- Project 1109 - Exploration 1 -

Syphilis! Such a beautiful name for such an awful affliction. Reminds me of a girl named Phyllis whom I courted briefly in 1974. I took her to the annual crawfish boil. I'm sure I wasn't her only paramour; Harvard was a wild place back then. I suppose I'm lucky to have caught neither Phyllis nor syphilis.

Curiously, this altered strain has none of the usual external markers. No chancre, no rash on the palms; it seemingly progresses directly to the tertiary stage with a devastating attack upon the nervous system.

Dr. Boone is convinced that his wife contracted the disease through a deliberate dosage, not via sexual contact. I have no reason to doubt him. All her victims died during their liaisons, after all, with no chance to infect others.

Yet she did leave a residuum behind, on their exposed spines -- HAH! A venereal disease transmitted merely by necking! No prophylactic for that, I'll wager! Might this "ZFT" have an abstinence agenda? A cautionary tale for the youth, in the form of a syphilitic spinal vampire?

Mrs. Boone's need to refuel creates a hunger for cerebrospinal fluid, which she slakes by actually suckling the exposed spinal column. Much as a Cajun would! For as any true crawfish connoisseur knows, proper consumption of requires squeezing its metasoma so as to extract the edible portion within, and then sucking upon its prosoma to ingest its juices. The best preparation involves quick-boiling in a vat over a propane flame, preferably with Solanum tuberosum, Allium cepa, Zea mays, and (my personal secret, which I have revealed to no one) just a few slices of Citrus sinensis with peel to add orangey zest.

Phyllis sometimes smelt of orange, too. A coincidence, I'm sure.

The crustacean should be followed by a cold fermented beverage, preferable a lager. The fermentation process -- oh! The penicillin's fermentation must be nearly complete. Killing a bacterium with a fungus! Pathogen vs. pathogen! Marvelous. Fleming, you accidental genius.