What the doctor did

Once upon a time, in a reality in which we need not limit our imaginations lived a young man with an exceptionally high level of intelligence. He did not love passionately or feel intensely, but instead, he calculated logically, and deduced mathematically. He laughed and cried with his lips but never with his eyes. Beneath the endless swirling of the vast sky and before the mesmerizing undulations of the sea, he was unmoved. As fate would have it, while driving to a conference in his expensive vehicle one day, the man was involved in an awful, near- fatal auto accident. His friends and family were convinced of his impending death, and, in sad human fashion, began planning what lies they would tell about his ‘goodness’ and ‘kindness’ at his funeral. Contrary to their convictions, however, one doctor bore the opinion that he could still save the man’s life. Unfortunately, though, in order to save him, the doctor had to amputate the young man’s logic. Desperate to save the boy’s life and to prevent themselves from having to plan an expensive funeral, the man’s family agreed to this.

The man returned home after a successful surgery, shaken and in pain, but very much alive. Now, something drastic had changed about the man, the very essence of his previous existence had been taken away from him. Life seemed to him like an alien thing, and the simple everyday tasks seemed near impossible. He could no longer amble through life calculating his every move. He became despondent and downcast. One day, he decided to end the misery, and began plotting his suicide, only to realize that he could not even logically plan his own demise. The man then proceeded to wander the streets aimlessly, hoping to be run over by a truck or accosted by a serial killer. When this failed, he returned home, weeping, only to find out that his family had locked him out of the house, assuming that he had run away.

At the same time, across town, a housewife was doing the laundry when she slipped and fell into the washing machine, which somehow happened to be on spin cycle at the time. By the time her husband got home from work, she had been thoroughly battered, and was severely injured.

He rushed her to the hospital, where the very same doctor who amputated the boy’s logic decided that the only way the woman could be saved was by amputating her imagination. The desperate husband agreed to this. The operation was quick and painless, and later that night, the man and woman returned home from the hospital. They spent a long and sleepless night, wherein the wife constructed many household theorems with regards to such pressing issues as dishwashing and sweeping, punctuated with loud, abrasive shouts of "Eureka!" The next day, when the husband went to work, the woman decided to take a walk through the streets of the town, offering constructive advice to passers- by.

Along the way, she encountered the despondent young man whose logic had been amputated, and, being a perceptive and methodical woman, offered to help the young man to kill himself. Relieved, he accepted. She went to the nearest store and purchased a butcher’s knife, and proceeded to swab the man’s neck with disinfectant before she severed his head. In her supreme intelligence, she lined the nearby streets with napkins, and bought herself splatter proof goggles and a pair of gloves.