2420. Grateful for small mercies

When Chloe lost her head it was terribly dramatic. She lost her head not in a figurative way, but literally – when she crashed her car into a power pole. At the same time she also lost both arms and everything from her belly button up.

“Thank goodness she still has two legs,” said her mother, “else she wouldn’t be able to get around. I’m more than aware of the sacrifice I have to make to feed her through tubes in her knees. It takes up a lot of my time. But how lucky can one get? One has to admit that when the specialists sewed her two legs onto a wooden plank so she could walk again she was lucky to survive the operation. It was touch and go for a while. One must be grateful for small mercies.”

“Of course,” continued Chloe’s mother, “she costs me a small fortune in shoes, but it is balanced by her not needing anything else to wear. And if she’s feeling creative – mothers know these things – I decorate her legs with removable tattoo thingies and sometimes with ribbons.”

“When her legs are all dolled up what a pretty picture she presents. Everyone who passes in the street stares mouth agape in obvious admiration.”

2187. Alien first aid

Poor Mrs. Mabel Bloxham had been chosen at random and abducted by aliens. They were taking her back to their home planet for investigation.

Normally Mabel wouldn’t have minded. In fact, she would enjoy the adventure, but in this case they had snatched her away and she was without her medication.

She asked the aliens in the flying saucer on the way (she did so via the exfibbertranslaticator) if they had extra advanced medical knowledge and could zap her back to full health. They answered that human physical makeup was so different from theirs that their advanced medicine would offer no advantage. That was why they wanted to examine her to learn more about the bodies of Earthlings. Then they might be of help.

Mrs. Mabel Bloxham’s problem was that she had no legs. Her legs were artificial. She had to take pills to stabilize things.

Upon examination the aliens were astounded. They had no idea when they abducted her that she was legless.

The aliens were from an advanced civilization. They had no word for war. They had no word for pain. They had no word for bad. They simply spread kindness throughout the universe. Which was why, when they arrived on Earth to help the humans, they cut off everyone’s legs.

1674. The tale of a prosthetic leg

Chrissy was not her real name; it’s a pseudonym. Name and gender have been changed to protect the identity of those concerned. The trouble Chrissy had (she now lived alone but years ago had married a returned soldier who had lost a leg in the war. The husband had taken off after a few years, and according to Chrissy, his whereabouts was unknown) was not that she hadn’t got rid of the body. Over time and bit by bit she had destroyed her husband’s corpse. There was only one difficulty: what to do with his prosthetic leg? It was made mainly of metal and plastic. Since her husband’s murderous demise she had kept his leg hidden in a tall slender vase she kept at the front door. She used the tall vase as an umbrella stand.

Chrissy had neither the skill nor the tools to disassemble the leg. It was a millstone around her neck. It was the last remnant of evidence that could send her to prison for her dastardly deed. You see, as already implied, Chrissy had murdered her husband and concocted a story that he had left her and disappeared into the wide world. Not only was the prosthetic leg indestructible, but it had been the murder weapon. In a moment of passion Chrissy had picked up the leg while her husband was in the shower and swiped him over the head with it.

The strike to the head didn’t actually kill him, but knocked him out. With considerable effort Chrissy had blocked the shower plughole and her husband was drowned in the rising water.

That was the beginning of Chrissy’s slow and methodical destruction of evidence.

If you have a suggestion as to what to do with the prosthetic leg I’d be very keen to hear.