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36 TRAUMAMAN I heard about him on the radio. What a doll! I wish I had one for my very own to keep in thrall. They say he’s just a torso, not all there, but I don’t care. When he’s opened up he’s quite complete with skin and blood and bone all marvelously neat, every organ where it should be but not the coils of gut. He’s several thousand bucks yet that’s a steal for med schools where they need to operate— carve, extract, reorganize, and sew— on someone less than real. A sorry fate, which no one else would bear without a moan except this willing drone. Praise TraumaMan: thus surgeons learn to heal. Why can’t we all have one to see us through those moments when we long to wield the knife but hesitate to scar a human life? You can cut him time and time again and patient TraumaMan will feel no pain— at least he won’t complain. ...

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