Well. Figure this one out!

I have a disease.

I found out about it pretty early on - my parents let me know that it was hereditary, passed on from one generation to the next. They also told me that it was very dangerous, and sometimes very subtle in its attack. I learned a lot about my disease from a very young age.

As I grew older, I learned even more - and became more and more desperate to rid of it - to cure it. Every physician I went to gave me a "prescription" - one that didn't work very well, some of them even having backward effects. I was hopeless.

Until I heard about one more Physician. I was told that this certain doctor was the best when it came to this disease - that he had cured countless people, never failing once. And, the best part was, you didn't even need an appointment to meet with him!

I soon found out why. He wasn't really accepted among the "intellectuals" of the time - they didn't think he was really a physician at all. They didn't think he had any papers, or any right to proclaim himself the world's best doctor when it came to my specific disease. Well, the only way to find out was to go see him, but I didn't know how to start.

Then I got a message on my answering machine: "Hello, this is the Physician. I can meet with you, if you'd like." It was that simple. I don't even know how he knew my number, but he did.

Meeting him was a bit daunting. He greeted me kindly, but I knew from the start that he really was who he said he was - and that, if he wanted to, he could cure me of my disease.

I asked him right out - "Will it hurt, doctor?"

"Yes." He replied simply, smiling kindly, with a sad look in his eyes. "But the thing about this disease is that it hurts the doctor even more than the patient. That's why there are so few physicians who treat it. Really, there's only me. The rest only think they can help. The patients who go to them end up disappointed and usually worse off than before."

"When can you treat me?"

"Right now, if you'd like. Really, the process is already begun."

After that I don't know much, except that during the surgery I would wake up to see the Physician working, his face contorted with pain. I didn't feel any pain at all. I saw only flashes and glimpses, and then I would fall back into unconsciousness. Until the last time, when I awoke, and heard the Physician say, "It is finished."

When I next awoke he was standing beside me. "Is it all gone?"

His response was calm and confident, and he held my hand as he spoke. "It's beginning to go away. It will remain with you for a while longer, because you will do things to animate it for a while, forgetting that it still has some hold on you. Really, it will only be completely gone when you are dead to this world. But the disease is losing. Now I have a hold on you, and as long as I live, so will you."





Did you guess it? :)