Drama Queen

Initially I wanted to go for some element of angst, so I chose the rather grim subject of Bob’s congenital heart defect, as mentioned in the episode “Funeral For a Fiend” (season 19, episode 8) where Bob’s entire family helped him stage his own death. Hard to say whether his heart problem is canon or not, since he faked cardiac arrest in that episode, and I don’t believe it has ever been mentioned again before or since.

I am by no means making light of heart conditions or people who suffer from them. I think we all know at least one person with an unhealthy heart. One friend of mine is only 44 and has already had a heart attack, while her grandson, who is only 2 ½, does remarkably well considering, as the doctors say, “the top half of his heart” is barely functioning. The way he runs around, you’d never guess. But there are people out there who suffer far worse with great dignity and courage, and others who suffer far less and milk it for all it’s worth.

The precise story behind this picture is, of course, up to the individual viewer. But what I had in mind as I created it is Bob and his brother Cecil reenacting a murder scene from one of Shakespeare’s plays, and Bob, rather than admit that he’s confused a line from “Hamlet” with “Julius Caesar,” has decided that the nobler thing to do is play up his heart defect for Cecil’s sympathy. As melodramatic as he normally is, I think I can easily see him working himself up into a cardiac episode while acting out some over-glorified death scene.

Again, I mean no disrespect to heart patients anywhere. As for this pic, I’ve just always found weaknesses and vulnerabilities in fictional characters very endearing. It somehow makes them more real to me and makes me want to reach out to them. Am I weird for feeling like that?