Story of Croasert Coup

148 words, and I think this may become part of something else.  What do you think of the story?

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who had the chicken pox. This was one lucky boy, though, for his parents won the Doctor Drawing (as it was later called by the Wordsmiths) on the first try! He went to the clinic with his parents, and got medicine to help with the itching. A week later, he went back for a check-up

The second trip, he noticed a line of people sitting outside the clinic. “Daddy, what are those people doing?” His father looked beyond the steering wheel for a moment before answering, “They’re waiting to see the Doctor.”

“Do they have chicken pox, too?”

“They might. They might have anything.”

“Why don’t they go in?”

“They don’t have appointments. They’re hoping something opens up. Otherwise, they have to come back and try again.”

Over the next week, the little boy remembered being sick and the line of people waiting to get help, who might not see anyone, and he felt sad. That weekend, he asked his parents to take him back to the clinic. “Are you unwell, son?” his mother asked.

“No, I’m fine. I just want to do something for the people.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know yet, but something.”

That Saturday, he rode with his parents to the clinic, bringing along his paints. Standing outside, looking over the crowd, miserable faces looked at him expectantly, wondering why he didn’t move on.

Carefully, he unscrewed the top of his first paint jar, and after dipping his finger in, painted a line between two particularly large spots on his face left over from his illness.

No response.

He pulled up his pant leg and drew another line above his ankle.

Several heads craned to see better.

He connected the first line to another spot on his neck, looping around his ear with the paint, and more people looked, one of them smiling. Approaching the smiling person, he proffered a finger full of paint, and she leaned her face forward. He painted a line of her forehead, adding little flourishes. She giggled as he offered the jar at the person behind her. He said no, but the child sitting just behind him offered his hands up to be painted. He gave the mother another paint jar, and she painted her son, and then her son’s friend. In this way, jars of paint were passed among the crowd, and after a day of this, while they will still ill, the colorful would-be patients returned to their homes, feeling strangely better.

The next day, people came back, but it was more to see if the boy-painter would return. Several of them didn’t even take the one proffered appointment, preferring instead to stay with their new friends and watch the painting pageant unfold.

This is the tale of the first time a Croasert had been uncovered, which prompted the beginning of the end for the Cardinal Control forces.