"I am Doctor Munchausen. Call me Doctor, call me Dok, I care not. I am here to look into your mind and fix what is broken. Speak up girl! Tell me why you are here so I may cure you and be done with it! I have no time for foolish games!"


The young girl looked up timidly as the tall doctor paced the small room. He was agitated today, refusing to settle into his chair as usual and let her do all the talking. Instead he prowled the room, anxious to be somewhere, anywhere but here with her. The worst was that he did not shout, his voice rose barely above speaking tones, but somehow the coldness in it could pierce the silence as sharply as if he had bellowed at her.

Before he could begin the words that she knew were on the way, she spoke in a voice that itself was barely a whisper.


"I'm here for my appointment Doctor...my parents send me to you so that you might cure me of the dark thoughts that make me hurt myself."


Abruptly the Dok stopped pacing and sat down heavily into the white leather chair that was the throne of his kingdom. His sharp blue eyes narrowed and he seemed to be peering through rather than at her face. Softly he spoke.


"Go on and show me your arms then girl, so that I can tell if you are lying. Have you hurt yourself this week?"


Anyone listening at the office door would have thought they heard a tone of gentleness, almost compassion in the Doctor's voice at that statement. The girl however knew different, she could see his eyes and the coldness that lay there, unfettered by the usual human feelings of pity and concern. Shaking slightly, she rolled back the sleeves of her shirt and turned her arms over to show him the soft undersides.

From her wrist to her elbow, new bandages covered her arms, the faint stains of blood beginning to show through in long lines. The Doctor looked at them dispassionately and tears began to stand out in the young girl's eyes. Slowly standing, he turned away from the girl and looked out the window at the summer garden his workers had carefully planted according to his guidelines.


"I'm sorry my dear, but if you cannot keep from injuring yourself for a mere week...then I'm afraid there is very little I can do to help you. We have been through this time and time again, and yet you seem to either ignore my instructions, or stubbornly refuse to follow them. This cannot continue, I can only see one solution..."



He was in a round room, hungry spectators on all sides of him, looking to see what miracles he would perform today. On the table in front of him was a young girl nearly identical to the one he had just been speaking to. He clears his throat as his assistant approaches and a hush falls over the crowd. He holds his breath, and then twin flashes of steel and blood signal that the job is done. The girl lies on the table like before, only now there are two small holes on either side of her forehead from which the evils had been let go.



The Doctor shook his head and sat at the desk where he would later write the young girl a note giving her access to pills that would weaken both her mind and her body. She would no longer hurt herself, that was true, but her parents would never see the daughter that they once had. The girl that he returned to them would be a mere husk of the daughter they knew.