“Dr. Cech!” Hiro Al-Fadi announced, striding into the doctors’ lounge, his arms swinging with his wide-stepped gate.
“Yes, oh delusional one?” Dejan Cech replied, without looking up, his attention focused on a reading tablet on his lap, from which he was following the latest news in anaesthesia.
“You dare!” the little surgeon with the gargantuan ego squawked.
“But, of course I dare, Hiro,” Dejan said matter-of-factly. “Someone has to keep your over-rated sense of self-worth in check. There is barely enough room for me in this doctors’ lounge, now that you and your head have come in here!”
“Be silent, minion. You should count yourself lucky to be able to bask in the glory of my magnificence!”
“Methinks it would be more accurate to say that you are lucky I do not beat you gory as I lose patience with your belligerence,” Dejan drawled back.
“Hah!” Hiro laughed. “You couldn’t take me, you walking stick of pitiful protoplasm! You have never exercised a day in your life, and even if you’d had, you would be no match for the agile one!”
“Oh, is he here?” Dejan asked, without looking up.
“Bah! Why do I waste my time with you?”
“Every day, Hiro, I ask myself that same question,” Dejan sighed. “I have come to the bitter conclusion that this is my private Hell; I am actually dead and this is how I will spend the rest of eternity, for having been a less-than-exemplary individual in my previous life.”
“In your past life, you were a newt! Count yourself fortunate that I have the munificence to waste even a brief second on improving your pitiful life!”
“Ah! I pray, waste no more seconds with this weary anesthetist - weary of listening to your boasting, that is - and next time, take your over-inflated conceit elsewhere.”
“Well! I was going to ask you if you wanted to come to the lab to see my new Surgical Assisting, Medical Nanobot-Manipulating Entity ie. ‘SAMM-E’ android - my greatest creation (up to this point in time, of course!) but I have decided that you are not worthy of the privilege, you ungrateful bastard!” Hiro snapped.
Dejan Cech put the tablet down and finally looked up - not too high, mind you - at his short-statured friend’s disappointed and offended face. He felt a wave of remorse.
“I would be more than honoured to accompany you to your lab, Hiro, and see this android, whom you have been talking about for weeks on end. It would, indeed, be my pleasure. I must admit to some curiosity even, which for me, is a surprise because I have lost most of my curiosity dealing with you over the years. Please, lead on, oh manic one!”
“Pah! You lie, pathetic one. I know you are just dying to see the new SAMM-E! You can’t control your excitement. I can see it written all over your face!” the little surgeon said, brightening up with an enthusiastic smile. “Since you beg me, I will take pity on you, you worthless excuse for a human being, and . . . “
“. . . I know, I know, let me bask in the glory of your magnificence. I have heard it all before, Hiro. Let us make haste to your lab before I change my mind and finally pound you into the little pulp I have always thought you deserved to be,” Dejan said, getting up off the couch to tower a good half a meter over the head of Dr. Hiro Al-Fadi.
“Hah! You wouldn’t dare, and if you did, I would leave you on the floor in a heap!”
Cech just sighed, and smiled down at his little friend. “Yes, oh voluble one. You would leave me on the floor in a heap of laughter. For sure! As I held you off with one hand, Hiro.”
