TRANSLATOITIS

WARNING: You're gonna have to have a pretty sick sense of humor if you want to enjoy this at ALL. The 'M' rating isn't just because of horrific, disgusting "images" this could give you, but also because this has potential to be funny -- to the right sort of people. No, not once in the entire thing is there a swearword, unless you want to count 'piss'. END WARNING.

This is a dialogue between Jack (your character), the Doctor, Elli, and Anna. Harris (the cop) and Mary (Anna's daughter) play small roles as well. All typos within "(quotes)" are intended. The scene takes place in Mineral Town.

"For the last time, it is NOT your birthday."

"Thanks! This is a wonderful surprise birthday present!" Anna twitched on the floor of the hospital.

"Shut up!" yelled Jack.

"Thank's, this isa wondrful suprise brthday present !" Anna erupted.

"Doctor, for goddess's sake, what's happening to her?"

"The tranlatoitis is getting worse."

"Wait, where is Elli?"

"I sent her away to tell Mary that her mom is not progressing well."

"Oh."

"Tanksthisa wonful bitday prsn.!" said Anna.

"What the h--"

"DOCTOR, I brought the medicine!" Elli re-entered the room.

"Thank you Elli. Now, Jack, you need to calm down. If you swear in Mineral Town, it could deviate the line between our time-space continuum and the real world's time-space continuum."

"Doctor, I think you're catching Anna's translatoitis."

"Don't be an idiot, Jack!" Elli scolded.

"Now, Elli, this situation does not call for that behavior -- Jack simply is not exposed to this sort of illness."

"..." He glared at the Doctor."Thanks..the...present..." Anna paled, and began to shake dangerously.

"We're losing her!"

"Now Elli, don't panic, I'm a trained Doctor..."

"Oh yeah, then what school did you go to?" Jack challenged.

"Jack!"

"Shut up Elli, it's a valid question. Well, answer me."

The doctor hesitated, holding the jar of medicine while Anna turned over and began to throw up:"Mmmmph...suprise...prese -- mmmmeeeccch..."

"Um, she's...vomiting blood, you guys..." Elli started.

"Elli, this is between me and Jack," said the doctor, still struggling to remember what medical school he went to.

"I'm not talking about your argument," huffed Elli, continuing to glance down Mary's convulsing mother, "I'm talking about --"

"Thanks! huuuuuuuuuhl..." Blood covered the floor of the hospital.

"Well, what school?" repeated Jack. The doctor could feel the pressure.

"I -- can't recall." he replied.

"Want to know why?" asked Jack. "Because you never went to medical school."

Elli averted her eyes from Anna throwing up on the floor and gasped. Jack crossed his arms triumphantly, pleased with her reaction. The doctor's mouth hung agape, and he knew it was true.

"b-b-b-...suprise..." Anna panted, now in a seizure-like state.

The three stood tensely in a gunless Mexican standoff, the only sounds coming from Anna twisting and turning on the floor. The looked from one to the other.

"How dare you," condemned the doctor, "how dare you challenge my knowledge!"

"Yes!" agreed Elli, "The doctor is a brilliant man, and I'm sure if we give him some time, he can remember what school he studied at!"

Jack huffed, arms still arrogantly crossed. "I don't know...Anna's flopping around in her own bloody puke and --" Jack sniffed the air, "...bile, and you haven't been able to do anything but stand there with the medicine in your hand. I'm ashamed of you, doctor."

The doctor dropped the medicine and let out a primal yell, leaping at Jack and pinning him down to the ground.

Elli screamed, backing away and almost slipping on Anna's puke and excrement.

"Great...Grete...Grate..." she stuttered.

The doctor threw his fists at Jack, pummeling his face over and over, giving him a bloody nose and several bruises. Elli screamed a few feet away from them, and finally threatened, "I'm calling the cops! I'm calling the cops! If you don't stop, both you're to going jail!"

Immediately Jack and the Doctor stopped fighting. Elli slapped a hand over her mouth.

"What...did you say?" panted Jack through a swollen lip.

"If you don't stop...both...you're...going...to...jail..." her eyes brimmed with tears, and she repeated what she had said again and again, unable to change the grammatical mistake.

"What did you say?" the men asked simultaneously.

The Doctor rose from the straddle he had on Jack's body, and helped his opponent off of the floor with a puke-smeared hand. All three looked at Anna, and then at Elli. "No," she gasped.

"Elli, I'm afraid you have --"

"THANK FOR GRATE PRSNT --"

"It's not your birthday!!" screamed Jack. The Doctor silenced him with a threatening look, and continued:

"You have translatoitis, Elli."

"No," she gasped.

"Yes," replied the Doctor, oblivious to his cold cruelty. "And we only have enough time and medicine to heal one of you," he said, indicating Anna, who was eerily quiet on the linoleum floor. Jack was afraid that she had drowned in her own bile and puke, but he rose no questions, even though informing the Doctor that Anna was dead could prevent Elli from sacrificing herself in vain.

"Enuff one persin? Can't liev I?" she tried quietly. But she knew that she was unintelligible.

"Elli, we can save you, don't worry!" Jack tried to convince her. But she shook her head. "Look...in..."she said, motioning to the medicine container on the floor where the Doctor dropped it.

It was empty.

"What happened?" wondered the Doctor.

"n' cure fr tranitis..."

"She said that there's no cure for translatoitis..." tranlated Jack.

"didn't...wnt to dispoint..." continued Elli, dropping to her knees in the grime.

"She didn't want to disappoint you."

"I...found cntnr in gbage..."

"She found that container in the garba -- "

"ENOUGH!" commanded the Doctor. "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! I didn't want to tell anyone, but translatoitis...it's a highly contagious endemic with no cure!! Soon all of Mineral Town will have died violent, bloody, smelly and strange deaths like Anna's --" he dramatically swung his arm to Anna's corpse, "-- and there is nothing I could have done!! Nothing!!"

"Doctor...I...I..." Elli tried and gulped. Tears streamed down her face as she began to shake. "I ou loev..."

They all took it in.

"What?" whispered the Doctor, dropping to his knees. Elli crawled toward him, her drool joining Anna's fluids on the floor.

"I ou loev..."

The Doctor looked to Jack in panic and desperation for a translation. He was poking Anna's dead body with a scalpel. "Good goddess, man, what did she say?!" the Doctor demanded of him.

Jack looked over, annoyed, and shrugged. He gave Anna a violent stab in her gut and pulled out some fish she ate earlier. "Oops," Jack mumbled.

Elli pulled at the Doctor's robe. "I...ou...loev..."

Again the Doctor looked at Jack, but he was eating Anna's digested fish.

"Oh, Elli...I can't understand you, but can you understand me?"

She drooled heavily, twitched violently, but managed to nod.

"Just know one thing...Elli, I..."

She gazed at the Doctor with the most loving look she could give in her condition. "Y -- es...?" she encouraged.

"Elli, after you die, I want you to know..."

"Y -- es...?"

"...that I'm going to look in your wallet for that five gold you owe me. Is that okay?"

Elli's look of love turned to disbelief. She convulsed, threw up in the Doctor's lap, and died.

"Elli? Is it okay? Elli! Answer me!" the Doctor bellowed. Jack covered his ears.

"ELLI!! NOOOO!!!" he tossed her dead body beside Anna's and covered his head with his hands, getting all her vomit in his hair.

Suddenly, the door of the hospital flew open.

"Mom!!" cried Mary, and stopped short. The sight of her mother dead beside Elli, smeared in puke and piss, traumatized her to a point of dumb speechlessness. Harris entered the room behind her. "What's going on?!" he demanded, and also stopped short.

"No! Don't come in here!" begged the Doctor. "You'll spread the disease!"

"Sir, you're under arrest..." began Harris numbly, taking out his handcuffs, "...for the murder of Anna M- - - - and Elli R- - - -."

The Doctor accepted defeat...then looked around for Jack. "Where's Jack?" he asked Harris.

"I'll have to know you're real name..." continued Harris, "and here's your rights, I'll read them out loud outside..."

Mary stood, dumbstruck, staring at her mother's body.

"No, but where's Jack?" cried the doctor.

"Are you insane?!" bellowed Harris, in a sudden jump of emotion. "Jack isn't here! No one is here but you! You are under arrest, did you hear me? You killed both of them!"

The Doctor yelled, over and over, "Where's Jack?", but Harris was stronger than he and the Doctor was brought to the mayor's house. Mary continued to stand there. No one noticed the broken window, and the fork with the engraved words, 'Property of Jack of Mineral Town' beside Anna's grit-soaked head.

F I N

co-written with Max Radio