The man stepped on a needled,
creeping vine in the desert. It
got under one toenail and entered
his bloodstream and worked its
way up past the ankle, knee, hip
around the lower and upper intest-
ines, encircling the duodenum,
moving along the stomach wall,
spinning around the lungs causing
a cough or two, but nothing serious,
and then on up into the throat
causing some extra swallowing,
but again nothing serious, twisting
around the spinal cord, causing some
temporary numbness but nothing
serious, and going into the brain
shooting through the limbic region
causing the man to become irritated,
angry, restive and speak uncharacter-
istically harshly to the dog who
rested by the man’s feet but who got
up and retreated into the bedroom. It
then headed directly to the cerebral
cortex, upon which the man started
spelling words that would have
won him first place in every eighth
grade spelling contest. The barbed
vine wrapped around his eyeballs
causing the man to cross his eyes
so that he looked like Jerry Lewis
mugging in a Dean Martin/Jerry
Lewis movie. Finally, the vine pop-
ped through his skull and did a really
nice comb over so that when the
man looked at himself in the mirror
he thought of the kid who nearly
won every eighth grade spelling con-
test except that his hair was green
instead of blond turned brown turn-
ed gray turned white. He wondered
about some of the supplements he
had been taking, the ones tested in
several stores and found to be devoid
of what they were supposed to be.
He then considered for a moment
how to spell “uncharacteristically,”
“restive” and “devoid,” which would
have been pretty good words to spell
in an eighth grade spelling contest.
After spelling the first two words,
the man awoke. On the way to the
bathroom, he caught himself limping
for no apparent reason and then
thought to himself, d-e-v-o-i-d as
he readied to void into the commode,
another good word and, of course,
f-l-a-t-u-l-e-n-c-e.