William waited for his patients to leave, feeling the tickle
growing stronger and stronger in his nose. As he closed to door to the
examination room, he grabbed a kleenex and fell back into the chair with
a powerful sneeze. "HA-SHOO!" His eyes were watering and his nose
running. He blew his nose and mumbled, "Damn perfume. That stuff should
be illegal for women to buy, let alone wear that much at one time like
that."
      When the tickle finally left his nose completely and he was once
again in charge of his nose, he went back to the front desk at the ER to
see what was next on the agenda. A kid with a broken leg. A couple with
the stomach flu. A man who'd sliced a finger open with a saw... it was
another typical day.
      Dr.William LeRoy tended to his patients one after the other after
the other, and was relieved to take his luch at three, as late as it
was. The cafeteria food was substantial, but nothing special; better
than anything he could get at home. He thought it might be nice if he
had someone to cook for him when returning home. His apartment was so
quiet at night, and his range of cooking ability extended no further
past picking up the phone and pressing the speed-dial buttons for pizza
or Chinese or Italian. Though he didn't wish to share his life with any
who couldn't handle it. Most days he worked normal shifts in the ER, but
there were th times of 36 hour shifts with little-to-no rest inbetween.
Those were the days that seemed to last forever.
      This time, though, he was to get off at 6, but it seemed already
that the day would never end. One patient in room 3, the next in 1, and
then another in 5. As much as he loved being a doctor and helping
people, he couldn't help but wonder if he would ever amount to something
more than an ER attendant.
      Upon entering examination room 4, something immediately caught his
attention. "AH-Kishhh!" was heard from the beautiful young woman who sat
upright on the bed, the box of kleenex in her lap.
      He blessed her and nodded hello. "I'm Dr.LeRoy. And you are..." he
took the chart off the desk and read her name. "Linda Plathe. Well,
Linda, what seems to be the trouble today?"
      She rubbed a finger under her nose for a few seconds before
trusting herself not to sneeze while answering, "I woke up this morning
with a monster of a sore throat and a bad case of the sneezes. My
roommate said I'd better come and get cheee... aaahh... aaaahhh..." a
finger placed under her nose successfully stopped the sneeze. "And get
checked out."
      William nodded and placed a thermometer in her mounth. Then he
proceeded to ask her a series of questions about her symptomes; she
nodded 'yes' to some and shook her head 'no' to others. But mostly she
tried to keep herself from sneezing. Her nose was tickling fiercely and
it was all she could do to keep the sneezes from exploding out of her
tiny, feminine nose.
      When the doctor finally removed the thermomether to check her
temperature, she grabbed at the kleenexes and burried the lower half of
her face into out of her came delicate but unstopping sneezes.
"Ah-kirsh! Ahh-Ahhh-AAHH-Kiirshhh! Ah-Kirsh! AH-KIRSHH!" The kleenex box
was getting dreadfully low by this point, for she had been kept waiting
in the room long.
      William, glad that he'd had his flu shot, began to rethink the
idea about finding a cure to the common cold. Confined in bed for weeks
with an upset stomach and a horrible cough was one thing, but simpley
sneezing was another. And this woman did it so well, he observed as she
sneezed each sneeze. She was very cute about it, not looking sick and
overpowered but her nose wrinkling up cutely and twitching only a second
before her head bobbed forward and she made the delightful sound.
      He took his stethescope out and listened to her chest in several
different places, instructing her to "breath in and out deeply" at each.
As he moved it around, under her shirt, it was cold against her skin,
which tickled a her a little, though she knew she couldn't say anything.
So, she did as he told her with a finger under her twitching nose and a
gentle smile on her face, afraid that laughter would make her sneeze
some more. William listened carefully with a trained ear. When she
breathed in deeply, it was a little raspy, and out the same, though a
little clearer. He had gone almost full circle around her chest when he
heard the breath she took in as something quicker than the normal
inhilation. It was sharp, deeper, like a gasp, nothing like her others.
He started to look up at her to ask if she was alright when he realized
what it was. A sneeze.
      Out it came strongly, unexpectedly, right into his face, spraying
him with a great "Ah-KIRSSHHHH!" She blushed and snatched a kleenex to
blow her nose immediately.
      "Bless you," William muttered, taking one of the kleenexes,
himself, and wiping his covered face dry. As many times as the doctor
had seen someone sneeze, he had never looked up at one from below
before. He had seen her little nostrils flaring twice as it tickled and
then finally came out. Her mouth had been opene mormally but her white
teeth clenched and her lips almost met eniterly to close as she inhaled
and then exhaled in the form of the sneeze. It was interesting to it it
from that view, not able to see all the pieces of the puzzle at one
time, though he was able to envision what she must have looked like,
from the front. "Try to cover your mouth next time, will you?"
      She nodded, rubbing her tickley nose as it continued to twitch.
She sneezed six more times before she was able to answer, catching them
all in a kleenex, held right up against her nose so that all that was
visibale for each was the bridge of her nose, crinckling at each sneeze;
her eyes, acknowledging the tickle forming into a sneeze and then
shutting tightly as it came. "Is it the flu?" she asked timidly, at
last, her nose resting for a bit.
      "No," he told her as he looked over the chart. "A cold at the
most."
      She sighed with relief and sniffed. "I'm glad about that. So, what
am I supposed to do now?"
      William smiled. "Just go back home and get in bed. Rest and drink
plenty of fluids. Let it run its course. If you feel like you have to
sneeze, go right ahead and sneeze. If your throat hurts and you want to
drink something warm for it, do that, too. If you start to feel stuffy,
run a humidifier or the shower if you don't have one of those. And just
take care of yourself and let it pass."
      She almost looked disapointed, "So that's all"
      "That's all," he echoed, adding, "If you still have a fever in two
days come back. And if your cold isn't gone in ten days, do the same,
alright?"
      Linda nodded, sniffing as she fought the tickle. "Alright, doctor.
Thank you."
      He nodded a 'you're welcome' as he helped her down off the
pallat.        Suddenly she froze and turned to him with dazed eyes. "I
feel kind of funny, doctor," she said with a gasp, "I think I'm going
tooo..." and with that she fainted into his arms. 
      He signed and picked her up in his arms. He glanced at the clock
to see that it was a quater-to-seven. His shift was well over. He
thought through the choices and decided to take her home, himself.
Perhaps her roommate would be there, too...


      "'Doctors', will retun after these messages!" a perky voice told
Kristy, who sighed and watched as the commercials started.
      "Why do the commercial breaks have to be right in the middle of
the good parts!" she complained as she finished the last of the popcorn.
So far, the second episode of the season was going good, she wondered
what would happen between the woman and William. He was such a handsome
and mysterious man... she wondered if she would ever meet someone like
him in her life time.
      Suddenly depressed, she switched off the television and took her
dishes to the kitchen, dumping bowl and glasses into the sink to do in
the morning. Then she went upstairs to her room and switched on the
computer.
      It took a moment to boot up, and then she quickly went onto the
internet. "Doctors" she typed in when she got to the search engines. A
few minutes later, she was staring at a list of sights, none of which
fit what she was looking for. She went back and typed it in with
different words, "Doctors sneezing" and pressed return, hoping to narrow
the field down to just the episode she had been watching. No doubt there
was a plot summary somewhere for her to read. Instead, she found a few
other things she had not expected. The first of them to catch her
attention was a site about how to sneeze. She skimmed through it and
smiled mischieviously and as she jumped off the computer and onto her
bed.
      She stretched out on the bed, on her back, relaxed and ready to
try. She found the spot on her nose that the site had mentioned and
tickled lightly at it, getting no response. She tickled harder, but that
only hurt a little with her sensitive, fair skin. She sighed, almost
ready to give up when she found her mind wandering to other subjects,
the show first, then to her job... The longer she didn't think about her
trying to sneeze, the longer she was unknowingly rubbing at the "tickle
spot" and the longer the forced sneeze had to develop in the back of her
nose. Suddenly it came out, with her not expecting its like, in a femine
but large, "Ah-SHOO!"
      Kristy smiled with delight and wondered how she'd done it, though
she didn't have long to think about it as a second sneeze started up in
the back of her nose, working its way out in an equaly startling but
slightly more controlled, "Ah-shooo!" Her nose was tickling by this
time, on its own, and she laid there on the bed sneezing one after the
other, listening to them echo in the dark and almost empty room.
"Ah-Shoo! Ahh-Shoo! Ahh.. Ah-SHHooo! Aaahh-shoo!" She was beginning to
wish that she could get a breath in between, and her nose was running
from it all, by now, too. She sat up, still sneezing, wishing to stop
what she had started. "Ah... Ahhh-shoo! Ah-SHHHoooo! AHH-" and it left
just as quickly as it had come.
        "Now that's odd," she said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her
sweater, the loose threads of wool rubbing against her nose, tickling
slightly. "I wonder if that's enough to make me sneeeeaaahh...
aaahhhh... ahhh-shoo! Ah-Shoo! Ahh-shOO!" They came at her again in the
way they had before, and she again wished that she could stop them.
"Ah-Shoo! Ahh... aahhh... aaahhh... ahhh-SHHHOO! Ah-Shoooo! Ah-" and
they stopped again, as if listening to her thoughts and obeying.
        It was then that she realized that she could start any time she
wanted to, without having to tickle her nose. And she could stop it at
any time without having to hold her finger under her nose, like Linda
from the show. These were different sorts of sneezes. They sounded and
looked the same, yet they were controlled, done purposely.
        She had a wide grin on her face by this time and she was sitting
up straight in bed, excited at her newly learned skill. She decided to
play around with it a little, to make sure she knew it worked. She
breathed in and out slowly a few times and then tickled her nose with
her mind, easing the feeling of the sneeze into her, as if it were
always there, just hidden. "Ahh... Aaahhh... " she began, with the
typical inhilations as she took in the air needed to let it go in the
sneeze. "Aahhh.. Ahhh... Ahhhh-shoo!" she sneezed, her head moving
forward and turning down a bit at the expelled force. "Ahh-Shoo! 
Ah-SHHoo! Ahhh... Ahhhh... Ahhhh-Shhhoooo! Ahhh..." and she made it die
back down again.
       Kristy giggled and hopped off the bed, switching off the
computer. As she went down the stairs to the living room, sure the
program had started up again, she made herself sneeze at each stair.
Step. "Aah-Shoo!" Step. "Ah-ShOOoo!" Step. "Ahhh-Shooo!" It was a rythem
she had never experience before, her body conforming to itself so much
that her foot steps and nose were beautifully in synch, making the sort
of music she had not thought of before, nor ever even heard. As she
reached the bottom, she put her hand up to her nose and gave the largest
sneeze that had ever come out her. It was a sneeze like none other,
fueled by her new-found tallent and excitement,
"AAAHHHH-SSSHHHHHOOOOOO!!!"
       She fished a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose, still a
little surprized. Then, as she crashed on the couch with the rest of the
program, she began to wonder what she would be able to do with her
talent, now. "This is going to be fun," she said happily, the
possibilities running through her head as fast as the perfectly
controlled sneezes could out her nose.
****Sequel anybody? What's she going to do with her 'tallent', now? If
you'd like to try to write a sequal with Kristy, you're more than
welcome!***