Somebody's Webpage on Twitter Somebody's Webpage on Facebook Somebody's Webpage on Patreon
Thurston Thornton Tells It Like It Is!
Thanks for visiting!

Thurston Thornton Hospitalized and in Stable Condition

October 29, 2011

Hi there everyone, it's me, Somebody Else, not Thurston Thornton. You are probably wondering what I'm doing writing a column in Thurston's section. Well, I'll explain that in just a moment. Believe it or not, he actually asked me to fill in for him this time, because lately he has been kind of, well, how shall I put this, unavailable for contributing to the website. Anyway, Thurston wanted all of you loyal readers of his out there to know that he hasn't forgotten about you, and that as soon as he is able, he'll be sending more of his sagacious observations your way, just as soon as he is discharged from the hospital and gets settled back in to his house.

A few days ago, I visited Thurston at the hospital. Upon his orders, I wrote down the following words, which he dictated to me for inclusion into this article:

At present, I am resting up from my heroic labors. The outcome of my epic struggle is inconclusive, since it appears that neither righteousness nor villainy has yet to emerge triumphant, although I can indeed affirm that the alien mind-control system administered by the government has been largely put out of commission by my highly concentrated mind beams, at least for the time being. I fully intend to take up the battle once again as soon as I have recovered my energies. In the meantime, I take comfort in the many hours of continuous sleep that I am enjoying in this hospital bed, and I find rest and peace in the marvelous tranquilizing medicine that continually drips into my intravenous tubes. Were it not for my valiant psychic defense against the mortal enemies of mankind, the world as we know it would surely have come to an end. Do I expect any thanks or gratitude? Alas, I know you all too well to entertain such foolish hopes. You may carry on with your petty lives as if nothing has changed, utterly unaware that if it were not for me, you would now be dinner for extraterrestrials. I am too noble and honorable to concern myself for even an instant about your miserable lack of reciprocity.

As you can tell from his writing, he's just had one of his meltdowns. As you may know, this has happened more than once, and truth be told, this has not exactly been the worst of his episodes, although I'd say that it ranks up there pretty high. I mean, there was this time a year or two ago, and I think he himself has written about it, when he got into trouble with the legal authorities, and as a result was thrown into a padded cell wearing a straightjacket, and almost ended up with a one-way ticket to the funny farm. This time, however, the police didn't get involved, thank goodness, but that being said, he could have died, since he had stopped eating and drinking for an extended period of time, heaven knows for how long.

You may recall from our the most recent webpage update that we suspected that something was not right with Thurston once we noticed that he was not picking up our monthly rent checks from his mailbox, and that his dog, Mr. Twinkle, had left him and had taken up residence with Thurston's neighbor, Karen.

After a few weeks, we carefully re-read his most recent article and finally managed to connect the dots. It became clear to us that he had gone off his meds yet again, and had chosen to barricade himself in his home in order to carry out psychic warfare against his imagined enemies.

The website Editor-in-Chief, Somebody, called Karen, who had made unsuccessful efforts to go out on a date with him, and who in the process had forced him to exchange phone numbers with her. He suggested to her that she might see if she could find a way to get Thurston to open the door for her, since, according to one of our landlord's previous articles, he had at least expressed a willingness to tolerate her existence, which is more than can be said for the rest of us. Somebody suggested that Karen bring Mr. Twinkle along with her, in the belief that it might convince Thurston to open the door and let her in so that he could see his beloved pooch once more.

When Karen arrived at Thurston's residence, Mr. Twinkle began to whimper sadly and seemed agitated. A foul smell emanated from the house. Finding the front door locked, Karen, deeply concerned, rushed around to the rear entrance, which was also bolted shut. She pounded hysterically upon the back door, but there was no response. She tried to coax Mr. Twinkle to enter the residence through the doggie door, but he only whined, lied down and put his front paws over his face and his tail between his legs. Finally, unable to bear the tension a moment longer, Karen herself forced her way through the small opening, which, when considering her substantial girth, was no small accomplishment.

Once inside, the horrible stench was so overpowering that Karen was barely able to stifle the impulse to toss her cookies. Calling out Thurston's name, she received no response. The house, never particularly tidy during the best of times, appeared to have been struck by a hurricane. It seemed as though he had gone through all of his personal belongings and had randomly tossed each and every one of them upon the floor.

Initially fearing that the overpowering odor was the result of a decomposing human body, Karen was soon relieved to discover that it was instead emanating from Thurston's freezer and refrigerator, which for some reason had been unplugged and left open, allowing all of the food inside to putrefy.

Upon entering Thurston's bedroom, Karen found him lying unconscious and completely naked upon the floor, surrounded by several car batteries and an elaborate configuration of interconnected wire coat hangers. Checking his pulse, she found that he was still alive, but severely dehydrated and malnourished, and on the verge of going into a coma. She called 911, and not long after an ambulance showed up.

Fortunately, it only took Thurston twenty-four hours to fully regain consciousness, and he has steadily been improving, although he's not completely out of the woods yet, since his doctor is still closely monitoring him to see if there has been any irreparable damage to his internal organs.

When he first came to, he was extremely agitated, and, among other things, accused the hospital staff of trying to insert computerized chips up his left nostril, but after he was given a liberal dose of a strong sedative, he settled down considerably. Since then, they've been keeping him relaxed with a steady supply of calming medicine. I must say, it's done wonders for his customarily abrasive personality.

After I had re-read Thurston's latest article, I realized that Winston Lee had played a large role in our landlord's catastrophic breakdown, and for that reason determined to personally visit him at his apartment in order to inform him of what had just happened. I also expected to shame him for starting and then encouraging all of this madness.

I knocked upon Winston's door one afternoon. It was opened by his thickly-bearded roommate, Nelson, who mumbled to me that I should come on in and have a seat. The air in the apartment was thick with sweet-smelling, hazy smoke, and I heard the bubbling sound of a water pipe, followed by an extended bout of racking coughs. Winston finally emerged from his bedroom clothed in his pajamas. I noticed that he was no longer wearing his AFDB (Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie).

"What happened to your AFDB?" I asked him.

"There is no longer any need to wear one," he pronounced. "Thurston has vanquished the alien foe, at least for the moment."

I updated him on Thurston's hospitalization, and was about to chastise him for his behavior towards our landlord, but before I could do so, he exclaimed, "I must visit him at once," went back to his bedroom, changed into his street clothes, and requested that I drive him to the hospital. While we were in the car, I once again made an effort to upbraid him for his recent conduct, but he spoke at great length about Thurston's magnificent deeds, and as a consequence I wasn't able to get in a word edgewise.   

Once he arrived at Thurston's bedside, Winston took his hand and warmly congratulated him for his bravely fought battle. "The world is a better place because of your efforts," he assured him. This brought a broad smile to Thurston's face. I don't think that I've ever seen the man any happier than that all this time that I've known him.

"I was going to have you evicted for non-payment of rent," Thurston remarked to Winston, "but how could the servant ever do such a thing to the master?"

"Only you can answer that question," Winston responded solemnly. It was most definitely a Kung-Fu moment.

Other visitors came to see Thurston. I left a small notebook next to his bedside, and encouraged everyone to write a little bit for inclusion into this article. So, here you have what they jotted down.

Karen wrote:

Thurston you have worried us all sick. I didn't know what had happened to you and I was really concerned about you. It was getting cold in the house and you were naked so you could have died from that. I see you have a very interesting mole on your right buttock. It seems to be in the shape of a bull's head which is not surprising since you are a Taurus and that is your symbol. I have asked the nurse to align your bed with your natal Taurus constellation so that you can draw from its curative powers but you know how they are around here. They have no faith in astrological healing and that is not surprising to me since they are just basically vendors for the pharmaceutical (did I spell that right) industry, which only uses inorganic chemicals for the most part. I am not going to say anything for or against your psychic war against the aliens. The important thing is that you believe that it is true. If you believe it then it is real, which are words that I myself have always lived by and they have never failed me yet and they will not fail you either if you always go with your gut. Those are the best guidelines for living in synchronicity with the universe and also for harmonizing your chakra forces as well. I brought you some underwear and I got it with a 46 inch waist which I hope is big enough but if not I will go back and get a larger size. You look like you have lost a lot of weight so maybe they will not be too small for you. I left you some more of the organic flaxseed and chocolate chip cookies that you like so much so I hope that you will eat them all when you get your appetite back. I wanted to give you a backrub yesterday but you fell asleep and you looked so peaceful lying there on your back that I didn't want to disturb you so I will try again later.

Karen actually wrote several more pages after that, but I think that what I have included here will be sufficient.    

The website Editor-in-Chief, Somebody, stopped by for about five minutes while Thurston was sleeping, and wrote:

Hello Thurston. Congratulations on not dying. Sort of glad to hear you'll be sticking around. Wish you the best, etc. Please fix radiator at office when you get the chance, we'd really appreciate it.

Old Guy wrote:

Thurston you came close to checking out on us but looks like you cheated the grim reaper this time around. While I am here I will now take the opportunity to remind you one more time that my property is not for sale. So do not send your lawyer over to my house again to make another offer. I already had asked you not to do that again but he showed up again on Thursday and this time he said something about you knowing people on the county commission and that you knew a thing or two about pulling the right strings. Now that sounds like a threat to me and I do not appreciate it. And the other day I had to shoo a bunch of building contractors off my land. They were surveying the area and so I asked them what was up and they said they were going to put up an apartment complex and that was news to me. So don't count your chickens before they have hatched Thurston if you know what I am saying. So no hard feelings I wish you well and hope you get out soon.

Thurston's Puerto Rican neighbor Carlos wrote:

I heard that you had a difficult time and now I know why was there an ugly smell that was coming from your house because Karen told me why. That smell was so ugly that we thought you had die and my wife she almost call the police. I already saw your dog Twinkie again with the Miss Karen and he was very sad because he miss you. We are not anymore mad with you because you try to burn our Puerto Rico flag since we already forget about that. I try to be a good neighbor and also because you are my landlord and I have respect to you for that. So good luck to you man you can come by anytime you like when we cook hamburgers or steak on our grill and eat what you may want because my house is your house when you want to visit. Okay may you recover soon and return to your house. I say prayers for you to the Virgin even if you are not Catholic but still can have an effect since that is what I believe. I send you friendly greetings.

I asked Winston to write something down, but he declined, remarking that he might very well write at length about these recent events in an upcoming article.

Quite frankly, I was kind of surprised to see all of this outpouring of goodwill from so many people who have so often been the target of Thurston's insults and mistreatment. To my knowledge, none of the members of his church have showed up to visit, but I'll assume that for some reason or another they were not informed. In any case, I don't think he's ever had a very good relationship with those folks. 

Thurston's brother Ernie has been here for quite some time, but he declined to write anything in the notebook. Ernie tells me that his sister Myrtle is on her way down to help nurse Thurston back to health for a week or two after he is discharged from the hospital, and Karen has volunteered to assist her, although I don't believe that anyone has let Myrtle know about this. We'll see what develops, I suppose. Ernie has hired a professional cleaning company to deal with the recent damage to Thurston's home. So, we expect everything to get back to normal -- a relative term in Thurston's case -- within the next few weeks.

"Won't you tell me where my country lies?" said the unifaun to his true love's eyes...