I can imagine the inevitable Stephen King-style real-life horror story that will eventually be told about plastic surgery:
Lydia was happy. After twenty-seven years she finally had the looks and the body that nature denied her, that she deserved, and that she was determined to one-day possess. She disrobed and admired her new body, every curve and sinew. But her contentment was soon to turn to horror. All at once, she felt a sharp pain in her side. The staples in her stomach were beginning to dislodge. At the same time, a gelid ooze slowly flowed out from her chest area.
The collagen in her lips all pushed to one side, contorting her lips in an unnatural and excruciatingly painful way. Her artificial parts all expanded or contracted in a number of ways. Pain and blood came from so many parts of her body at once that she didn't know which injury to attend to first. Her pain was now so extreme, she could barely move.
Her friends were busy, her neighbors were away, or lived too far away to be of any help to her. She tried to call for help, but the phone was dead. A truck hit the phone wires, and because of her plastic surgery expenses she was many months behind on her phone bill.
To make matters worse, she could not talk. She could only scream and cry in pain. She might have driven her car to get help; but her car was in the shop, and she was in no condition to drive.
Her last resort was to hobble to a neighbor's house, or into a local police station. However, on the way into town, she was so distraught with pain that she lunged out into the path of a car.
The driver thought he hit an animal, so he sped away, leaving her to die...
[Originally appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays]
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