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As The World Turns, by Sankar Chatterjee

2/12/2019

 
After a day’s long work in the Wall Street, Ms. Nancy Gibbs, a young and energetic New Yorker returned to her sixth floor apartment on the Madison Avenue. On her way back, Nancy stopped at the corner grocery store, now putting down those grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Before beginning to prepare her evening meal, she then turned on the TV that sat in her living room. Through an opening on the wall between two rooms, Nancy began to watch the world news. Soon, she succumbed to a pain on her left chest while feeling light headedness, reminding her of a similar recent experience. She immediately dialed the emergency medical number and proceeded to keep the front door unlocked. Then Nancy collapsed right there.

The arriving medical team found her body and transferred Nancy to the ER of nearby Mt. Sinai Medical Hospital. The doctors revived her from an apparent heart attack. They ordered several diagnostic tests and kept her for an overnight observation. As the various test results began to flow back in, the current doctors and the nurses in the ER realized that Nancy was treated there just three months ago for a similar episode. And like previous test results, there was absolutely nothing alarming with current test results. Her blood pressure and cholesterol level were normal. None of her arteries were clogged. Nancy never smoked. She also exercised regularly in a neighborhood gym. In fact there were no culprits that could be blamed for Nancy’s two episodes of heart attack within three months. A medical mystery shrouded her and the medical team.

That’s when, Albert, the robot walked inside Nancy’s room. A product of modern day artificial intelligence (AI), Albert unfurled its various display screens. Attending physicians then connected Nancy and Albert via various wires. Soon, Albert began its interrogation. But nothing in the background information (familial or medical) of Nancy would create any blip on any of Albert’s screens.

Like any smart sleuth, Albert then changed its tactics. From its built-in search engines, Albert pulled out the historic segments of the TV news that Nancy was watching during those two episodes. While the news reels kept rolling on two screens, another display screen stated to show the tightening of Nancy’s arteries, constricting them and blocking the blood to travel to heart to cause an imminent heart attack. In the news segments, the current strongman from US was meeting his counterpart from UK, first time in Washington, recently in London. Albert turned its search engine off. Relaxed Nancy requested a glass of martini.

Soon, a research paper would appear in the journal Lancet, alerting medical community about this new risk factor of a sudden heart attack in otherwise healthy persons.

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    Friday Flash Fiction is primarily a site for stories of 100 words or fewer, and our authors are expected to take on that challenge if they possibly can. Most stories of under 150 words can be trimmed and we do not accept submissions of 101-150 words.


    However, in response to demand, the FFF team constructed this forum for significantly longer stories of 151-500 words. Please send submissions for these using the Submissions Page.

    Stories to the 500 word thread will be posted as soon as we can mange.

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    One little further note. Posting and publishing 500-word stories takes a little time if they need to be formatted, too.
    ​Please note that we tend to post longer flash fiction exactly as we find it – wrong spacing, everything.

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