The original of Laura

MEDICAL INTERMEZZO

"Install yourself," said the youngish suntanned, cheerful Dr. Aupert, indicating, openheartedly an armchair at the north rim of his desk, and proceeded to explain the necessity of a surgical intervention. He showed A.N.D. one of the dark grim urograms that had been taken of A.N.D.'s rear anatomy. The globular shadow of an adenoma eclipsed the greater part of the whitish bladder. This benign tumor had been growing on the prostate for some fifteen years and was now as many times its size. The unfortunate gland with the great gray parasite clinging to it could and should be removed at once. "And if I refuse? said A.N.D. "Then, one of these days[…"]

[Provisional ending]

Miss Ure, this is the Ms of my last chapter which you will, please, type out in three copies — I need the additional one for prepub in Bud, or some other magazine. Several years ago, when I was still working at the Horloge Institute of Neurology, a silly female interviewer introduced me in a silly radio series ("Modern Eccentrics") as a gentle oriental sage, founder of the manuscript in longhand of Wild's last chapter, which at the time of his fatal heart attack, ten blocks away, his typist, Sue U, had not had time to tackle because of urgent work for another employer, was deftly plucked from her hand by that other fellow to find a place of publication more permanent than Bud or Root. Winny Carr, waiting for her train on the station platform of Sex, a delightful Swiss resort lamed for its crimson plums, noticed her old friend Flora on a bench near the bookstall with a paperback in her lap. This was the soft cover copy of Laura issued virtually at the same time as its stouter and comelier hardback edition. She had just bought it at the station bookstall, and in answer to Winny's jocular remark ("hope you'll enjoy the story of your life") said she doubted if she could force herself to start reading it. Oh you must! said Winny. It is, of course, fictionalized and all that, but you'll come face to face with yourself at every corner. And there's your wonderful death. Let me show you your wonderful death. Damn, here's my train. Are we going together? "I'm not going anywhere. I'm expecting somebody. Nothing very exciting. Please let me have my book."

"Oh, but I simply must find that passage for you. It's not quite at the end. You'll scream with laughter. It's the craziest death in the world." "You'll miss your train," said Flora.

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that shall keep it free from any interruption, tired eyes. Such as hypnagogic gargoyles or the entoplic swarms of a vertical line chalked against a plum-tinged darkness over one's collection of coins or insects.

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a [?] or a little skeleton but that [?]

This goes with the self-destruction. In this very special self-hypnotic state there can be no question of getting out of touch with oneself and floating into a normal sleep (unless you are very tired at the start). To break the trance all you do is to restore in every chalk-bright detail the simple picture of yourself, a stylized skeleton on your mental blackboard. One should remember, however, that the divine delight in destroying, say, one's breastbone should not be indulged in. Enjoy the destruction, but do not linger over your own ruins lest you develop an incurable illness or die before you are ready to die.

The delight of getting under an ingrown toenail with sharp scissors and snipping off the offending corner affords the added ecstasy of finding beneath it an amber abscess whose blood flows, carrying away the ignoble pain. But with age I could not bend any longer toward my feet and was ashamed to present them to a pedicure.