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The sickbay of the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Image credit: Derek Springer from Los Angeles, CA, USA
I wish Star Trek medical bays were real.
Some countries like Canada offer universal healthcare. Well, the basics are covered by taxes. The majority of us still have to buy insurance or pay out of pocket for things like prescriptions, dental care, (most) mental health care, basic vision care, private hospital rooms, and many medical devices that are meant for home use.
I’m grateful to be able to visit my family doctor without worrying about how much the bill will be, but I dream of a world where everyone can visit a Star Trek medical bay.
Imagine almost instantly getting a diagnosis after having a tricorder painless waved in front of you instead of waiting days or sometimes even weeks for results from our current and more invasive diagnostic procedures to come in.
Then you would probably be given a hypospray or a little pill to permanently cure any illness or injury faster and with less pain than even the most revolutionary treatments that are available today. All of this would happen without anyone worrying about how they can afford the treatment.
I dream of living in a world like that. Wouldn’t it be marvellous?
As much as I’d also love to experience a few hours of amusement in the holodeck or order all sorts of fancy dishes from a replicator in the mess hall, real-life medical bays would be life-changing for humanity as a whole. I hope they really do exist someday.
Sadly, Covid killed off some my favourite bookstores that I would have loved to include in this list, so I decided to pivot to fictional answers instead.
Toronto has an excellent public library system that offers a wide range of paper, audio, and electronic books.
To be perfectly honest, I generally prefer book covers that include some sort of picture on them over the ones that have a fancy typographic font and nothing else.
Dusting and sweeping are my least favourite chores. There is no carpet in my apartment, so these two chores sort of meld together.
Those of you who have followed this blog for a while might remember how short my seasonal to-read lists generally are since I rely so heavily on what the Toronto Public Library has to offer and prefer to be a mood reader instead of sticking to a strict schedule.
Let’s see if I can answer this question without writing a whole book on the topic. Ha!
The geographical term I chose for this week’s prompt is wetlands. That is to say, areas of land that link water and land together. Some of them are always wet, while others can go through periods of being as dry as regular land depending on the season. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, and bogs.
My all-time favourite plot line is rebirth. That is to say, the audience is introduced to a morally ambiguous character (or even a downright jerk) who learns the error of his or her ways and eventually make a genuine and permanent change in their behaviour for the better.
I don’t own a lot of books due to how amazing my local public library is, but here are some I loved that I do own in ebook form.