splinterswerve mister gerrymander

Once, Mister Gerrymander developed a hideous wound on his forearm, and he couldn't stop picking at it. "Stop it, Harold" his wife insisted; and although he knew she was right, he couldn't help but think that if he could shift the damaged tissue just a little bit this way or that, it would feel a lot better. But of course whenever he executed one of his little manoeuvres, it inevitably worsened the situation and the wound only got bigger.

He was determined to take care of it, so he went to the doctor and asked if there was anything to be done. The doctor examined the gash and prescribed medication for the pain; but as for repairing the wound, he only bandaged it up and told Mister Gerrymander that it would heal itself.

"But it aches so bad, Doctor. I think I impacted upon one of my tendons when I was feeling around in there. Can't you take a look?"

And a battery of tests was performed upon Mister Gerrymander's forearm. When the results came back he let out a sigh of relief when it was revealed that he had inflicted no permanent damage upon him and that, over the course of time, everything should straighten itself out. He thanked the doctor profusely and apologized for wasting his time on such a petty trifle which turned out to be nothing! While driving home, a weird looking clear fluid caught the eye of Mister Gerrymander on his bandage. "What the heck is this??"

He felt the peculiar looking substance which seemed to have been purposely applied in a straight line along the length of his forearm. It felt gooey, and kind of warm.

"Gross." While keeping his injured right arm at 2 o'clock, and shooting intermittent glances at the road ahead of him, Mister Gerrymander scratched at the liquid, which had apparently congealed into some sort of glue-like substance. It never occurred to him that it actually was an adhesive, and that it was all that was preventing his intricately layered gauze from unraveling. When it started to come off it became all stringy and elastic, and it was an interesting sensation rubbing it between two fingers. He peeled off the whole length of the glue and was fascinated by the way it had been sticky before, but was now only soft and rubbery. "I'll be damned."

Just then he caught the rusty back end of a blue Datsun out the corner of his eye, and leaped up to stand on the brake with a girlish yelp. He actually made contact with the other car's bumper and gave it a little nudge forward on the shocks, but the driver didn't seem to notice. Mister Gerrymander became panic stricken, and braced himself for the embarrassing chewing out he would receive.

The red light lingered on, and the other driver still didn't recognize that he had been hit. Good Lord, thought Mister Gerrymander, what if I killed him? The driver appeared to be moving, but the terrifying thought of being tried for vehicular manslaughter could not be shaken.

The light turned green and the Datsun started to move through the intersection. Oh, thank God! He's alive! But what if this guy noticed some damage later on, and suddenly remembered seeing a sheepish looking middle-aged man in a grey Buick behind him earlier in the day who he could have sworn had bumped into him, but had thought that it was just his imagination at the time. That had to be what happened! He was just confused, having been traumatized like that; and as soon as he snapped out of it he'll call the police and have Mister Gerrymander arrested for reckless endangerment!

Mister Gerrymander started honking his horn to get the driver's attention, and drove up alongside the Datsun to get it to pull over. When the driver looked over, Mister Gerrymander began frantically waving his arms about, and the gauze became unloosed and started flying around everywhere. "Jesus Christ!" yelled the driver, to whom Mister Gerrymander looked like some kind of decrepit old mummy. The gauze was caught in the wind and blew about the interior like a mist. Soon Mister Gerrymander couldn't see anything but blood stained rags, and had to get off the road. Meanwhile the driver of the Datsun got as far away from the evil vision as he possibly could.

"Darnit! Why didn't I get his license plate numbers?" The wound was now freshly exposed to the air, and it itched like the dickens. The words of the doctor and his wife echoed throughout his brain: Don't touch it, Harold, you'll only make things worse. It'll heal itself if you don't interfere with the body's natural processes.

"Heck." Mister Gerrymander rubbed it against the gear shift, as if this was some sort of loophole around actually making contact with it himself. As his flesh became torn, and blood ran down the steering column to gather in a puddle between his feet, he soon felt lightheaded, and strangely detached from his mind-numbing pain. Some dude who looked like the stereotypical Confucius rode by on a large and hulking beast, and blackness consumed him.

Mister Gerrymander awoke in the hospital to the sight of his wife's tearstained face. "Oh Harold!" she exclaimed and gave him a big hug.

"Janeane! Cripes, what happened?"

"They found you on the side of the road half dead! That's what happened, you fool!"

"Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, Janeane, I must have given you quite the scare."

"Don't fret about that, now. Lay back and don't strain yourself." A nurse entered the room making notes on a clipboard.

"Ah, Mister Gerrymander. You've regained consciousness. Good. You know, you should be thankful that someone found you and called an ambulance, and that you were so close to the hospital when you passed out. We just about lost you. You ought to take better care of yourself. And you should never remove a bandage without a doctor's permission."

"Don't lecture him!" his wife shouted. "He's in the hospital, for God's sake!"

"No no, she's right, Janeane." Mister Gerrymander patted his wife on the hand. "I've learned my lesson. I shouldn't have interfered with something that was done for my own good by those who know better. Where would society be if we didn't submit to authority?" Mister Gerrymander stretched out in bed and wiggled his toes. "Now if you don't mind, nurse, as long as I'm here I'd like to donate a pint of blood. It's the least I can do to repay the system after it saved my life."