You, yes, all of you, are usually prone to point out something that isn’t right.
In the October Calendar post, I put an image of “latex zombies”: one bite and you becomes a latex addicted zombie.
Funny…
NOBODY pondered how Karen would bite anyone… wearing a gasmask!
She is also the ONLY ONE with no skin exposed.
Hum…. I wonder if she’s really a zombie or she’s just using that opportunity to walk around in full rubber without being bullied…
GOTCHA!!
Well, it seems Karen has found the perfect disguise to successfully hide from the zombie apocalypse.
In any case, it is well protected.
And it looks like she has a lot of fun.
LOL 😀
I’ve always enjoyed your stories since they were originally posted on DA.
However, I have to ask if you ever considered inventing solutions to a couple of problems associated with the Total Encasement scenario.
The first being a somewhat sharp problem : finger and toe nails. Even completely covered in latex they would continue to grow. This would likely lead to potential health problems.
The second is more prickly, as in poked in the eye. In a totally enclosed head (gas mask hood, ball hood, etc) a loose eyelash falling onto the eye would be extremely irritating if not painful.
Eyelashes could probably be removed using the same procedure to permanently remove head and body hair. As for the nails, I always imagined a high tech solution that would dissolve the specific keratin proteins that comprise the nails. Then the cells of the nail matrix could be selectively destroyed to prevent the nails from growing back. Such a process would entail a period of healing for the exposed nail bed.
Please don’t take this as criticism. Rather, I’ve had these ideas flying about in my head for a while now, and I think I’ve found the right landing strip for them to be delivered to.
Hi Brian.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
That’s an interesting point, but it’s too deep into details, especially with a biologically impossible situation in the first place (total encasement).
I generally put in that Karen (or other character) goes through a shower of hair remover and then a hair growth inhibitor, which should take care of all the body hair, including eyelashes.
Since hair are also made out of keratin, one could assume that the nails gets the same “treatment” and thus stop growing.
The best way would probably to simply pull the nails out – with the necessary healing period – which wouldn’t fit the timeline of story, unless I add that detail.
To go into that point of detail, one would also have to take care of ear wax production, tooth decay, gum disease (they are constantly brushing against a rubber sack after all) or eyes drying/watering out, etc. Being encased doesn’t prevent someone from feeling sorrow. What would happen to the tears?
Being enclosed doesn’t render anyone immune to respiratory allergies and microbes (unless it’s thoroughly filtered and disinfected), or an upset stomach because bugs can set themselves into whatever food / water one is being fed. What would happen to someone fully intubated to catch a cold? Diarrhea?
I fully understand that every detail might be a “kink” to someone. I can’t however put every one of them into the stories. This level of detail is not really relevant to the storytelling. That’s why I simply go with the “hair growth removal / inhibitor” or don’t mention it at all.
Pierre.