Bathroom Monologue: The Head-Organ’s Import

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Phillipus snorted deeply and spat yellow filth into the urn. His henchmen grimaced. The master had been doing this a lot lately.

“Sir,” broached the left henchman. “We’ve been meaning to ask you about that urn.”

“Had it banged out by a bronze smith a month ago. Used scrap metal from a fallen soldier’s helmet.”

The henchmen continued grimacing. Phillipus cleared his throat.

“A fallen Trojan soldier. Not ours.”

He swished his tongue about his mouth. Clearing his throat like that had loosened more phlegm, so he spat it into the urn. The right henchman looked inside. It was a third of the way full with crusty head-filth.

“Sir,” the left henchman tried broaching again. “We’ve been meaning to ask you about what you’re doing with the urn.”

“You mean collecting my head bile?” Phillipus beamed. “It’s going to make me invincible.”

The right henchman backed away from the urn. “How would it accomplish that? It does not seem that vicacious a fluid.”

Phillipus stepped up onto the chariot, looking down at his two faithful servants. He prodded the right one in the bicep.

“If I spear you there, you’ll be hurt, but you’ll likely survive the battle. And if I spear you there,” he toed at the left henchman’s thigh, “then you might be crippled, but you’ll likely live a while longer. Yes?”

His henchmen nodded, as it was a big part of what they were paid to do.

“Well if I take my spear,” Phillipus gestured to the lances lashed to one side of the chariot, then jabbed with an imaginary skewer into his left man’s left eye, “and I jab you in the head, you fall down dead every time. Short of Apollo holding you up himself, you die. Yes?”

His henchmen nodded.

“There’s only one organ in the head. It’s a mucus-secreting thing the philosophers discovered. It’s all that takes up the skull, as opposed to the dozens of things in the belly.” He gestured around his armored abdomen. “All those organs and its peril barely equals that of being speared in the one head-organ.”

The right henchmen offered, “If you’re worried about your head, sir, we can have a new helmet fashioned. But I must say, your current one has a terrifying plumage.”

“No matter how sturdy, it can still fall off.” Phillipus kicked the urn. “I made this from the helmet of a fallen Trojan. The helmet fell first. Stabbing him in the ear made me realize the value of the mucus-secreting organ. It’s the big vital thing. If all it does is secrete this stuff, then this urn is full of the secret of life. This must be the juice that animates man. It puts blood to shame.”

The left henchman rubbed his hands together, working this over. “Are you going to make a helmet from your head-organ’s cream?”

Phillipus waved the henchman off like a fly. There had been many flies lately.

“It’s too brittle once it dries. If this material is metal, it’s a weak kind. No, I’m going to eat it. Consume what vital juices the head-organ dispenses until I am full of its vitality. Then I won’t even need armor anymore. I will be made invincible by my own mortal ambrosia, the product of my own mind.”

The master beamed again, showing all his yellowed teeth. He remained in a heroic pose for an awkward few minutes, allowing his henchmen to bask in his brilliance. He only broke from it to cough into the urn some more, then inquired about recipes for soup.

Brave Phillipus supped long and survived the next day’s battle. Sadly, it was not by invulnerability in combat with Troy. He survived because he spent the day in bed with a sickness in one of his abdominal organs.