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The doctor took one look and slammed steel shutters of survival. He ordered the burning bed and its occupant immedi- ately evicted from the hospital premises. "Guess he can make his own penicillin!" snarled the doctor. But the infection burned the mold out... Lee lived now in varying degrees of transparency... While not exactly invisible he was at least difficult to see. His presence attracted no special notice.... People covered him with a project or dismissed him as a reflection, shadow: "Some kinda light trick or neon advertise- ment." Now Lee felt the first seismic tremors of Old Faith- ful the Cold Burn. He pushed Miguel's spirit into the hall with a kind, firm tendril. "Jesus!" said Miguel. "I gotta go!" He rushed out. Pink fires of histamine spurted from Lee's glowing core and covered his raw periphery. (The room was fireproof, the walls of iron blistered and spotted with moon craters.) He took a large fix and falsified his schedule. He decided to visit a colleague, NG Joe, who got hooked during a Bang-utot attack in Honolulu. (Note: Rang-utot, literally, "attempting to get up and groaning..." Death occurring in the course of a nightmare... The condition occurs in males of S.E. Asiatic extraction.... In Manila about twelve cases of death by Bang-utot are recorded each year. One man who recovered said that "a little man" was sitting on his chest and strangling him. Victims often know that they are going to die, ex- press the fear that their penis will enter the body and kill them. Sometimes they cling to the penis in a state of shrieking hysteria calling on others for help lest the penis escape and pierce the body. Erections, such as normally occur in sleep, are considered especially dan- gerous and liable to bring a fatal attack.... One man devised a Rube Goldberg contraption to prevent erec- tion during sleep. But he died of Bang-utot. Careful autopsies of Bang-utot victims have revealed no organic reason for death. There are often signs of strangulation (caused by what?); sometimes slight hemorrhages of pancreas and lungs -- not sufficient to cause death and also of unknown origin. It has oc- curred to the author that the cause of death is a mis- placement of sexual energy resulting in a lung erection with consequent strangulation.... [See article by Nils Larsen M.D., The Men with the Deadly Dream in the Saturday Evening Post, December 3, 1955. Also ar- ticle by Erle Stanley Gardner for Time Magazine.] ) NG lived in constant fear of erection so his habit jumped and jumped. |
