as game tokens for next year.

That day, as with every other year, the king presided over the entirety of Wheel of Fortune.  By the time the last contestant had stepped off the platform the sun had disappeared behind the fortress walls.  The king told his advisor that next year they might have to split the game into two days.  He turned to the crowd, which was substantial despite many families having already departed with their prizes.  As the soldiers rolled the wheel down the platform ramp the king bid farewell to his subjects and they hailed his name in exaltation.  The king retired to the castle and walked up the long staircase to his chamber, and through the window he could still hear them chanting his name.  He looked down from the window and saw the merrymakers celebrating in the fortress and the people collecting their prizes in the bailey.  He looked to the empty platform and saw the bloodstained wood.  The sun was setting beyond the mountains, and from the fortress streamed lines of families and their animals walking home beneath the sunset.  For a long time the king sat at his window watching over these people, then twilight came, the stars appeared, and he could see them no more.

                                                                             THE END

The Magpie on the Gallows, Pieter Bruegel the Elder 

The Giant

Every few months the village of Hamshire would be visited by a four-hundred-foot-tall giant.  The giant was not purposefully cruel, but had previously inflicted more than enough damage that whenever he returned the villagers panicked and scurried about in preparation for his arrival.  To prevent the giant from ransacking the entire village, the king ordered the construction of a massive platform on which the villagers were to place as much food as humanly possible.  Next to the platform stood a water tower, also built by order of the king, but instead of water the tank was filled with milk in the days preceding the giant’s visit.  The guards on the hills lit signal fires when they saw the giant, but this wasn’t necessary for every three months the ground would shake viciously and no one needed to see the smoke from the fires to know that the giant was approaching.  Since it had been roughly three months since the giant had last visited, the entire village was on edge for they knew he would return any day now.
The king was in the castle talking to his advisor the morning the giant returned.  He felt the ground shaking and immediately ran upstairs to the top of the keep to get a better view.  His advisor followed him up and in the tower the two men gazed toward the hills on the horizon.  They could see the smoke from the signal fires and the earth trembling with each footstep.  Distant forests rattled and flocks of birds burst from the tree canopies.  In the village, frantic farm animals raced for cover and villagers rushed to place fresh food on the platform and fresh milk in the water tower.  The sweet smell of baked bread wafted through the village as the villagers piled loaves, croissants, and sticky buns on the platform.
“Do you think that’s enough food?” asked the king.
“It’s plenty more than the little bastard ate when he first paid us a visit,” replied the advisor, “Plus, we’ve got the milk for God sakes!”
The giant’s wobbly head appeared in the distant hills.  His fine hair was blowing in the wind, and as he walked downhill his head disappeared behind a hill and then reappeared as he walked up the next one.  The villagers tossed the last of the bread and other food on the platform and men scurried down the ladders of the milk tower with buckets in hand then ran back to the village to hide from the giant.  The giant gurgled and babbled as he crossed over the last hill, and the screaming villagers ran indoors when they laid eyes on him.  The giant was an enormous toddler, no more than one-year old, but of ungodly proportions and appetite.  He stood above the food platform and milk tower salivating, his eyes darting from the food to the village to the castle, which was half his height and size. Casting a shadow over the village, the giant baby wobbled naked and dirty, he then let out a loud blabbing and cooing as he looked at the food and milk.
“He’s getting bigger,” said the king.
“Well he’s certainly a growing boy,” replied the advisor, sarcastically adding, “I suppose we’ll just keep on feeding him until his palate and appetite includes villagers and kings and their advisors.”
“If we can satiate him with the platform and milk then we shall keep him at bay.”
“He’s already taken half our grain stock, if we keep on feeding him surely we’ll starve to death.  This must end, my king!”
“Shut up,” said the king, “He’s going for it.”
The giant baby had fixated on the milk tower, his mouth gaping as he moved his fingers around in his hands. He leaned toward the tower and placed his mouth on the edge of the huge milk container.  The big baby then stuck his humongous tongue in the milk.
“Why’s he going for the milk first?” asked the advisor.
Before the king could respond the giant toddler ripped the milk tank off the tower and began to drink.  He then tipped the container and milk poured into his mouth, although much spilled down his chin and neck and splashed onto the ground.
“He was supposed to drink the milk after he eats!” yelled the advisor.
“Feel free to go explain that to him,” said the king.
Milk dripped from the giant’s mouth and trickled down his gargantuan belly and baby fat.  The giant baby dropped the massive container and it rolled away.  He then turned his attention to the platform of food at his feet.  He stared at the food and babbled, slowly reached down, but then lost his balance.  The giant baby pulled his arm back and swayed briefly before dropping down onto his bottom, shaking the earth and castle so hard the king and advisor stumbled.  The baby giant was unfazed by the fall and was now sitting in front of the mountain of food on the platform.  He leaned forward and sniffed the pile of food, some of the bread was still warm.  He then leaned his face into the food and began taking huge bites without the aid of his hands.
“Look at him,” said the advisor, “He’s devouring everything, even the stale food.  I tell we should poison the bread, give him some of the old Saint Anthony’s Fire, that’d be his last visit to Hamshire!”
“And kill a baby?” said the king.
“A baby!?” said the advisor, “A baby?!  That’s not a baby!”
They looked at the giant baby.  He had eaten nearly all the food and was now licking the platform.
“Good God,” said the advisor, “He’s finished the bread.  That took a fortnight to bake.  He’ll be coming for us next!”
“Calm down,” said the king. “I think he’s full.”
“We’re plumb out of milk, too,” said the advisor, “He’ll be gunning for the source next.  I tell you we have to take him down.”
“We are not going to kill him,” said the king.
“We can’t keep on feeding him, my lord.  He’ll eat up the entire kingdom.  There’ll be nothing left for us.  If we can simply…”
“We’re not going to kill him!” yelled the king.  “Have you thought that through?  First of all, we’re not even sure he’s mortal.  Second of all, where did he come from do you think?”
“He comes from the mountains, my lord, we’ve seen that.”
“I’m not talking about the mountains!” said the king. “I’m talking about his mommy!  You came from your mommy, didn’t you?”
“I suppose so, my lord.”
“You suppose so?  You did!  And what makes you think he didn’t? You think it’s a good idea to inflict harm upon a giant baby?  What happens if his mom finds out?  Then we’re all dead!”
The advisor remained silent and held out his arm helplessly toward the giant baby as he lifted the platform up and put it in his mouth.
The king said, “Even if we have to dedicate the resources of the entire Kingdom year after year to keep feeding this baby, then we will.”
“And what about when he grows to be a teenager, my lord?  He’ll eat us out of house and home. We’d have to start stockpiling now.”
“So be it,” said the king.
They watched as the giant baby let the platform fall from his mouth to the ground.  He looked around for a minute and seemed to grow a little bored.  The baby leaned forward and put his hands down and pushed himself up and stood.  He looked to the village and the castle and said something that only he understood.  He then wobbled around and walked back toward the hills.  The villagers came out from their houses to watch him go, the ground shaking with each giant step.  From the tower the king and advisor watched the giant baby’s head disappear over the distant hills and reappear as he walked up the next one.  After a minute he had crossed over the last hill on the horizon and was gone. 

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Joos van Craesbeeck

The Flying Machine

Part One

One day the king announced a competition to build a flying machine.  Anyone in the kingdom could participate and had six months to build their machines which were to be brought to the main event at the fortress.  The winner would receive one hundred gold coins.  While most villagers and farmers had neither the interest, time, nor confidence of faculty to even attempt such an undertaking, two farmers on the outskirts of the village did.  Farmer Leonardo was a grape farmer who lived alone in his cottage surrounded by vineyards.  His neighbor was the pig farmer Robert who lived on his piggery with hundreds of pigs.  The two men had different ways of life and thinking, and over time developed a sense of contempt for each other’s lifestyles and business practices.  Pig farmer Robert thought Leonardo was an arrogant, fastidious Roman who outsourced most of his field work to peasants so he could spend more time reading and gardening (which was true), and had too many potted flowers outside his house.  Leonardo thought his neighbor was an uncivilized, unwashed, ignorant redneck who ran a disorganized pig farm, drank to excess, and was deeply insecure (for he hated to be called ‘Bob’) – all allegations that Robert himself could hardly deny.
Robert had learned of the competition when he had walked to the village to sell pigs.  On his way back to his farm his mind was full of wild ideas of potential flying machines that he could build in order to win the prize.  “How hard could it be?” he asked himself.  Prior to that day he had never even considered the concept of a machine that could fly, but he realized it could be a very useful invention.  “Hell, I’d build one even without the prize money!” he thought to himself, although his true motivation was the gold.  Pushing his cart that contained a cage of pigs that he was unable to sell, Robert hurried home and passed Leonardo’s farm.  When Robert saw that Leonardo was working in his garden he told himself to keep his mouth shut about the competition, but in his excitement he spilled the beans.  Robert figured that Leonardo would find out about the event eventually, but also concluded that it didn’t matter since he was sure he was going to win anyway.
“Leonardo!”
“Yes?”
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“There’s a competition in the kingdom, and I’m going to win.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you have to build a flying machine, and the winner gets a hundred gold coins!”
“Really?” said Leonardo.
Realizing he had said too much, Robert moved forth pushing the cart with the pigs back to his farm.  Leonardo returned to his gardening and thought about the serendipity of such a competition being announced when the flying machine he had been secretly building behind his house for the past year was near completion.  That evening, Leonardo could hear Robert hollering and banging away on his farm, trying to build God knows what.  As usual, the pigs were squealing, and when Leonardo walked outside that night and looked towards the piggery he saw that Robert had forgotten to release the pigs in the cages on the cart from earlier that day.

Part Two

Over the next six months both farmers avoided one another.  Leonardo had put the finishing touches on his flying machine, which was constructed out of light wood and cowhide.  It had two large wings that could be controlled with levers, and three wheels at the base connected to bronze gears that could be propelled and turned with pedals. Leonardo had designed his machine so that when sent downhill and with enough speed, the drag would lift the machine upward and hopefully send it sailing through the sky.  There was a tall hill on his vineyard, and three days before the competition Robert looked up from his piggery to see Leonardo hauling his light aircraft up the hill.  Robert stopped what he was doing and watched as Leonardo pulled his machine to the top of the hill, sat down in the seat, and pushed it forward.  The machine rolled downhill gaining velocity, and halfway down it began to lift up off the side of the hill and fly.  Robert could hear Leonardo cheering from the sky several hundred feet away as he gently maneuvered his little aircraft over the vineyards.  Robert was dumbfounded as he stared at Leonardo in his flying machine, flying in the sky like a giant bird.  Leonardo flew over his vineyards and over his cottage and garden.  He then steered toward Robert’s piggery.  He flew directly over Robert and waved, “How’s it going, Bob!?”  Robert couldn’t believe his eyes.  He had forgotten all about the competition.  
After Leonardo had flown out of view Robert rushed to his shed where he had left the project he had begun six months ago.  It was a shell of a project: two long wooden beams strapped together and connected by a large hinge. Smaller wooden rods were nailed to the main beams and to these Robert had intended to stitch a leather canvas, thus creating a set of wings that he could harness to his back and flap like the wings a bird.  It wasn’t a necessarily bad idea, but it was incomplete and untested.  Over the next two days Robert worked furiously to complete his work, and by the end of the second day he had created something resembling a finished product.  The competition was the next day and Robert dragged his contraption out of his shed.  The pigs gathered around him as he strapped the giant wings to his back, grabbed the handles that he had attached to each wing, and being to flap.  He flapped and flapped and flapped to no avail.  The pigs squealed and ran away from him as he flapped and leapt around in circles with the hopes of gaining some momentum and lifting off.  Although sturdy, his invention did not help him get any further off the ground than he would have without it.  After five minutes he had exhausted himself.  With the contraption still strapped to his back, Robert collapsed in the pigsty and wept.
He could not sleep that night.  Tomorrow was the main event of the competition, and when he closed his eyes all he saw was Leonardo in his flying machine, flying over him and calling him ‘Bob.’  Robert got out of bed, walked to his shed, and grabbed a mallet.  Under the cover of night Robert made his way to Leonardo’s farm.  He went over the fence, crossed through the garden, and quietly snuck around back where the flying machine was parked.  He assessed his surroundings to make sure the coast was clear and that there were no candles burning in Leonardo’s house. Mallet in hand, Robert stepped toward the flying machine with such fixation that he failed to notice the flower pot directly in front of him.  Robert kicked the flower pot which toppled over and broke.  The noise woke Leonardo, who immediately ran out back.  “Who goes there?” he cried.  Robert leapt from the shadows and struck Leonardo in the head with the mallet with such force that Leonardo collapsed to the ground unconsciously. Robert stood above Leonardo’s body and stared at the flying machine. 

Part Three 

The next day was the day of the competition.  Having dumped Leonardo’s body in the piggery, Robert pushed the flying machine out to the dirt road and hauled it to the village.  There, hundreds of villagers had gathered for the main event outside the fortress.  Robert pulled the aircraft up the hill toward the fortress and crowd.  He was surprised to see that there did not appear to be many other competitors with flying machines.  As a matter of fact, there was only one other competitor – a man with a giant balloon beneath which he kept a steady fire to fill it with hot air.  Protected by guards and seated next to the prize money, the king waited for Robert to arrive with his machine before announcing the start of the competition.
“Ladies and gentleman,” said the king, “In the chest before me are one hundred gold coins.  These coins belong to the man who can prove by means of demonstration that they have invented a machine capable of bestowing them with the power of flight.  Who among you would like to go first?”
Robert was still catching his breath from walking up the hill with the aircraft.  He looked to the man with the balloon and said, “By all means, please, go ahead.”  The man added some more sticks to fire under the balloon and then sat down in a bread basket that he had attached to the balloon with rope.  The balloon had grown larger, as though wanting to rise, but was being held down by another rope which the man then cut with a knife.  The rope fell away and the balloon, now free, expanded and lifted up into the air.  The balloon jerked upwards and moved sideways as it struggled to lift the weight of the man riding in the basket, which was being yanked and dragged through the dirt.  A draft of wind caught the balloon and lifted it high off the ground, taking the man in the basket with it.  “Here I go!” said the man, “I’m flying!”
Indeed, the man and his balloon floated higher and higher.  On the ground the villagers cheered, and even the archers on the ramparts applauded as the balloon rose above the fortress.  The balloon traveled higher, where it caught larger drafts of wind and drifted farther afield.  The king and others on the ground watched as the man floated over the edge of the village.  “I’ll be back!” said the man, “I’ll be back for my money!”  They could barely see the man anymore and watched the balloon grow smaller as it floated over the forests toward the mountains.  It soon disappeared from view.
“Well,” said the king, “Supposing he comes back, that man is entitled to one hundred gold coins. Until then, let us meet our next competitor. This looks like a promising device.”  The villagers turned to Robert and the flying machine.
“Indeed,” said Robert.  “And I assure you it flies.”
The king said, “Are you going to show us, or just assure us?”
The crowd laughed and so did Robert, nervously.
“Of course I’ll show you,” said Robert.  “After all, it’s my machine, isn’t it?”
The king and the villagers watched as Robert pushed the machine to the edge of the hill.  Robert sat inside the machine for the first time.  He had never actually taken a close look at Leonardo’s invention and only now realized how complex it was with the levers and pedals and gears. “Good Lord,” he said to himself.  He looked back to the villagers and king who were all watching him and waiting.  Robert pushed the machine forward and it began to roll downhill.  As it picked up speed and shook rolling on the bumpy terrain, Robert began to cry and for he was certain that he was going to die.  He cursed Leonardo for constructing such a worthless invention as he careened downhill in what felt like a freefall, then instinctively pulled the lever in front of him. Miraculously, the entire machine lifted off the ground and began to glide.  He was astonished at this change in physics and fortune.  He wiped away his tears and tried to get a grip of the situation.  He realized the lever must control the wings and altitude, so he tested the pedals and to his amazement he was able to maneuver the plane left and right.  Except when he pressed the left pedal the machine would glide right, and vice versa.  The confusing pedals had distracted Robert from focusing on where he was going, and when he looked up and saw that he was heading directly into the fortress wall he screamed in horror.  The flying machine crashed into the fortress and smashed into pieces which, along with Robert, fell to the ground.  The crowd gasped and ran toward the crash.
Incredibly, Robert had survived without breaking any bones.  When he stood up he was surrounded by the broken fragments of the flying machine and the crowd of villagers.  He was dizzy and bleeding, and stumbled forth murmuring incoherently.  He walked through the crowd and made his way to the king.
“Well sir, as you can see my machine worked quite well, so I’ll be taking my prize money now.”
“Not so fast,” said the King, “Your device failed.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Robert, “Did you not see me fly?”
“I’m not sure if I would call that flying,” said the king. “You crashed a minute after takeoff.”
“Yes, but I was flying!” pleaded Robert.
“Flying, or falling?” said the king.
The crowd erupted into laughter.
Enraged, Robert said, “Give me my money!”  
He then rushed toward the chest but the king’s guards stepped in front of him.  Robert stumbled back and glared at the king.  He sprinted around the guards and toward the king and jumped, snatching the king’s crown from off his head.  
“You imbecile!” cried the king.
Having realized the gravity of his actions, Robert ran.
“Seize him!” ordered the king.
The king’s guards chased after Robert, who was running home. 

Part Four

When Robert reached his farm on the outskirts of the village he looked back up the road and saw the guards following in the distance.  Robert opened the gate to his piggery and sat down to catch his breath.  He inspected the crown in his hands and soon his pigs gathered around him.  He then had a crazy idea and stood up and walked into his shed.  He came out with the flying device that he had built.  Needing the use of both hands and arms to strap it on, Robert placed the king’s crown on his head and then strapped on his flying device.  He left the piggery and entered Leonardo’s property.  He then jogged up the tall hill.
The guards could see Robert going up the hill and ran after him.  At the top of the hill, Robert looked down at the guards.  He looked around at the vineyards and farms and gazed down at his piggery.  He had never seen it from such heights before, and even though it wasn’t as pretty as the neighboring landscape, he realized he loved it.  He then spread his arms so as to stretch out the wings of his device, and he ran downhill flapping.  The guards stopped and watched, for they didn’t expect that Robert would be running toward them wearing a flying device with giant wings.  Robert sailed downhill and flapped, and just like a bird he lifted off and began to fly.  He flew over the guards and he watched their jaws drop as they saw him flying while wearing the crown of the king.
In the sky, Robert proudly flapped his wings and gained altitude.  He then oriented himself toward the village and glided toward the fortress.  The king and many of the villagers were still gathered on the hill, and they could not believe their eyes when they realized that it was Robert and not some other contestant that was flying toward them.  Robert swooped above them and laughed.  “I’m flying,” he said, “I’m flying, you bastards!”
“Get down here!” yelled the king.
“I’m the king now, and that’s my treasure!” yelled Robert as he flew above the ramparts of the fortress.
“I order you to come down immediately!” demanded the king.
“Never!” declared Robert, who flapped his wings and hovered above the king and crowd.
“Shoot him!” yelled the king.
The archers on the ramparts drew their bows and arrows and fired.  They reloaded and fired again.  The arrows pierced through Robert’s wings and body and blood fell from the sky.  Stunned and mortally wounded, Robert and his flying device plunged to earth.  Robert slammed into the ground and the crown rolled off his head.  He looked to the sky as he lay there dying.  He saw the white clouds drifting by, and he smiled because in his delusional death he saw pigs flying across the sky. 

The End

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Talking Duck

This story lends new meaning to the saying "fuck a duck."

Jeff walked into his kitchen and saw a duck on the counter.  To his amazement, the duck began to talk.  
The duck said, “What’s the matter, never seen a duck before?”
“Holy shit!” replied Jeff, “You’re talking!”
“I can fly, too,” said the duck.
“Wow!”  Jeff hollered for his wife.  “Honey, get down here!  Bring your phone!”
His wife came running into the kitchen with her phone.  “What the hell is going on?”
“This duck can talk, it was talking to me!  Go on, talk!”
Using her phone, the wife began recording her husband and the duck, but the duck was mute.
“Damnit,” said Jeff, “I swear this duck can talk, we were talking!  Talk, damn you!”
The duck said, “Quack quack.”
“Goddamnit!” yelled Jeff, “He’s not doing it now but the duck can speak English, we were having a conversation for God’s sake.  He told me he can fly!”
“Okay,” replied his wife, still recording, “And you’re sure about this?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Jeff.
His wife stopped recording and left Jeff and the duck in the kitchen.  She went outside to make a phone call.
“What’s the deal?” pleaded Jeff, “I know you can talk.”
“I have a confession,” said the duck.  “Your wife knows I can talk, too.”
“What?”
“Did I stutter?  I said your wife knows I can talk.  She and I hatched this little plot to blackmail you.”
“Blackmail?”
“Well, it’s actually more like extortion or false imprisonment.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The duck explained, “Any minute now, the cops are going to come bursting through the doors and will take you away.  Your wife just called the police and told them that you’re insane and dangerous, and that you said a duck was talking to you.”
“Bullshit, that’s bullshit…” Jeff shook his head. “You are talking to me, you’re talking to me right now!”
There were sirens outside and the police had entered the house.
“It’s been nice chatting with you,” said the duck.
Two police officers rushed into the kitchen and were followed by Jeff’s wife.
“There he is,” said his wife, “He claims the duck is talking to him.  I have it on video.”
Bewildered, Jeff turned white.  “What’s going on here?”
One officer said, “Would you mind stepping outside, sir”
“Why?”  
“Sir, let’s step outside so we can discuss the situation.”
“Wait a second,” said Jeff, “This is a setup!”  He glared at his wife, “You know he can talk, he told me you know!”  Jeff pointed to the duck then looked to the policemen. “He can talk, he can talk!”  
Everyone looked at the duck.  The duck said, “Quack quack.”
“You mother fucker!” yelled Jeff, lunging toward the duck who flapped his wings and jumped back out of the way.
The police rushed toward Jeff and wrestled him out of the kitchen.
The wife screamed, “He’s crazy!  He’s crazy!  Please don’t let him hurt me!”
Struggling with the police who were forcing him out the front door, Jeff could be heard yelling, “You bitch!  You’re in cahoots with the duck!”
The police shoved the combative man into the police car, had a few words with his wife, and then drove off. 

Several weeks later Jeff was staring out the window of his room in the psychiatric hospital.  He was contemplating his upcoming court appearance and potential release which hinged on his good behavior and the psychiatrist’s opinion of his mental health.   He had accepted the fact that he was schizophrenic, that the conversation with the duck was a delusion, and he was now taking antipsychotic medications.  He was optimistic as he gazed outside, but grew horrified when he saw the duck flying toward his window.
“No, no…” said Jeff, backing away from the window.  
The duck landed on the window sill and said, “Long time no see.”
From the opposite end of the room Jeff trembled. “What do you want?”
“I just came by to wish you luck on your upcoming hearing.  I know it’s an important day for you since you have to demonstrate that don’t belong in the loony bin.”
“Get out of here!” yelled Jeff.
“I want to show you something first,” said the duck, reaching into his wing.  “These are some pictures of your wife and I.  We’ve been seeing each other.”
The duck slipped his wing through the wrought iron window bars and pressed the photographs against the glass for Jeff to see.  Jeff stepped closer and looked at the pictures.  One picture showed the duck and Jeff’s wife driving in a convertible and donning sunglasses and scarves.  Another one showed them picnicking on the grass near a pond where there were other ducks floating on the water.
“You have got be fucking kidding me,” said Jeff.
The duck showed him some more pictures.  One featured the duck and the woman holding hands so to speak and walking on the beach.  There was one of them sharing a bowl of sorbet on the patio of an ice cream parlor.  But the photograph that really triggered Jeff was the one of the duck and his wife in his old bed, covering up half their bodies with the sheets.
“You fucking bastard,” said Jeff.  
The duck put the pictures back under his wing.  “We’re going on a cruise to Mexico next week,” said the duck.  “We booked the trip using your credit card.”  The duck pulled out Jeff’s credit card and showed it to him.  
“God damn you!”
“Did you know I can also speak Spanish, amigo?” said the duck.
Jeff began banging on the window.
“Tu es loco,” said the duck.  “That means you are crazy.”  The duck twirled the tip of his wing around the side of his head and said, “Cuckoo, cuckoo.”
“How dare you!” cried Jeff, “Why?!”
“Because you are mucho stupido,” said the duck.  “Good luck with your hearing, pendejo.”
Jeff slammed his fists on the window and yelled, “I’m going to kill you!”
Two security guards entered the room and constrained him.
“The duck came back!” Jeff said, “Look!  He can talk!”
The guards looked to the duck who stared back at them from the window sill.  
Jeff exclaimed, “He’s got my credit card and is sleeping with my wife!  Tell them what you told me, you little shit!”
The duck looked at the men and said, “Quack quack.”
“You mother fucker!” cried Jeff as he lunged himself toward the duck.  The security guards pulled him back and then rode him to the ground and held him down.  As the duck flew away he could hear Jeff yelling out.  “Get back here! He said he’s taking my wife to Mexico!  He was speaking Spanish for Christ’s sake!”
The security guards dragged Jeff out of the room and took him down to the padded isolation room. 

The following month Jeff was sitting in his chair in the mental hospital.  He had been denied release on account of his recurring duck-related schizophrenic episodes, and was to be held at the hospital for a minimum of one year.  There was a knock at his door and a staff member entered the room and delivered his mail.  From the letters he picked out a postcard from the Yucatan Peninsula that featured the Mayan Temple of the Wind God along the turquoise coast of Tulum.  On the back of the postcard the following was scribbled in poor handwriting: ‘Hola Papi.  Living la vida loca.  Quack quack.’
Jeff ripped the postcard apart and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

The Milkmen, Part One: Blood

This is the first part of a two-part short story I’m working on called The Milkmen. It’s loosely based on the true yet almost unbelievably absurd history of blood transfusion. When European doctors first tired to transfuse blood in the 17th century, they experimented with animals - transfusing blood from one dog to another, for instance. Then, in human transfusions, French and British doctors did not transfuse humans with human blood, but replaced human blood with the blood animals like goats and cows (animal to human blood transfusion serves as the plot for Part One of The Milkmen, titled Blood.) Later, in the 19th century, Canadian and U.S. doctors adopted transfusion practices, but took it to another level of insanity. Instead of transfusing animal blood into humans, for a period of time doctors were actually pumping cow and goat milk into the blood systems of people. The second part of The Milkmen (which I’m writing now and is going to be titled Milk) will deal with with this odd period of medical history.

The Milkmen

It was at this time that a brief, yet fascinating, chapter in the history of transfusion was recorded. Frustrated and discouraged with blood as a transfusion product, effective substitutes were sought, and for a short time, milk seemed to be the panacea. Whereas transfusion of blood in the 19th century was most actively practiced in Europe, especially in England, transfusion of milk achieved its greatest popularity in North America.

                                                        -Early History of Blood Substitutes: Transfusion of Milk, H. A. Oberman

Part One: Blood

Montpellier, France, 1695

Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys was sitting in a chair in his office at the Faculté de Médecine at the Université de Montpellier.  He sat with his back to his desk and library, his legs propped up on the window sill, and gazed out the glass at a sunlit pasture as the bedlam cries of his patient could be heard echoing from the bottom of the hospital.  There was a cow standing on a knoll in the pasture and cropping the grass.   Chief nurse Le Pen walked into his office.  She was carrying a silver tray with a glass of milk on it and she set the glass of milk on his desk.

“Merde,” said the doctor.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” asked the nurse.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?  He won’t stop screaming, that’s what’s qu’est-ce que c’est.”

“Perhaps you should remove the leeches from Monsieur Chirac?”

The doctor removed his feet from the window sill and turned his chair toward his desk.  “Non, the leeches are there to cleanse his blood.  Chirac is a sick man, a madman”

“But the they are driving him to scream.”

“Nonsense.  He is screaming because his blood is bad.”

“And the leeches will fix this?”

“But of course,” said the doctor, taking a sip of milk.  “Look, I drew a picture.”

The doctor consolidated some papers on his desk and tapped his index finger on a rudimentary drawing which depicted a human stick figure lying on a two-dimensional elevated plane, presumably the surface of a bed, with little black ovals dispersed arbitrarily across the wiry arms, legs, and empty head of the figure.  Some of the black ovals were circled and the lines drawn from these circles led to the word ‘leeches.’  A vertical line separated this drawing from the drawing on the right side of the paper which presented a magnified view of one of the leeches, inaccurately drawn for it had elongated snail eyes.  The second drawing showed a large leech superficial to the skin, and there were several arrows originating from the dermis and drawn upwards in a fierce motion toward the mouth of the leech.  The lines of the arrows going up from the dermis toward the leech were labeled ‘bad blood.’

“You see,” the doctor said smiling, “The leeches are sucking up all the bad blood.”

“Alores,” said the nurse incredulously, “But what replaces the bad blood?”

The doctor had not considered this.  “Quelle?” he said, sitting up in his chair.

“What replaces the bad blood that the leeches are sucking out of Monsieur Chirac?”  The nurse pointed to the drawing.

“Well… what do you mean?  Good blood replaces the bad blood,” he said with uncertainty, raising his arms as though that were obvious, yet scrutinizing his drawing and realizing to his chagrin that he didn’t know where the good blood was supposed be originating from.

“Oh, I see,” said the nurse, wrapping up the conversation. 

Dr. Denys kept his face down toward his drawing yet his eyes followed the nurse as she turned around and left the study.  After she closed the door the doctor’s eyes flickered back to his drawing.  “Merde,” he said to himself.

The doctor picked up his quill and dipped it into his ink well.  On the right side of the paper above the leech he wrote the words ‘good blood’ followed by a question mark.  He circled these words and drew arrows from the circle down into the skin. 

“Where’s the good blood supposed to come from?” the doctor asked himself.  He dried the quill off, placed it in his breast pocket, and then swiveled his chair toward the window again.  He looked toward the sunlit pasture and wondered aloud, “Good blood…” his eyes moved toward the cow which was standing still on the knoll.

Fifteen minutes later Dr. Denys was walking up the knoll of the pasture with the Monsieur Sarkozy, the dairy farmer who owned the cow and the farmland adjacent to the university and hospital.  The cow had turned around to face and cautiously watch the two men whom were walking toward her, but was otherwise clam.

“Well,” said farmer Sarkozy, answering a question the doctor had posed, “If I were to slaughter her I would be able to sell her meat for five francs, so if you wanted to take her I would say that you should pay me five francs.”

“And you’re absolutely sure she has had no pathological problems?”

“She has lived a very healthy life and was a hard working cow, that is why she should be allowed to enjoy a month of solitude before her death.   She is still in good shape for her age I suppose, but is too old to lactate.  Other than that I cannot think of any problems.”

“And how about her blood?”

“Her blood?”

“Yes, how is her blood?”

“I’m sorry, doctor, I did not intend to see her blood for another month.” 

Dr. Denys walked around the cow conducting a visual inspection, bending down to look at its chest floor and fore udder, but not quite sure what he was looking for.   Both the cow and farmer watched him suspiciously.

“Alright, Monsieur Sarkozy,” said the doctor, “I will take her.  Please bring her to the university at noon and I will give you your five francs.”

There on the knoll the two men shook hands and the cow mooed.

The doctor returned to the university and hurried back to his study.  In the hallway he again heard the haunting cries of Monsieur Chirac emanating from the psychiatric ward in the lower level of the hospital.  In the hallway Dr. Denys passed the chief nurse.  “Remove the leeches from Monsieur Chirac!” he said.

“Quelle?” she said?

“Remove the leeches,” repeated the doctor, “We’re going to give that crazy son of a bitch some good blood for once!” he cheered, skipping and punching his fist into the air.

Nurse Le Pen watched the doctor as he rushed down the hall and ran into his study, slamming the door.  Dr. Denys returned to his desk and put quill and ink to paper, sketching in a frenzy his newfound machination to aid in the purification of Monsieur Chirac’s blood.  After an hour of vigorous sketching and notetaking Dr. Denys got up from his desk and marched out his study with a piece of paper that contained the final draft of his diagram.  He walked down the corridor to the kitchen of the university.  He pushed open the wooden door and found the man he was looking for.

“Chef Macron,” said the doctor, “Bonjour.”

“Bonjour to you doctor,” replied the chef who was stirring a massive cast iron vat of stew.

“Have you one of these?” asked Dr. Denys, holding up the paper in his hand.

Chef Macron stepped toward the doctor and took a closer look at the diagram.  “A funnel?”

“Precisely!” exclaimed the doctor, “I couldn’t think of the word, but yes, do you have you a funnel?”

“But of course, I am a chef, of course I have a funnel.”

“Can I have one?”

“Well I don’t see why not,” said the chef, lifting a metal funnel from the kitchen beam and handing it to the doctor.

“Great!” said doctor Denys, excited to see the exact object he sketched now in his hands.  “Come meet me in the front yard at noon.  We’re going to buy a cow and take it down to the psych ward where I’ll bleed it out and then transfer its blood into a crazy man.  You can have the cow afterwards.  It’s five francs.”

“What?” said the chef, convinced that he had heard something incorrectly.

“It’s five francs,” said the doctor who was grinning at the funnel in his hands while leaving the kitchen. “We’ll meet at noon, you can have the cow after.  Make sure to bring the money.”

The doctor exited the kitchen and chef Macron stood confused above the steaming stew, which he knew could always use a little more meat. 

At noon the chef met the doctor outside the university entrance as the farmer arrived with the cow.  Farmer Sarkozy was relieved to see chef Macron at the entrance, for he was concerned that the cow was going to be used in some sort of deranged medical experiment conjured up by Dr. Denys.  Chef Macron paid the farmer five francs and the farmer went on his way, leaving the cow in the care of the doctor and chef.

“Usually when I pay five francs for a cow the cow is dead and has been chopped up into convenient pieces,” said Chef Macron, holding the rope attached to the cow’s neck and resigning himself to the fact that the stew would see no additional meat today.

“I am sorry Monsieur Chirac, but there are more pressing matters to attend to.   You will be permitted to slaughter the cow after today’s experiment.”

The doctor took the rope from the chef.

“Doctor Denys, what exactly do you intend to do with the cow?  I think I misheard you in the kitchen.”

“Do you hear that incessant screaming coming from the hospital insane asylum?” asked the doctor, making his way toward the stairs of university.

“Actually, I believe it’s stopped now,” said the chef as he watched the doctor start up the stairs with the cow. “Are you going to bring the cow through the hallways like that?” he asked.

“Well,” said the doctor tugging at the rope, “We’re going to put an end to that screaming and cure my patient once and for all!” He began leading the cow up the stairs to the university foyer, where chief nurse Le Pen was standing with her arms crossed.

“And how do you plan to cure him?” asked the nurse.

“Quelle?” said the doctor, struggling to pull the cow up the first set of stairs.  That the nurse had been standing there did not register with him, for he was too focused on the cow.  Chef Macron only now noticed the nurse and realized that she had observed the entire transaction that had just transpired between them and the farmer and cow.

“How do you plan to cure Monsieur Chirac?”

The doctor paused on the steps and caught his breath, he reached into his satchel and pulled out a funnel.  “With this!” he declared to the chef below him.  “Have you ever seen on of these?”

“Yes.  I gave that to you.”

“I invented it,” said the doctor, who then inverted it and placed it on his head.

“A funnel?” asked the nurse, finally catching the doctor’s attention. 

Surprised to see nurse Le Pen standing several steps above him, Dr. Denys let out a yelp. 

“Dr. Denys, you’re weren’t planning on bringing that filthy cow through the hospital hallways where there are numerous patients recovering from injuries and suffering from illnesses, were you?”

Dr. Denys looked to the nurse, he then looked to the chef, then to the cow, then back to nurse Le Pen. “No, no I was not,” answered the doctor.  “We were just turning the cow around so as to… Well, so as to turn the cow around and walk it to the back entrance of the hospital.”

“I see, and then where exactly are you planning to bring the cow?” asked the nurse.

“Well,” Doctor Denys smiled, “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve figured out where I will get the good blood from in order to cure Monsieur Chirac’s madness.”

“Oh?” said the nurse.

“Oui,” replied the doctor, leaning an elbow into the back side of the cow and slapping its rump with his hand, “It’s coming from right here.”

“From the cow’s behind?” asked the nurse.

“Precisely,” said the doctor, “from the cow’s behind… I mean, no, simply from the cow itself, from her veins.”

“Wait a second,” said Chef Macron, “Are you meaning to say you’re going to give that crazy man blood from the cow?”

“Yes, what’s the big deal?  He’s nuts!  What the hell’s everyone’s problem?  I’m the doctor around here.” said Dr. Denys, the funnel on his head tipping slightly to the side.

“Is that ethical?” asked the chef.

“Ethical?  Well I suppose that depends on if it works.”

Dr. Denys walked down the steps and tugged at the rope. “Now Monsieur Macron, if you would be so kind as to help me get this stupid cow around to the back entrance of the hospital and down to the psychiatric ward, we can begin this experiment before this cow keels over and dies.”

The chief nurse shook her head and watched as the doctor and the chef walked the cow away from the hospital steps and turned the corner toward the back of the hospital.  The chef and doctor arrived at a wooden door which served as thee back entrance of the hospital.  The doctor lifted the brass ring and pulled open the door and the cow mooed.

“Alright,” said the doctor, “Now all’s we got to do is get this cow down to lower level.”

“Jesus,” said the chef, “That’s going to be a tight squeeze.” 

“It’ll be fine.”

The doorway was slightly larger than the cow and led into a dim stone hallway.  The doctor entered the doorway, pulling the cow by the rope, and the chef followed behind them.  They stopped at a dark spiral stairwell and the doctor went down to light the candles in the nooks of the stone walls.  He came back up and said, “This is going to be tight squeeze.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we just took the cow’s blood out up here, and then brought the blood downstairs instead of the whole cow?”

The doctor thought for a moment.  He wanted the cow to be present when its blood was transferred to his patient because he wanted the blood to be fresh.  For some reason he had imagined that this would require that the cow be in the room during the transfusion.  He had not considered the option of simply bloodletting the living cow and then transporting its blood down to Monsieur Chirac.

“Let’s just see if the cow will fit down the stairwell, and if it doesn’t then I have an idea: we will extract the blood of the cow and then bring it down in some sort of vessel, leaving the cow up here.

The chef shook his head and said, “Fine.”

The doctor pulled the rope and the cow began to follow him down the stairs, at first without any compliant, but when the stairwell began to curve left the cow’s body scraped the walls she halted and mooed.  The doctor tugged harder and the cow began to move once more, shuffling its hooves upon the uneven stone steps, but the size and angle of the spiral stairwell proved too tight a squeeze for the cow so she stopped again.  She was breathing hard and each time she exhaled her ribcage would expand and her body would touch the walls of the stairwell.

“Merde,” said Dr. Denys. “The cow is too fat.”

“The cow?” said the chef, “The cow is not the problem, for a cow is not meant to walk down a stairwell.”

“Come on,” said the doctor to the cow, “You don’t want us send you off to the butchery now do you?”  The doctor tugged on the rope again and the cow took another step down and mooed.  It was now pressed up against both sides of the stairwell.  The doctor gave the rope another tug and said, “Push!”  Chef Macron leaned his shoulder into the rump of the cow but the cow didn’t budge.

“Shit,” said the doctor, “This is not going to work.  Let’s back her up.”

The chef took a couple steps back up the stairs and the doctor began to push the cow’s head, trying to force her to reverse, but she didn’t move back.  “Back her up,” repeated the doctor.

“How?” asked the chef.

“Pull!”

“Pull what?”

“Her tail, you idiot!”

Chef Macron grabbed the cow’s tail and tugged and the cow mooed loudly.  Dr. Denys shoved her head and neck hard but to no avail, the cow was stuck in the stairwell.

“She’s not going to walk backwards up the stairs, doctor.”

The doctor was breathing hard.  Separated by the cow, he looked to the chef in exasperation.  “If she were just a little thinner she could make it down, we’re half way there.”

“I have an idea,” said the chef, “I’ll be right back.”

The chef turned and went up the stairs, leaving the doctor and the cow alone in candlelit the stairwell.  The cow was looking at the doctor who was trying to avoid making eye contact with her.  After a few minutes the doctor heard the footsteps of the chef who was walking rapidly down the hallway and returned to the stairwell.  Chef Macron was grinning and holding two large blocks of butter.

“Here!” said the chef, tossing one block over the back of cow to Dr. Denys who inspected it.  He was holding it in front of the cow’s face and she started to lick the butter.

“Why are we feeding the cow?” asked the doctor, presenting the block of butter to the cow who continued to lick it.

“No, no, don’t feed her, rub it all over her,” said chef Macron, whom proceed to do just that.

“Oh, I see…” said the doctor, pulling the butter away from the cow’s face.

Dr. Denys rubbed the cow’s neck and throat with butter, also trying to get as much as the shoulders as he could.  Chef Macron worked the rear flanks of the cow, also greasing the sides of her udder, the very udder which formerly helped produce some of the milk churned to make the butter that she was now being rubbed with.

“Get the walls, too,” said the chef. 

The cow closed her eyes and relaxed, for she was rather enjoying the butter massage, and she would have fallen asleep had the men not given her another tug and push in effort to force her down the stairs. Still, she was unable to move due to the friction of her large body pressed up against the sides of the ungreased walls which could not be accessed by the men and their butter.

“Shit,” yelled Dr. Denys, “We’ll never get this cow down the stairs!”  He had yelled this so loudly that his patient, Monsieur Chirac, who was strapped down to a bed in his cell below, woke from his nap wondering if he had heard the doctor’s remark correctly.

“We need to butter her sides somehow,” said the chef, sweating and catching his breath.  He looked at the doctor and said, “Give me the funnel, give me the funnel.”  Extending his arms over the back of the cow, the chef was grinning and had a crazed look in his eyes as he reached out toward the doctor who was taken aback.

“What’s a funnel?” asked the doctor.

“You’re wearing it,” said the chef, “It’s on your head.  Give it to me.”

“Oh yeah,” said the doctor, handing the funnel to the chef. 

The chef took the remainder of his butter and placed it into the funnel. He then took a candle from the wall and held it against the side of the funnel, heating the metal.   Melted butter began to drip down the neck of the funnel which Chef Macron then inserted between the body of the cow and the wall, buttering one side then the other.  After the butter in funnel had melted they tried again to move the cow.  She mooed as they pushed and pulled, and finally she slid and took a step forward.

“Yes!” cheered the doctor, “That’s what’s huh!”

“Come on,” yelled the chef, “Butter the walls, keep going, you fool!”  The remarks and mooing echoed down to Monsieur Chirac, who was now wide awake and extremely disconcerted as he listened to everything coming down the stairs.

Step by step the cow walked down the slippery spiral stairwell.   They reached the bottom and with a final push, pull, and moo, the cow emerged from the stairwell dripping in butter as though it just passed through some medieval stone birth canal.  The doctor and the chef cheered and gave each other high fives as the cow took deep breaths and licked the butter off its hind legs.  The chef slapped the cow on its rump and said, “Well, I suppose she’s already marinating.  Let me know when I can come get her.”   Dr. Denys thanked Chef Macron for his help and the chef turned around to go back upstairs and attend to his stew.

The doctor walked to the iron gate of the cell where his patient lay terrified, his eyes flickering between the doctor and the cow.  “Good morning, Monsieur Chirac,” said the doctor as he opened the gate.

Monsieur Chirac further lifted his head up from the bed on which he was tied down with leather straps and said, “Hello doctor.  What’s with the cow?”

Dr. Denys stood above his patient, whose face and arms were covered in slimy red lesions from the leeches that had been removed from his skin and were now contained in a small pot on a table in the room, which was more like a dungeon. “The cow is here to help,” said Dr. Denys.

“Oh?  Like with milk?”

“No,” said the doctor, adjusting and tightening the straps on Monsieur Chirac’s arm so as to expose his forearm, “Like with blood.”

“Blood?”

“Yes.  After exhausting deliberation I’ve determine that the leeches just won’t do the trick to cure your illness, and that the corrupted blood which the reason for you incessant screaming must be replaced.”

“Replaced?  No, doctor, I was screaming because of the leeches, but nurse Le Pen removed them, so I stopped screaming.  I even took a nap.”

“Well that’s quite the observation,” said the doctor who was too preoccupied with palpating and clearing the dirt off Monsieur Chirac’s biceps to listen to what he was saying.  Once he was satisfied that Monsieur Chirac’s arm was positioned so that he could incise his skin, access his vein, and insert the blood, Dr. Denys left the cell to fetch the cow, which had wandered off slightly to explore the psychiatric ward.  The doctor walked the cow back to the cell and tied the rope to the iron bars of the gate outside.  He pet the cow on the head and said, “So calm, so peaceful.”  He then produced a large knife from his satchel and began feeling the cow’s neck for a good place to cut and bleed it, holding the knife at different angles against the cow’s throat, saying, “Merde, where’s the jugular?”

Watching from his bed, the insanity of the impending dangerous situation had dawned on Monsieur Chirac who was horrified by what Dr. Denys was prepared to attempt, and he yelled “Attendez, Attendez!  Wait, what are you doing!”

“We’re going to fix that yelling problem of yours,” said that doctor.

“Non!”

“Oui!”

“Non!”

“Oui, oui, oui, I say!” yelled the doctor, waving the knife at Monsieur Chirac like a madman.  “Now fuck the calm the down!  You don’t want us to send you off to the sanatorium now do you?  You won’t like what they’ll do to you there.  They’ll snip off your little wienerschnitzel and amputate your head with a guillotine!”

Monsieur Chirac dropped his head back onto the bed and said, “Jesus Christ…”

Turning his attention back to the cow, the doctor found the jugular vein, pressed the blade of knife against it, and slit.  The cow mooed but surprisingly did not move, for the cut was not too deep or painful, but even so, a small stream of blood flowed out from the cut and then morphed into a thin fountain of blood arching from its neck down to the floor.   “Shit,” said the doctor, realizing that he not prepared for nor fully thought out any of the steps which were to supposed to follow.  He did not, for instance, know where the funnel was, for the first thing he did after cutting the cow was to reach for it on his head to discover it was missing.  Even then, he didn’t have a vessel to in which to collect the blood.  Furthermore, the minute mechanical details of the whole transfusion process were obscure: How was he supposed to pump the blood into the patient’s veins?  Did some sort pumping device exist?   If so, he certainly was not aware of it, let alone possess it.   Additionally, Dr. Denys began to question himself about whether the physiological aspects of the blood transfusion would actually work.  “Why am I starting with a cow,” he thought, “why not a human?  After all, a cow is much different than a human, perhaps their much blood is different, too?”  Despite contending with this mental avalanche of challenging questions, the doctor doubled down and concluded that this was not the time for second guessing and that he would improvise to ensure the procedure move forward as planned.

He first needed a receptacle to collect the blood that was squirting out from the cow’s neck and splashing onto the floor.  The doctor looked around and his eyes fell to the pot on the table in the cell.  “Perfect,” he said.  He walked over to the pot and opened the lid.  Inside were the two dozen leeches that nurse Le Pen had earlier removed from Monsieur Chirac.  He reached into the pot, scooped most of out the leeches, and placed them then on the table. “Yuck,” he said.  Upon seeing the leeches again Monsieur Chirac began to scream, the sounds of which once again reverberated upstairs.

“You don’t have to do this, doctor!  I’ll stop yelling!”

“You’re yelling right now,” said the doctor, walking back to the cow and stepping into the puddle of blood which had pooled up on the floor.

“You going to put cow blood into me!”

“Oh don’t be such a big baby.”  The doctor ran the pot under the fountain of blood that was gushing out of the cow’s neck.  When the pot was almost full he went back into the cell and placed it on the table.  He then walked over to Monsieur Chirac, pulled out his knife, and pointed the tip of the blade at a vein in his arm.  “Ya’ll ready for this?” said the doctor.

Having resigned himself to the futility of his misfortune and the psychopathic experiment that would imminently befall him, Monsieur Chirac shut eyes, turned his head, and was uttering prayers and curses simultaneously.  When Dr. Denys pricked his patient’s skin and dug the knife into his vein, Monsieur Chirac let out an excruciating howl, which set the cow off mooing.  Blood was pumping out the incision in his patient’s arm, and Dr. Denys reached for the hollow quill in his pocket and cut off both the tip and the feathered end, thus creating a sort of stent.  He spent about a minute figuring this out and said, “I should have made this before I cut him.”  The doctor then inserted the quill into the incision and vein.  At this point Monsieur Chirac glanced down at his arm and at the quill sticking out of it and began to holler.  He was losing blood rapidly and feeling faint.  The doctor whipped around toward the table and grabbed the pot of cow blood, but here he faced his most difficult roadblock: how to get the blood into the quill?  In a desperate move Dr. Denys tipped the pot of blood over onto the quill, hoping that some of it would make it into the hollow channel.  It did not, but instead spilled all over his wrist and hand and Monsieur Chirac’s arm.  “Merde!” exclaimed the doctor, who at this point looked up to see nurse Le Pen standing next to the cow outside of the cell.

“Dr. Denys!” roared the chief nurse, infuriated at the preposterous spectacle taking place before her.

“Nurse Le Pen!” said the doctor, whose embarrassment transformed into elation upon seeing that in her hand she held the funnel, which had fallen in the stairwell and she had picked up on her way down. “You brought the funnel!” he cheered. 

From the bed, Monsieur Chirac also looked up to nurse Le Pen, and said, “Oh thank God.”  He had lost a substantial amount of blood and was slipping out of consciousness. 

“Why is there a cow in the psych ward, bleeding on the floor, and what in the world are you doing!” demanded the nurse.

“Bring me the funnel!” exclaimed the doctor, “We’re losing precious time!”

The nurse stepped over the pool of blood and into the cell.  The doctor had set the pot down and with one hand held the quill while the other was extending out toward the funnel.  “Give me the funnel, give me the funnel!” said the doctor, wide eyed and grinning crazily, grasping toward to nurse.  

Reluctantly, nurse Le Pen handed him the funnel. The doctor instantly placed the funnel over the quill and learned that the neck of the funnel was too wide to fit the tip of the quill.  “Shit,” he said.  He squeezed his palm over the neck of the funnel and the quill, closing the gap.  Dr. Denys used his free arm to pick up the pot of blood.  He took a deep breath to steady himself and then slowly tipped the pot over and poured the blood into the funnel.  That the pot still contained a leech or two, and that the funnel was coated in residual butter did not concern the doctor.   He watched the cow blood filling up in the funnel and the air bubbles slowly popping in the thick red soup.  Blood was leaking out between his fingers and he gripped the neck of the funnel and quill harder, forming a more airtight connection.  To his delight, the blood filled the hollow quill and seemed to travel down into the arm of Monsieur Chirac, who was completely passed out by now.  Although much of the blood was simply reaching the end of the quill and dispersing across the Monsieur Chirac’s arm, some was indeed entering his vein.  “Yes, yes!” said the doctor, “It’s working!”

Nurse Le Pen was appalled and stood aghast as she watched the doctor transfuse around half a pint of cow into Monsieur Chirac.

When the pot was empty aside from a couple leeches squirming around in the film of blood, Dr. Denys held the pot out to her and said, “Give me some more cow blood.”

“No!” said Nurse Le Pen.

“Okay fine, let’s close the wound.” 

With the help of nurse Le Pen, Dr. Denys tied strips of cloth around the incision site, applying pressure so as to ensure that the cow blood would not backflow out of his arm.  Nurse Le Pen did her best to clean the wound and the doctor, covered in both cow and human blood, wiped the sticky substances all over his pants and shirt, making a further mess of himself.  He looked to Monsieur Chirac, confirming he saw signs of breathing, and then exited the cell.  He stood beside the placid cow, who was no longer bleeding vigorously, and pet it on the head.

“Well, nurse Le Pen, I think we can consider this case a successful achievement.”

The nurse looked to the doctor in disbelief and held her arm toward Monsieur Chirac and said, “He’s barely alive!”

“Yes, but he’s not dead, is he?  Nor is yelling, if you haven’t notice.  I’m going to clean up and take this news straight to the Sorbonne.  I can’t wait to see the look on the faces of those arrogant Parisians once they find out what I’ve done here.”  The doctor realized that the forgot the funnel in the cell and retrieved it.  “Almost forgot this,” he said, “Good thing I’m wearing my thinking cap today.”  He then left the nurse to tend to Monsieur Chirac and walked up the stairwell to go take a bath.

The nurse did what she could to clean the up the mess that Dr. Denys had made of the arm and cell, and placed a pillow under Monsieur Chirac’s head before she left the cell.  She closed the gate and looked at the cow, shaking her head and then leaving.

After bathing, packing his bags, and forgetting to tell the chef that he could now have the cow, the doctor climbed into a horse-drawn carriage with the funnel and pulled out his ink well, a stack of blank paper, and a quill.  He began writing his report to submit to his medical peers at the University of Paris.  He had a long journey ahead him and gazed out the carriage at the haystacks in the pastures that surrounded the hospital.  In the late afternoon sunlight, a solitaire cow stood on a knoll in the shade of an oak tree and was cropping the grass.  Dr. Denys looked to the cow and smiled.

Back in the hospital cell, Monsieur Chirac was afflicted by a fever dream in which a haunting, phantasmagorical montage of cows and leeches weaved through his searing mind.  He awoke form this hellish, bovine nightmare and immediately looked up from his bed.  The cow still there, roped to the gate, looking at him.  Horrified, Monsieur Chirac let out a scream so loud that even Dr. Denys, in a carriage a kilometer away, looked up from his notes in curiosity, for he vaguely thought he heard the sound of a man yelling.  After a few seconds Dr. Denys went back to his notes and continued writing his report.