What WOULD you wish on your worst enemy?


A very small, barely noticeable steel splinter in their neck. For the first few years it’s just itchy, but there’s nothing visible to pull out. Just every day it’s slightly itchy, all the time. For years. Then it slowly works its way deeper, past the superficial nerves of the skin. The itchiness is gone. They enjoy a couple weeks of freedom from the mysterious, annoying neck itch before this sliver of metal, no thicker than a human hair, is finally nudged free from the skin and into their artery. It travels a meager 9 inches before becoming stuck again, this time in the valve of their heart causing a minor heart attack and persistent arrhythmia. The cardiologist cannot explain this sudden onset of symptoms in an otherwise healthy young man, no tests point to any obvious cause yet the symptoms continue to worsen. Anticoagulants are prescribed but have no effect. They recommend an MRI.

And there, strapped down in a dark claustrophobic tube, the 20-kilowatt magnet kicks on and this troublesome splinter is ejected through their ventricle, leaving little exit wounds in its wake on its way sideways through the other chambers and valves of the heart. The heart fails, flooded from the inside unable to maintain pressure, they die alone.