[Cast thou eyes upon a shambling, wretched, pock-marked woman, cloaked in filth. Dark music doth bellow through the howling winds from a bladder pipe and frame drum.]

Hither, ist thou sad? Perchance, doth thou feel pain. Art thou pitchkettled by discomfort from sweating sickness, St. Anthony’s Fire, or common everyday bubonic plague? Mayhap, thou may be suffering from Unbalanced Humors.

Bloodletting can help.

[Anon, thy same woman is a touch cleaner, more in jest, dancing with her family at a festival, tasting bread and mutton from merchants, taking note of performing minstrels. Grammarcy, brighter music regales her from a lute and tabor pipe.]

Regular bloodletting doth balance thy four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile;  thither with our worldly elements: air, fire, earth, and water. When joyously mixed with exercise and poultices of dung, bloodletting may bringeth thou relief, whether thou be moist or dry, sanguine or phlegmatic.

[Taketh thou a closer glance at thy woman. Her skin doth shine and she dances to festive music.]

Bloodletting is not for all, particularly if thou have a family history of death. Side effects may comprise death, frequent trips to the privy, intense swelling of most body parts, bitter taste, lack of desire for fluids or life, sepsis, shortness or total absence of breath, but most likely, death.

[Cast thou eyes to the heavens to embrace the potential of less suffering and filth.]

Prithee, ask thou clergy or barber about bloodletting. Stop being sad, and thus begin being dead, with bloodletting.

————

Ken Carlson is the author of GET OUT OF MY WAY! THE ANNOYED COMMUTER’S HANDBOOK. Recently, he has published humorous essays online for Clever Magazine, Conceit, and Variety Pack, as well as short stories for 365 Tomorrows, Flora Fiction, and Literary Heist. Follow him and his dog Ranger online @KenCarlsonsaid.