The Cure (925 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: uberbook
Rating: 2 on 20 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by iddqd (View user info) at 2006-02-02 04:07:12 EST
Because Berty asked. Based upon a true story, apparently.
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The gun lay on the ground like an unwanted child; cold, alone, rejected. Around it people stood in tiny little circles of one, staring at nothing in particular, eyes lost inside their minds. A policeman was sitting by a sobbing woman, trying to take down her incoherent sobbing statement. He kept asking the same question, over and over in a gentle voice, but the woman could only sob. Nearby, a man looked from his hand, to the gun, to the covered Guernsey being wheeled out to an ambulance, the white sheet draped over it marred by a splotch of red that seemed to him to be an accusation: a bright red reminder that he would be seeing in his dreams for the rest of his life. His hands were drawn slowly behind his back and the painful clasp of cuffs was gently placed around each wrist.
***
The boy hiccupped again, and sighed deeply, a sickly look upon his face. He had been hiccupping for almost the whole day, without cessation, and it seemed each one got louder than the last. Everytime he did now, his mother flinched as if physically struck.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
"Argh, I cannot stand this!" The boy's brother said and stormed dramatically from the room. The boy felt he should apologise to everyone, but as he did, his voice was stolen by yet another hiccup. The hiccups were starting to become painful, and he held his stomach with a grimace. His mother just came over to him and put her arm around him and braced herself for the next rasping spasm.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
He wasn't quite sure when it started. After all, it was just a hiccup. People get them all the time, no big deal. Never like this, though. He had had them before, and like everyone else, after a while they just went away. Not these ones. They just kept going and going and going. After a few minutes his mother told him to try the usual 'cures' for hiccups. He held his breath and swallowed four times, slowly. He drank from the other side of a glass of water, everything. Nothing seemed to work.
"Has it worked?" His mother asked as she watched the boy take a sip from the wrong side of the glass.
"I don't know yet, Momma, I have to wait and see." He replied. She looked at him tensely. The 'Hold your breath' remedy always worked, but this time it failed. She had to go to the back-up plan: the glass of water.
A couple of tense seconds passed. A couple more slipped by, hiccup-free. A slow smile began to play upon the boy's lips.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
"Damn." He said and slumped onto a couch despondently.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
His mother left the room, and he sat there on the couch, spasms wracking his body at regular intervals. Hours passed, and still the hiccups continued, relentlessly. The boy was almost in tears. The mother didn't know what to do, so she called her brother, Nuno, he would know what to do.
"Take him to a doctor." Nuno said, matter-of-factly over the phone.
"You know we cannot afford a doctor for something so small as hiccups, Nuno. Please, what can you do?" She replied, pleading.
The uncle sighed on the phone. "Hmm, ok, I will be there soon." He said and hung up.
Presently. He arrived to take stock of the situation. He looked at the boy. Aside from a scowl on his face, he looked fine. "Now,' he began, "what did you say was wro-"
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
"Hmm." He said. "Did you try the breathing technique that Mamma taught us?"
"Of course." The mother replied
"Hmm. Did you try the drinking technique that Uncle Jorge taught us?"
"Of course" The mother replied.
"Hmm." He said and sat back to think.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
"Argh! How can I think with that noise!" He cried.
The boy felt sorry for interrupting his Uncle's thoughts. "I'm sor-" He began but was interrupted by another hiccup. His mother flinched as she was leaving the room. His uncle waved his semi-apology away impatiently.
"Ah!" he said after a little while and got up and abruptly left the boy alone in the room. He walked into the kitchen where the mother was preparing some food. "There is something we can try, a technique I heard of when I was a turtle fisherman. I saw it work once, when one of the crew was struck by something like this and drove us all crazy. I remembered it just now."
The boy's mother looked at her brother with hope in her eyes. "Yes, Nuno, what is this technique, you speak of?" She asked.
"Well, as I was saying we were turtle-ing and one of our men had hiccups just like these. Nothing we tried worked: breathing, drinking, nothing, he just kept hiccupping, no-one could sleep. Until late that night, another man just snapped and ran up to the hiccupping man with a knife. The hiccupping man screamed in shock and fear, and just before the other stabbed him, he realized he was cured. The shock of being startled had cured him!" The uncle said, triumphantly.
"You think this can really work, Nuno?" She asked.
"Of course it will work, woman. Did I not just tell you it did?" He said with a note of irritation.
"Of course, I am sorry, Nuno. How will we do it?" She said, deferentially.
"Call the boy into the kitchen. I will hide here behind the door, and when he walks in, I will jump out and yell." He said, and moved behind the door. The woman called to the boy.
"Son, come in here for a minute please." The mother called. The boy got up from the couch and trudged into the kitchen.
"HA!" The uncle screamed as he jumped out from behind the door. The boy screamed in shock and jumped away, fearfully. Recognising is uncle he looked to his mother in confusion.
"What is going on, mother? Why did uncle Nuno jump out at me like this?" He asked.
"I just cured you of hiccups, boy, that's what I was doing. I have scared the hiccups from you." The uncle said, pride in his voice at his accomplishment. The boy felt gratitude.
"Thankyou so very much, Unc-" He began.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
"Aie" The uncle said ruefully and turned his back in shame. The boy felt sorry again, and he looked at his mother sadly and walked from the kitchen, back to his couch.
"Why did it not work, Nuno?" The mother asked. The uncle was too busy thinking to reply. "Well?" She continued.
"Argh, be quiet woman. Can't you see I'm busy thinking?" He replied gruffly. She held her tongue and let him think. "I think," he began, "I think that we did not scare him enough. On the boat the afflicted man genuinely thought he was going to die, so the fear was infinitely greater. We need to replicate this." He said.
"How can we do that, Nuno?" The mother asked, desperately.
"Give me a minute, I have just the thing at home. I will return."
Presently, he returned, with some balled-up cloth under his arm.
"What do you have there, Nuno?" The mother asked.
"I will not tell you, woman, because you might spoil it, and it is of paramount importance that the boy is completely unaware so the fear will be as real as possible. If he is not truly scared then he will have no hope. Now go in there and talk with the boy a minute will you?" He said, fumbling with the package he held awkwardly out of sight of the mother.
"Yes, Nuno." She answered quietly and walked into the loungeroom to her son.
"What is the matter, Momma?" The boy asked when he saw the troubled look upon his mother's face.
"Oh, I am just worried for you, my son. How do you feel?"
"I am Fine" He said.
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again. There was a noise out the back, like the sound of the back door being closed in stealth.
"What was that?" He asked his mother.
"I- I don't know." He answered.
"Where is Uncle?" He asked his mother.
"Ahh, he, um, he went home earlier, rememeber?" She replied.
"Hmm. I will go look." He said and hiccupped once more. His mother flinched again.
"It is probably nothing boy, just a cat. Come back, you need to rest and concentrate on your breathing." She said to him. He ignored he and moved stealthily toward the kitchen and the back door beyond it.
Out from behind the same door, the Uncle jumped, a mask upon his face and a pistol in his hand. "YARRGH! I'll kill you!" He yelled, and brandished the pistol threateningly.
The pistol hiccupped. The mother screamed. The boy slouched despondently to the floor, a rivulet of blood seeping over his fingers as the tried to dam the breach in his gut. From behind his balaclava, the Uncle's eyes were huge and white in pure shock. He was frozen to the spot, watching his nephew sink to the ground and his lifeblood spread. The mother continued her scream as she materialized at the boy's side, holding him desperately. The boy looked up into his mother's crazed eyes.
"Wha-? Why? What is going on?" He said to her, to no-one, to anyone.
The boy coughed blood. The mother wailed.
User Reviews
Submitted by drstrangedhruv (user info) at 2007-10-25 05:30:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-02 18:47:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
you knwo what REAL:LY works? put sugar on your tongue.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-02-02 17:11:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Finally.
*Lies back and lights a cigarette.
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2006-02-02 12:22:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I read that story in the paper last week and couldn't believe someone could be so stupid. Great interpretation.
Submitted by Mr_T (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:14:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Rub gold on them. That cures the ghetto kids
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-02-02 11:09:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hiccups can be a symptom of i think syphillis, or chlamydia. some std can spread to the diaphragm and inflame it causing hiccups that won't go away.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:59:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by cuberat (user info) at 2006-02-02 10:23:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was great.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-02-02 09:53:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 because someone explained where your screen name came from.
i always sort of wondered.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-02-02 09:01:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This ruled.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-02-02 07:48:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The boy hiccupped again. His mother flinched again.
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I loved that, that was mint.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-02-02 06:30:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2006-02-02 05:37:18 (#)
Ranking: 0
well, bigmike, i recommend you also go read 'spiders eyes shine in teh light' about three posts ago of mine, not that long a wait, really.
This one is better than that one. I'm not scared of spiders so I wasn't really particularly impressed by that post. That's just me though and I am glad that most people rated you positively for that one. I usually just kill spiders and get on with my life. I don't worry about them crawling around and getting on me and stuff.
Also, there was just a bit of sarcasm in my earlier reply. Of course it doesn't go over very well here on this interwebby thing.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2006-02-02 05:37:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
well, bigmike, i recommend you also go read 'spiders eyes shine in teh light' about three posts ago of mine, not that long a wait, really.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-02-02 05:22:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
About effing time.
Waiting for you to write something worthwhile is painfully frustrating.
I like the fable-esque nature of this.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2006-02-02 05:04:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Guernsey/gurney?
Great story.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-02-02 05:03:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm too tired and cold to read this. I'll read it in a bit.
Submitted by Kidmc (user info) at 2006-02-02 04:33:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment +2
Submitted by belowground (user info) at 2006-02-02 04:28:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is exceptionally awesome.
Thanks.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-02-02 04:23:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
THE FAITH HEALER! THE FAIIIITTTHHH HEALER!!!
I prefer Sanctuary actually.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-02-02 04:22:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I just nodded appreciatively and smiled a little.