prompt: undulate, title: the moral arc of the universe in misc. flash fiction

For a stretch of time in the early 20th century, the most effective treatment for advanced syphilis was to intentionally infect with malaria on top of the syphilis. It induced a high-fever that killed off the neurosyphilis then they’d treat patients with quinine to kill off the malaria. About fifteen percent of the time, though, the quinine didn’t work, and they died of malaria instead. This was considered miraculous, though, because advanced syphilis infection killed nearly one-hundred percent of the time when it went untreated. Someone won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for this, for only killing one out of eight people instead of all eight.

This is the history of the human race, how progress actually works. Fits and starts, often literally, if you consider pyrotherapy and electro-shock, starts and fits in hopes lesser torments can cure even worse ones. I wonder if they tried it on Hitler. That’s the other half of history, the what ifs we’ll never know, how they come and they go. We attempt to minimize suffering, reduce harm as best we can and then are left to guess whether we did right or if the sacrifices we enforced and endured were actually worth it.

History comes and goes, humanity comes and goes, not in simple narratives rather in gradients of pain-management, stumbling toward understanding, limping forward toward some slightly better tomorrow. We just take the amount of comfort we can get for now and see what happens next.

My brother hasn’t had a seizure in years, but he discovered his epilepsy when we lived together in L.A. It was hell for him, he’s a brilliant proud man, not only hell to deal with until the right combination of surgeries and drugs came along, but also hell admitting weaknesses he couldn’t think or work around. One night, his girlfriend’s dog was doing a little happy dance underneath the coffee table, rolling on her back, we watched her shimmy shake and undulate, kicking legs wildly, begging for treats. He looked at me and said, “You know, I taught her that.”

Oh, how we darkly laughed and oh. how that dark laughter was the only mercy available in that moment and place. A half-measure balm in Gilead. Malaria for syphilis, metaphorically, maybe.

In the Eighties, there was for a brief time, a worldwide whoopie cushion shortage, according to sources, who knows if they’re true. The HIV-AIDS epidemic was finally being taken seriously worldwide and there were so many rubber gloves and other protection-products being produced to guard doctors from infection there wasn’t enough to go around for pranks involving simulated flatulence. It was much harder to make Whoopie Cushions then and it was appropriately harder to be making whoopie safely too. AIDS eventually became a manageable disease with the right drugs and those fake farts came back too, but it took work, work and time. Here’s hoping work and time do it once again. God knows we could all use a few decent laughs right now.

Last updated April 04, 2020