Never give a sucker an even break!

Posted on Thu Jul 14th, 2011 @ 5:28am by Commander Basil Hart

532 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Orbital Yard Project Athena I
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Present

ON

Basil was wiped out. Another 14 hour shift had left him sore, tired, and irritable. He needed to relax. Sitting down at his computer terminal, he called up the station's internal sensor records. "I'll rest after I gather more data on the behavioral changes that virus caused," he said to no one in particular.

He yawned as he began watching the sensor logs. Then, one caught his eye. One of the enlisteds ran into the shuttle bay without a stitch of clothing on, yelling, "Run, run, run as fast as you can! Can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man" The crew man turned, looked right at the sensor, and curtseyed before running off, giggling.

Basil chuckled in spite of himself. The scene was just so absurd that despite the severity of the situation, it struck him as funny.

He ran a few more scenes, and realized he was punchy. A pretty female yeoman pirouetted into the view of another video recorder. She was wearing an old style peasant dress and singing in a high girlish voice, "Someday, my prince will come, in the Millennium!"

Basil burst out laughing. He couldn't help himself. He started searching for the more extreme symptoms. Along came another man wearing a bunny suit and eating a carrot. He was followed closely by a short, squat man in hunter's garb, and shouting, "Come back here and fight like a man, you wascally wabbit!"

Basil positively guffawed. As he watched more and more of the crew succumb to the effects of the virus, he became more and more lighthearted He chortled with glee at the antics of a man and a woman on the promenade spouting lines from ro0mantic plays. Another was spouting Shakespeare to a small Andorian. "No larger from head to foot than from side to side, she was SPHERICAL like a globe! I could count out countries in her!" Not hearing a response, then crew man kept the dialog going. "The Netherlands? Oh, SIR! I did not look so low!"

He howled with laughter, his sides hurt. there were tears of mirth rolling down his cheeks. More and more involuntary comic antics burst forth on the screen. Basil was almost blinded by the tears in his eyes.

Then a scene flashed before his eyes. A man and a woman were engaged in a romantic liaison: in the middle of Weapons Control. Several others were cheering them on. He overheard one of them mention the name, "Caligula".

He quickly skipped that scene and stopped laughing. He had forgotten that not all fantasies were funny. Some were embarrassing, and others were dangerous.

"Computer, end sensor log playback."

The computer complied.

Basil Hart sighed and shook his head sadly. "I know better than that," he chastised himself. He promised himself right then and there that he would NEVER do such a thing again. It was a violation of his Hippocratic Oath. If these records ever got out, lives would be ruined. Slowly, he made his way to his quarters where he laid down on his bed and promptly fell fast asleep, wondering how he could seal those records.

OFF

Commander Basil Hart
Chief Medical Officer,
Star Base Typhon

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