Czardas
07-02-2006, 15:12
The Forens Memorial Hospital outside the small town of Troen-Joltaff in eastern Czardas is by no means a particularly remarkable building. Mustard-colored brick, a low-slung and fairly small building, with the gastrointestinal and cardiovascular departments sharing the same office and the maternity ward about the size of a two-bedroom apartment. Nonetheless, it is the only hopsital servicing some two hundred thousand Czardaian citizens residing in the wild southeastern mountains, of which about one-twentieth actually trust these newfangled contraptions and medicines enough to pay the hospital a visit.
One of these is a progressive young fellow named Biltz, who is a farmer in the upper mountains, raising wheat and vegetables for the people of a small village of about sixty inhabitants nearby. The only reason why he has come down from his abode is due to the imminent arrival of a new addition to his family of five. Our hero is old-fashioned in that he would prefer boys to girls, in order that he might have help to till the farm when his years have advanced suitably. Naturally, due to this hope, all of his three small children are of the female variety, which is why he has kept attempting to produce a boy...
As Biltz sits outside the maternity ward, worrying and waiting, he finally hears the prophetic screams of an infant, and a doctor rushes in brandishing the baby and saying, "It's a g..."
He stops dead. For a very good reason.
The room is full of journalists and reporters holding cameras and scribbling on pads, their chatter enveloping all of the nervous fathers-to-be waiting outside. They seem to have materialized out of thin air, and brandishing their instruments they advance upon the hapless doctor, the infant, and our young farmer.
One of them, carrying a microphone, who appears to be the leader of the motley crew, declaims to international news stations, "We are here at Forens Memorial Hospital in eastern Czardas. This is a momentous day in Czardaian history, for this baby—" he indicates the wailing infant— "is the two billionth citizen of Czardas to date. That is correct... Czardas has become the 19,542nd country to achieve two billion citizens. How do you feel, Mr.—" The leader holds the microphone out to Mr. Biltz, who stutters incoherently.
After a few minutes of watching our hero struggle to speak, the leader takes back the microphone with a swish of his hand. "That's the spirit! What are you planning to name the baby? After her mother? Her grandmother?"
At that point, the new father faints. Not because the two billionth Czardaian has just been born to him, but because he has just realized that his wife has given him a fourth girl. Before passing into unconsciousness, he makes a mental note to talk to her about it when they get home.
Later on, the videotape was broadcast on all international television stations, although due to a scandalous act of vandalism by the People's Depopulation Front of Czardas involving a pickle, some nitric acid, twelve yards of string, and a tennis racket, much of the broadcast would be unintelligible. Fortunately, the words "two billionth citizen" and a few others were clearly decipherable, although the picture sometimes had its own ... issues (sometimes it was not displayed at all; sometimes it managed to turn the scene upside down; sometimes it showed the wrong broadcast altogether, getting mixed up with some... unusual videos being watched at the same time by a member of the sound crew, who shall remain nameless...).
One of these is a progressive young fellow named Biltz, who is a farmer in the upper mountains, raising wheat and vegetables for the people of a small village of about sixty inhabitants nearby. The only reason why he has come down from his abode is due to the imminent arrival of a new addition to his family of five. Our hero is old-fashioned in that he would prefer boys to girls, in order that he might have help to till the farm when his years have advanced suitably. Naturally, due to this hope, all of his three small children are of the female variety, which is why he has kept attempting to produce a boy...
As Biltz sits outside the maternity ward, worrying and waiting, he finally hears the prophetic screams of an infant, and a doctor rushes in brandishing the baby and saying, "It's a g..."
He stops dead. For a very good reason.
The room is full of journalists and reporters holding cameras and scribbling on pads, their chatter enveloping all of the nervous fathers-to-be waiting outside. They seem to have materialized out of thin air, and brandishing their instruments they advance upon the hapless doctor, the infant, and our young farmer.
One of them, carrying a microphone, who appears to be the leader of the motley crew, declaims to international news stations, "We are here at Forens Memorial Hospital in eastern Czardas. This is a momentous day in Czardaian history, for this baby—" he indicates the wailing infant— "is the two billionth citizen of Czardas to date. That is correct... Czardas has become the 19,542nd country to achieve two billion citizens. How do you feel, Mr.—" The leader holds the microphone out to Mr. Biltz, who stutters incoherently.
After a few minutes of watching our hero struggle to speak, the leader takes back the microphone with a swish of his hand. "That's the spirit! What are you planning to name the baby? After her mother? Her grandmother?"
At that point, the new father faints. Not because the two billionth Czardaian has just been born to him, but because he has just realized that his wife has given him a fourth girl. Before passing into unconsciousness, he makes a mental note to talk to her about it when they get home.
Later on, the videotape was broadcast on all international television stations, although due to a scandalous act of vandalism by the People's Depopulation Front of Czardas involving a pickle, some nitric acid, twelve yards of string, and a tennis racket, much of the broadcast would be unintelligible. Fortunately, the words "two billionth citizen" and a few others were clearly decipherable, although the picture sometimes had its own ... issues (sometimes it was not displayed at all; sometimes it managed to turn the scene upside down; sometimes it showed the wrong broadcast altogether, getting mixed up with some... unusual videos being watched at the same time by a member of the sound crew, who shall remain nameless...).