Windy

The shy little boy held out his lung, and the photo-opportunity grabber named Hymen placed his face next to the frothy organ. Soon all of the town had turned out to see the lung and have their photo taken next to the healthy, pink surface.

“Such a nice lung,” said dear Aunt Ida, beaming. “Let me see it.” Aunt Ida reached for the lung, and the shy little boy dropped it. It splashed to the floor, where Aunt Ida's cat picked it up and leaped for the counter and out the screen door. Bobby Pitchass from down the block grabbed it away as the cat shot by.

“I got the frickin' lung!” shouted bobby Pitchass. He ran across the lawn, holding the lung high in the air. He had nearly reached the road when Chucko Phuckernut hit him in the head with a two-by-four, braining him and sending both the lung and the brain matter flying. Chucko picked up the lung and took a nice big bite, but after a chew or three decided it was not to his liking and spit it out. He threw the lung into a nearby ashpile, where its nice pink color was sullied and darkened with creosote and burnt rubbish.

Willie Workerlimb came pushing his rubbish cart down the street just that very moment, spied the lung, and picked it up. He dusted it off, spit a little on his hanky, and wiped off some of the darker spots of ash. “Ain't too shitty of a lung, I think,” said Willie, retrieving his finger from his nose, “could make a nice knick-knack on some old bitty's coffee table.” he stuffed the lung deep into his pocket along with a handful of broken glass and tacks he spotted on the sidewalk. As Willie crossed the street he was struck by an out-of-control condom delivery van, and killed instantly.

As his corpse began to cool in the middle of the street, wild dogs ravaged his clothing, looking for spare tickets to the ABBA concert. Finding none, they left him to rot, but not before they had pulled the lung from his pocket.

Dirty, ash-covered, punctured with glass bits and upholstery tacks, the lung was but a shadow of its former self. As the now one-lunged and shy little boy roamed the streets of the city, he barely recognized his beloved lung as it sat there in the intersection. He walked up to it, and with remorse, bent down to stroke its once-frothy surface.

“I coulda' been a contender,” the lung seemed to say. “I coulda' been a contender.”

The shy little boy left his lung in the street, and walked over to Happy Jack's Synthetic Lung Hut, conveniently located at an intersection near you.

“And I could have been born with only one lung,” said the shy little boy, “and that's the moral of that story. Kapiche?”