Date received: 218-14-02
To: Parents of Viktoria Chants
From: Herbert S. Skrink, PhD
Subject: Viktoria Chants

Mr. + Mrs. Chants,

Athough I'm quite sure you have heard of me already, I would like to take the time to introduce myself to you. I am currently head of the viral unit at the Center for Brain Diseases on Planet Medulla in the Ceres Solar System, otherwise known as CBD, and as such will be conducting treatment of your daughter in her battle against rabid-like itchy fever, otherwise known as RLIF, here at the Center.

I have been working for ten years on afflictions such as RLIF (and publishing on all of them) and can unequivocally say that although the disease can be devastating in appearance, it does no permanent damage. I shall bring your daughter to a one hundred percent recovery in a relatively short period of time. I have not had a single failure on behalf of any of my patients yet, and I intend to uphold that record in regards to your daughter, uh..., uh,... Viktoria! Through an intense effort on my part and that of the therapists I have at my disposal here, your daughter will be returned to you in as nearly a complete state of mind as when you sent her out to be part of your planet's spacial exploration team.

The therapy I have chosen for Viktoria is called the "talking cure" and is based, in part, on Sigmund Freud's original methodology. My updated and extremely complex therapy involves the introduction of a person into the subject's life who exhibits the exact opposite behavior patterns of the sufferer. Encouraged and controlled by the therapist team, the melding of the two patient's personalities will occur just as in the "old married couple" phenomenon often talked about amongst laypeople wherein the longer a couple live together the more they resemble each other physically and most importantly mentally. Hardly a folk cure, this technique of personality adjustment has been documented in the literature and, in fact, several medical organizations which are dedicated to the study and use of this therapy have been in existence since the turn of this century. In addition to my copious duties here at the CBD, I head the most prestigious of these organizations known as RLIFO and am on the board of governors of several other lesser groups. I have published numerous papers on the subject in all the prominent journals and lecture regularly on the member planets. I'm quite popular, in fact, on those inhabited by the more neuroses-inclined. They have me back frequently. I can send you my lecture notes if you'd like.

In order to speed her recovery, we have been encouraging Ms. Chants to write letters to you or at least send voice transmissions, and have supplied her with electrotablets, magnetopens and dictaphones for that purpose, but so far she has only managed to ingest the smaller of these. Please do not despair this apparent lack of discipline; we are close to a breakthrough and you are sure to hear from her yourself any day now. Take it from me, I am an expert.

Please stay in touch; if I'm in town, I'll get back to you promptly.

Dr. Herbert S. Skrink signing off.

Oh by the way, if you'd like any signed copies of my book, just get in touch with my publisher.