"You made me invisible? How do you even explain that?" Foreman shouted to the ceiling.
How does anyone explain anything? How do explain your explainations? How do you know your explainations are actually explaining what you'd want them to explain?
"That doesn't even make sense!
You don't make sense!
"Ooh, clever. I can see why you're the writer, here, you're obviously much sma- ow!" Foreman's sentence stopped mid-way, as a foam bat decided at that moment to mysteriously appearout of thin air and mysteriouslyswing itself upside his head.
I can do worse than that, too, you little bugger. I've got real, metal and woodenbats in my arsenal. I've got cannons, anvils, ten-ton bank safes, and a catapault that hurls bovine and large geese. I have everything. I'm the writer, remember?
"Oh, right, you've got 'all power'. Whatever." He jumped back as the foam bat floated to eye-level again, then held out his hands in a guarded position. "Alright, alright! I get it. You are god, fine. Just get on with the story, will you?"
Hey, I say when we get on with the story. And I don't want to right now, okay?
"Fine." Foreman crossed his arms over his chest and a long, uncomfortable pause ensued. This pause went on for several minutes while elevator music filtered through the room as if coming from crackly speakers. It was really horrible elevator music, too... like John Tesh or Kenny G or Abba orsomething.
Alright, I think it's time to continue with the story now.
"Why do I feel like I've had someone following me all day?" Dr. Chase asked to the room around him. "And I feel like someone's been doing that shoulder-tapping trick, where they tap on the opposite shoulder of where they're standing, then you turn around and make a fool of yourself."
Dr. Foreman snickered as he followed Chase and Cameron and several nurses down thehallway, occasionally poking and prodding at certainpeople to test his control over goingcoporeal at will.He pinched the bottom ofan attractive nursejust as Chase walked by, and the nurse swung around to face the Australiandoctor. Taking one look at his girlish appearance, she could only assume he was a frilly boy so sheslapped Cameron instead.
"Hey! Thatwas uncalled for!" Cameron cried, tears brimming her eyes as she sniffled like a little fiver-year-old. "Sometimes I have the odd feeling that people aren't...good. Or fair. Or nice." Shestiffled a soband put her hand to her mouth. "It's strange, I know, but I feel... cynical!"
"No!" Chase gasped.
"Yeah!"
Foreman took this moment to tap on Chase's shoulder and make the doctor spin around and around like a dog chasing its tail, looking for the culprit. Not finding anyone near enough, he grumbled and squealed as if throwing a temper-tantrum and continued walking, turning down the hall and into the little gathering meeting room, where House was rocking and sobbing in the corner. Wilson was watching him while reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.
"How long's he been like that?" Cameron asked.
"An hour or so, I think. I went to get some gum earlier and I came back and he was in the corner. He's been crying for much longer, though. He tried making a crack at the fact that I've been divorced three times, but he failed and it came out sympathetic."
House wailed in agony and Cameron walked over to him. She looked down, her hands on her hips, with a faltering smile. Suddenly, the smile fell apart altogether and she just kicked him.
Jumping back, she put her hands to her face in shock. "Omigosh, I didn't mean to do that! I meant to hug him!"
House hadn't seemed to notice the kick, though, and replied with a half-hearted, "You're so nice all the time. Stop." Realizing his horrible attempt to hurt her feelings, he pulled his legs closer to him, fell over into the fetal position, and started gnawing on his cane.
"Uh oh," Wilson said, hardly looking over at House. "I think that was the brink, and he just took a swan dive over it." To emphasize his point, he motioned falling with one hand and made a whistling noise like a cartoon bomb being dropped.
"Oh, that's so insenitive!" Cameron said, but her words were punctuated by small fits of giggles.
Chase was trying to wrestle House's cane away from him before he chewed it in half, but House was holding onto it with a death grip, his eyes staring vacantly at Chase's shoes.
"Your shoes are too shiny," he mumbled, refusing to stop gnawing on the cane. This sentence erupted a flood of tears from the diagnostician and a girlish squeal from Chase.
"Egads! My shoes can't be too shiny, it'd throw off the entire ensamble! Quick, someone get me some dust! No, wait, that'd be too dirty... Maybe I could change shoes. Brown ones.. No, I'm wearing a black belt! Oh, the horror! OH, maybe I have-"
"Shut up!" Cameron screamed. She clenched her mouth shut and sat down at the table, breathing rhythmically as if trying to calm herself.
Wilson stared at her. "Hey, you wanna be my fifth wife? You're way hot."
"What! No, you adulterating pig!"
Wilson shrugged nonchalantly and continued reading the paper, casting a few glances and winks toward Cameron while Chase whimpered and fretted more over his shiny shoes. He took to looking in the mirror and trying to rub the shininess off the shoes with dirt from a potted plant, but it just made a mess all over the office floor.
Cameron slouched in her chair, frowning miserably. She tore off a leaf from the potted plant and started ripping it into little bits, "Oh, nothing matters, does it? Why am I even in this job? The people don't respect the things you do, really, they just want you to save their life, then they complain about the bill like money is all that matters in the world. And the family of the patients, they get all uptight about us not doing the work fast enough or good enough, and it's like 'If your wife or whatever gets saved, does it really matter how it happened?' then they sue you for being rude. People suck."
Wilson sipped his coffee and nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, isn't that horrible... Hey, you wanna go out some day?"
Cameron looked at him disgustedly, "You're married!"
"Oh, like that's ever stopped me."
Chase cut in, "Hey, do my shoes look alright now? I mean, they're not too dirty looking, right?"
Cameron glared and looked at his shoes, "Whatever. You're still a pansy, you annoying blond kangaroo."
Chase looked at her huffily, his bottom lip quivvering. "You're just.. you're just a mean person!" He squealed and ran to the opposite corner of the room, sitting with his legs against his chest and staring at the shiny/dull factor of his shoes, trying to match it equally with his belt. When he realized that his shoes were pitch black and his belt was only charcoal black, he wailed in horror and started muttering things about not having an extra pair of black shoes in his closet at work.
Foreman, upon seeing all this, looked around curiously. He hadn't messed with House very much that day, spending most of it following around Chase and poking him, and still House was a wreck. He hadn't even planned to mess with Wilson, and the oncologist wasn't acting like himself at all. Cameron was being mean, and he'd hardly messed with her... It seemed like he had no real effect on them. So what could be happening? It was a mystery, and he had to use his newfound powers to get to the bottom of it all.