Most sympathetic reader, I write to you now after having experienced the ceaseless tracts of hacks and heavings of a whining, whimpering flu.

In that loathsome state, begging for extra blankies, something unexpected happened. I began to get angry. I’ve been angry before of course, smashed the odd toe or hammered the increasingly odd thumb and let fly, spewing hot words from a sharp tongue, but never while sick. I’ve always been far too busy. I mean, it takes a lot of time to sook for Sprite. I’ve never been able to squeeze anger in before.

This moment was special and had to be seized. I would use this anger to fight back, but how? I knew full well that since the illness was fully entrenched within my person it was there that the battle would take place. The first strike would be the nose.

My nose had stopped working, I mean, how is that fair? There really is nothing so maddening as a nose which refuses to nose. So you’ll understand well my next action, that of joyously smashing my face against the wall. Success! Fantastic profusions of fluid geysering all about. Admittedly, the nose has found a new and altogether more exciting function.

Spurred on, I decisively moved to address some of my other symptoms. A nauseated stomach had ground me to a halt for far too long, so I immediately took the sensible action of repeated body blows. With each successive collision of bony fist with roiling meat, new and unknown sensations came roaring. Magnificent grunting gonzos of gastric gore burst to life. The illness was surely on the ropes now, although still it fought back. New symptoms emerged, a watering right eye and searing cramps in my left leg. Unbowed I knew just how to tackle this problem.

I hobbled downstairs, ooze dripping from most of my holes, to secure the necessary tools: A melon baller and an axe. The order of things is surprisingly important. Throw a frog into boiling hot water and he’ll promptly jump out, put one into cold water and slowly raise the temperature and the frog will happily remain in until cooked. Put in other terms, melon ball an eye out and your precision with an axe would almost certainly decrease, however, if the leg were chopped off first, vision and dexterity would be fully available for melon baller use.

The leg came off quickly and cleanly and the melon baller scooped that watering eye out with no trouble at all. I howled in victory, before promptly passing out.

I have cured that leg of cramps for all time. Why you could easily cure all disease: you just have to kill the patients, that’s rational right? That’s sane, surely that’s as sane as fixing financial problems by closing libraries and taxing books. If you can’t afford society, simply get rid of the society, that’s rational adult problem-solving, right?

There is one thing I’m not quite sure of, one thing which keeps worrying its way into the back of my mind, a question about the future. I’ll ask it to you, it sometimes helps to say things out loud; Do you think being crippled and half-sighted might affect my future in some negative way?