The Induction of the Phagocyte

   Scythrop Glowry on Dec 29 21:45:27

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Once there came into being a very good little phagocyte clept Erasmus. He was developed from his right honorable myeloid precursor in the marrow of a very sturdy bone in the body of Anastasia. He was all clothed in purest white from the time of his first development and after leaving the confines of the bone marrow, he joined the general rush of blood where thronged his white-clad peers.

For many a long minute, which is the phagocytean day, the lives of such lowly neutrophils as our hero Erasmus lasting only a few of our human days, he circulated languidly in the blood stream of Anastasia, longing for the excitement of an infection and pining for the long life of one of the great red-robed macrophages.

One minute at last it came, the great event for which Erasmus had been developed! Entering the great incarnadine halls of a peripheral tissue, an activated Erasmus was inducted into The Secret Order of the Neutrophil Guard, recruited for the special purpose of defeating a great and horrible infection, broken in from the very gates of The Outerworld, composed not only of single-celled protozoa, but of the multicellular paracitic worms clept helminths and the mysterious infectious proteins clept prions which have no genetic material!

It was a hard fight, neutrophils dying in great numbers on either hand, macrophages fighting valiantly on. With frenzied haste, Erasmus engulfed and digested a virulent pathogen of the infernal army. Surfeited and poisoned from within, at last the white blood cell laid himself down to die, a smile on his youthful face for the service he had done to his human, for the government had been wisely consuming much omega-3 fatty acids and a multitude of reinforcements were on the way. The battle was won. Anastasia had been faithfully protected. Erasmus's components were cleared away by his enzyme comrads to be recycled. One more phagocyte had done his duty.

THE END