INSEMINATION FAIL

B. McGILLICUDDY

Patrick Andrews is in pain. He thinks it is probably his appendix. It feels like there is a four-foot steal rod that is being repeatedly forced in and out of his gut, bypassing all of his organs except for one he wasn't aware existed, and it's giving him a headache.

Patrick goes to the hospital in search of medical attention. He is afraid his appendix has ruptured and he may only have minutes to live. He is convinced that he is going to die. He is convinced that he will never finish his term paper because he will die before he finishes it.

The nurse tells him to wait. He waits. There is nothing he can do but sit in the waiting room and wait. There are other people around him with different looks on each of their faces. Most of them look like they are convinced that they are going to die. There are fish in the fish tank. Possibly one of every saltwater fish in existence. With the exception of a sardine. Sardines might be freshwater fish. Patrick is not a ichthyologist. He is dying. And it's giving him a headache.

He tries to imagine a beach in Maui, to distract him from the pain. He imagines a beautiful woman on a beach in Maui, suntanning and being calm getting assaulted by a fleet of unusually aggressive crabs that are not indigenous to Hawaii, but came from a South-Asian archipelago aboard a ship and supplanted the original crab population by being unusually aggressive. They pin the beautiful woman down and they take turns pinching her appendix with their claws. Patrick Andrews starts to cry.

The doctor tells Patrick Andrews that he has pancreatic cancer and will have to undergo chemotherapy, but probably won't make it. Patrick is surprised, but only a very little bit surprised. Later, the nurse that told Patrick to wait offers him sex on account of his not living for very much longer. He declines. He is not attracted to her because he is a homosexual.

The nurse sits in her bed and cries from 10p.m. until 5a.m. because she does not feel pretty and thinks that if terminally ill men do not want to sleep with her then she will never have children, but then she eats a 32-ounce tub of Edy's chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream and is over it. At 3:07a.m. Patrick Andrews is on a comfortable dose of morphine and decides to jump out of a window at the hospital. His last thought is about a puppy.

B. McGILLICUDDY