Code Purple
The hospital sat atop a gentle hill
Amidst a mad world, placid and still
When striding through its glass front door
Thundered Barney the purple dinosaur.
“Kiddies, let’s use some imagination.”
He punctuated with wild gesticulation.
“You can all pretend to be tasty snacks,”
He said, “And I’ll be just a hungry T-Rex.”
Thus Barney passed from ward to ward
His victims screamed, the dino roared
As he gobbled patients up with glee
Taken from floors one, two, and three.
Then a thought occurred to the purple beast:
Some diseased morsel might make him deceased.
So he asked a bed-ridden man at last
To tell him his ailment, to make it fast.
“Gall stones in my liver,” his retort
“Liver? I love liver!” Barney did snort
As he chewed him up from noggin to bunions
Never mind any topping of onions.
“Tes…testicular cancer,” came another’s quip
As Barney pondered and loosened his grip.
“Testicular cancer…” he paused, his tone droll.
“I love cancer!” he yelled and swallowed him whole.
His solution for head lice was quite new-fangled
As dripping gore from one neck dangled
He exclaimed, “Ya look at that?
Nurse! Get this man a new head. Stat!”
And so it was that Barney remembered
After one or two more eaten or dismembered
The target, which had brought him forward
To be found here at the coma ward.
And finding himself inside the boy’s room
He sensed primal foreboding, imminent doom
As he looked upon the child asleep
Dreaming darkly, dreaming deep.
“You have been a naughty child.
Such childhood things left now defiled.
My games of make-believe pretend
You’ve used to fashion the world’s end.”
But no response met Barney’s ears
No proclamations, pleas, or tears.
The silent child only slumbered
As the hulking terror forward lumbered.
Despite no cue, he started to sing
That song with the lovely ring
“I love you. You love me.
The end has come now, finally.
With a great big hug, I’ll snap your spine in two.
Won’t you scream you love me, too?”
Barney cradled the child, suppressing a laugh
Opened up wide and bit him in half.
But in that second, sealed his own fate
A realization learned too late.
The dreaming having killed the dream
No time for whimper, prayer, or scream.
The world, upon the dreamer’s death
Vanished with his final breath.
08/16/06