The handy man can

Dr. Hans Palmer was nothing short of brilliant. He grew up poor, often living hand-to-mouth and wearing his older siblings hand-me-downs, but got a well-deserved scholarship and graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University Medical School specializing in Neuroscience. After his residency, he spent ten years pioneering new and radically different surgical techniques for a myriad of neurological disorders. He was married, briefly, during this time, but as with many ambitious people, his work took precedence over his marriage and they were divorced after only a handful of months.

Twenty years ago, however, he discovered his passion - the hand. So many people rarely think about their hands, not realizing how radically different their lives would be without the full use of those hands, from a simple handshake to the most beautiful hand-crafted works of art, hands are, Hans realized, one of our most important tools.

But especially dear to Dr. Palmer's heart were writers such as J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, and Danielle Steel who all wrote much of their work in longhand. Most of them seemed to feel that they were somehow closer to their characters and stories by putting pen to paper. That may seem odd to some in this day of computers which certainly could come in handy at times, but you had to hand it to them - these were some of the best and most prolific authors around.

And many people such as these occasionally, or often, suffered from a very painful "task-specific dystonia" known as Writer's Cramp. What a much better world this would be, Dr. Palmer thought, if he could just get a handle on this debilitating condition. He worked tirelessly, devoting much of his time to ending this writer's scourge, often running low on funds, but never taking any hand-outs. He often worked extra shifts at the hospital to help pay the bills. He sometimes had a few lab assistants, but they were generally treated as simply hired hands, never getting the recognition they deserved for their accomplishments. They often complained that he ran the lab with an iron hand, the right hand often not knowing what the left hand was doing and most handed in their resignations within a couple of weeks. Only one remained who became his right-hand man.

Finally, after twenty long years he discovered the secret. He could carefully manipulate two specific nerves in the hand using certain digital frequencies which had a numbing effect on the hand muscles causing them to relax instantly. He even created a glove-like device that could be worn on the hand to be activated whenever necessary. He quickly got the government approvals necessary and began production.

The doctor was hailed far and wide for his genius, one network news program said this was "hands down the most important discovery for writers ever made." Entertainment critics gave two thumbs up to the documentary about his work. Even his ex-wife said that he had finally done something useful, though he certainly recognized that as a backhanded compliment.

Everything seemed to be going his way until one day, a fist pounded at his door and a voice yelled, "Dr. Hans Palmer, open up, FBI." The doctor began wringing his hands anxiously, but couldn't will himself to move, so the agents broke through the door yelling "Hands up doctor!." The FBI had learned, from the doctor's right-hand man, that the government approval had come a little too quickly. Dr. Palmer had been greasing some palms and the regulators had looked the other way when hearing evidence of a serious side effect of the treatment. While it did indeed relax the muscles of the hand, it also often relaxed the brain, meaning that writers were exchanging writer's Cramp for Writer's Block.

In just minutes, the renowned doctor was in handcuffs, being led away, a miserable product of his own handiwork. Before long, the entire medical and scientific community had dismissed the doctor's life's work out of hand.