by A. Rosaria
St. Mark's wasn't far now. Glancing back in the direction she had come from, she contemplated turning around and forgoing her history test, Jake, and school. She just wanted to spend time with her mother and brother. How often did she have a chance to really spend time with them together? Life lately was either her with Benny or her mother with Benny. There was always something else going on.
She lowered her head and kept plodding on. It would only cause an argument if she skipped school, and she needed good grades to get a scholarship and make something of her life. Not that she knew what that something would be. Sarah had looked into economics, but with the recession, it seemed all these great economic minds knew was how to throw more money into a bottomless pit. It really made her question if that was a viable career path. She liked history, but didn't think there were that many job opportunities. Only a few got the great jobs, but most historians ended up being history teachers, and teaching was not her thing. Her last option would be to join the Army. Maybe she would find some order living a disciplined life.
What would Jake think about that? She laughed, drawing a weird look from an older man hobbling by. Her wearing combat fatigues. Imagine that. So not how Jake pictured her. All he wanted was for her to be a high school version of a Stepford wife. Guns, dirt, and blood were not part of that picture. She imagined how he would lecture her about how it wasn’t a woman's job to defend the country. Men should do it. Boys, he meant, for the only old soldiers she met were veterans or the recruiters going from school to school. Those she saw parading around were young ones, not much older than her. Boys in men’s clothing. Why shouldn't a woman defend her country if she wanted to?
She sighed. Her mother would not agree and she wouldn’t turn eighteen until way after graduation. She was expected to choose a profession by then and commit to it. No adventure for her anytime soon; maybe it was for the best. What did babes know about war anyway? Politics never interested her, but she knew that it was the politicians who sent young people war. Maybe, just maybe, it was best she waited to make such a decision and kept it as a backup plan if everything else failed.
St. Mark's High School rose up above the roofs ahead of her. A two-story building with a flat roof. The building was cross shaped. It must have been a convent or some something. She had been going there forever and never bothered to learn its history. All she needed to know about that building was that it contained adults whose job was to put ideas in their heads for them to learn like they were facts. Then, you had the teens with their raging hormones having difficulty swallowing the stuff being taught, while dealing with the many social issues in their lives. Very frustrating. A mess, a real mess, she was glad it would soon be over. The only good things she had going at school were dating Jake and the popularity that came with that and her best friend, Lilly. Too bad those two didn't mesh well.
Entering the yard, she noticed two yellow buses parked in front of the entrance. Men in hazmat suits were unloading boxes and carrying them inside the school. As she went up the steps, she took a passing glance at the boxes. It had Army stamped all over. What was going on? In the main hall, she looked up. In front of the principal's office—up the main stairs and in the right wing of the building—the principal was talking to a hazmat guy, clearly agitated.
Sarah signaled a junior descending the stairs. “What's going on here?”
“Haven't you heard?” the boy said.
She hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary—not that if something had happened she would have noticed with the kind of weekend she had. She relied on her mother to pass her information. After all, it was she who had spent the weekend outside in the world while Sarah babysat and studied. Had something really big happened, her mom would have told her. But apparently mom had something else keeping her occupied last weekend. That and the sniffles.
“No, I haven’t heard anything.”
The teen pulled his fist in front of his mouth and coughed. “I...I...need to go to the head nurse. It's what they told us to do; any signs of the cold we need to report in.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Something about the flu; I don't really know.”
Sarah watched him bounce away. He was pretty energetic for a sick boy. Her first class started within an hour. She had ample time to hang around before she had to go up to the classroom. Monday was the day she agreed with Lilly that they would come early to chat about their weekend. Girls alone having girl time. However, Jake found out about it and now sometimes he would show up uninvited. So far, Lilly tolerated it, though there had been talk about choosing another day.
Going through the open twin doors to her left, she walked past the school nurse’s office. The junior stood in a long line waiting to see the Mrs. Evergreen. Another teen joined the line behind him and more were coming. She turned to the left and kept walking until she reached the tiny break room.
Last year, an eager class president made a petition for a bigger break room. Many thought it was a great idea and signed the petition. The principal, however, did not share the enthusiasm and answered along the lines of, School is to study. not to loiter in free time. Sarah was happy with the decision, which was the first time she had ever agreed with the principal, sort of. She didn't mind the room being less than spacious. Because it was small, it was not often used. She enjoyed having it to herself most of the time. The few times Jake had been with her, he had chased away the underclassmen. That one wasn’t big on sharing; it was a dick move really, but she wasn’t complaining. What did that make her? A female dick? A cunt? Or simply an asshole enabler.
Tommy, a fat kid in her class, sat in the corner reading a book. Well too bad, they would not have the room to themselves. Lilly sat in the other corner fiddling with her fingers in her lap. She looked up as she heard Sarah enter. Her already big eyes widened slightly as she ran up to her.
“Have you heard?” Lilly asked. There had been a lot of gossip going around school. Sarah shook her head. “They are gathering everyone who is sick and sending them home, keeping them quarantined inside their houses.”
“Why?”
“Don't you know? It's been all over the news. The flu. My dad, my sisters, my neighbors, almost everyone has it.”
No wonder fewer students had been coming in. Instead, it had been busy with men covered from head to toe in white suits, walking in and out carrying boxes.
“Yes, but why a quarantine?”
“They're trying to stop it from spreading.”
“But it's just the flu; it happens every year.”
“I watched the news this morning. Some guy was being interviewed who said it was some kind of super flu that will infect everybody and probably bring society crashing down.”
“Like they said would happen with the piggy flu? Come on, how bad can it be? They yell and scream doom every year, yet we are still here, breathing and well, at school.”
Lilly sat down, her hands folded in her lap. “I...I...guess I'm overreacting again.”
“Yes you are, but you'll soon see that everything will turn out fine.” Sarah sat beside her friend. “So how was your weekend?”
They shared their weekends. Lilly had a more engaging one, making Sarah wonder if she had time to study for the history exam. It was fun just passing time together, taking their mind off today's test, boys, and the flu.
Jake walked in. “Coach canceled the game. Something about the flu, not being able to field enough man power. Jeez, if I need to, I could field the game by myself.” He waited in front of them, expecting something and oblivious he had interrupted their conversation. “Aren't you going to move aside? Make some space so I can sit.”
Before Lilly could scoot over, he pressed between them, sat down, and put his arm around Sarah, who plucked it from her shoulder.
“Come on, don't be cold like that? Too much of that going on around here already. With kids coughing their lungs up everywhere I go.”
She smirked. “Lilly told me all about that. There is some
pandemic going on. People are screaming that the world is going to end, just like they did when we had the swine flu.”
“Yeah, I saw the soldiers near the nurse’s office.”
Soldiers? What were they doing at a school? And in peacetime? She remembered the Army boxes. Of course they were soldiers. National Guard, she guessed. They really were treating it as if it were an emergency. Maybe she had dismissed the severity of it too soon.
“Were they armed?”
“Yeah, they were, else I wouldn't have recognize them.” Jake looked around the room for the first time since entering. He glared at Tommy, who was still sitting in the corner. “I'll kill that guy.” He strode toward Tom, who flinched away. “How many times have I told you to scram when I'm in here? I don't want no smelly fatso asshole stinking up the place.”
Tommy’s face flushed red. He didn't move. Would it be today that he finally made a stand? Sarah rooted for him. She didn't know Tom that well. Sure, they shared classes together, but she was not expected to associate with the likes of him. The in crowd would not have deemed it cool. She had seen what happened when someone went against the crowd. Tom had a friend, Ralph, who was not bad looking—quite the opposite. Ralph stuck by him no matter what and he had been ostracized for it. Life in high school would have been much easier for him had he not befriended Tommy. It was kind of stupid.
She glanced at Lilly who was biting her lower lip. What if Lilly was fat and obnoxiously smelly, would she stop being friends with her? She wanted to think she wouldn't, but she wasn't so sure. The feeling of being wanted and being popular filled a hole in her that had been empty for so long.
Jake shoved Tommy. It would be great if he stood up and punched Jake in the face. He didn't though. Instead, he whined to be left alone and that the space was for everybody, including him. Jake grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out.
Lilly stood up and yelled, “Stop! You are hurting him.”
Jake pushed Tommy when he tried to come back in. “You better leave or I'll fucking kill you, fat ass.”
“Stop it,” Lilly said.
Jake grabbed her arm and pushed her out next to Tommy.
“Stay with your boyfriend and leave us alone.”
“He's not my boyfriend.”
Tom wheeled around and left.
“Look. He's running, wiggling his fat ass. You better hurry after him before he starts bawling like a fat baby.”
Sarah stomped past Jake and grabbed Lilly by the hand. She glared at him. “Jerk!”
They left him behind with his mouth partly open, staring at them.
“You shouldn't have,” Lilly said.
“What kind of friend would I be if I didn't?”
She wanted to be the kind of friend that stood up for her friends. She had grown tired of being seen as a superficial bimbo, which was how she had been acting the last few years. High school was at its end and she wanted a clean slate to start with, to be different. She wanted to fill that hole with something else. She just wanted to be herself, or try at least. The whole world would open up for her soon, and she planned to embrace it.
CHAPTER THREE
His mother sat next to him at the steering wheel, coughing her lungs up.
“Really, you shouldn't do this, Mom. I'm okay with going alone.” And ditching school.
Leaving for school had actually raised his anxiety about taking the test. He was going to fail it, and that was very bad, F-size bad. And he had no way out. He wanted to save face. Get out of it. And beside his selfish reasons, he felt—no, he knew—that his mother wasn't all right. He should take care of her. Her face was pale, her nose ran, and she kept having these coughing fits.
“No, you don't, mister smarty pants.”
God, she knew how to bring it and make him feel small. He was eighteen already.
“I'm going make sure to drop you off at school and watch you go inside. You're a smart kid; I know you're going to ace that test.”
He glanced at her. She was smiling. There was no way she really believed that; she must be delirious if she did. She must have seen doubt on his face because she said, “You'll do all right; don't worry about the test.”
She drove out of the carport and onto the street.
“I'm not worried about the stupid test. I'm worried about you and Ginny.”
“Just a cold. Nothing to worry about.” She flashed him a smile. “I'll go and take myself and Ginny to see Doctor Morris. Hope that makes you feel better.”
Their physician, old doctor Morris. How many times did they visit him? Once or twice a year? And to hear what? That they needed bed rest for two weeks? Only when an illness persisted did they ever go back for a checkup. It was clear to him what he should do if he wanted an easy job after graduation. Though, as easy of a job as it would be, it wasn't easy to study for. He quickly dropped that thought. No, he didn't really know what he should do with his life after graduating. He would postpone thinking about it until the second semester. His stomach knotted. Second semester was almost upon him, less than a month away.
It had gotten quiet in the car while his mother focused on driving. Sweat trickled down from her forehead. With her sight fixed on the road, she paid little attention to anything else. It probably took all the strength she had to do it. He feared she was downplaying her illness for his sake. Common cold, she said. He believed whatever it was it was closer to the common flu.
Ralph fiddled with the radio dial. Some newscaster was on every channel reporting the same thing. He didn't want to listen to the blaring of some overinflated radioman; he wanted some sweet pop music. The newest Rhianna hit would be cool. Now that was a woman he would like to date. He wouldn't mind that she was older than him. But wasn’t she going out with that Canadian, that Bieber guy? He was younger. Nah, daydreaming never amounted to anything. He would rather have Sarah pay attention to him. Another daydream. He stood as much chance getting Sarah to give him the time of day as having Rhianna propose to him.
No music at all, only the same newscaster. Weird. There was always some sort of music on at least one channel, and still if by chance you wouldn't, you sure would not have the same newscaster on every frequency.
“Don't change it.” The car swerved a little when she said that.
The newscaster blasted over the speakers.
They say this flu is much worse than the swine flu during the 2009 epidemic. Already the World Health Organization wants to declare a pandemic and quarantine everybody. Other scientists have said it's being exaggerated. Economic leaders said that a quarantine would create too much turmoil over too little. Yeah, like human life is worth less than financial gain. Wall Street may think it is, but I bet a fortune that it is not to you, my listener, you who must be wondering right now if it's the smart thing to be taking your kids to school. The scientists and Wall Street are not the only ones pondering this flu. We have the conspiracy theorists; they claim the government is using the common flu to scare us into thinking it's worse than it really is so we run scared and get a vaccine shot. All for the big, bad corporations mega profits. At least these conspiracy terrorist are not the looniest of the bunch, though they are a close second. The first spot for that goes to... What are they called again? Apocalyptic? Whatever they are called, they are saying...wait for it...that this flu is a hundred times worse than the bird flu, that after it's over no living human will walk the Earth. What is it? A pandemic, a hoax, a conspiracy, or the apocalypse. To dispel doubt and panic, our station and yours truly, John Murray...
“The hack,” mom said.
….have been selected by the government in collaboration with WHO's spokeswoman Rita Lee to answer the many questions you may have.
A woman's voice replaced the too-smooth-to-be-any-good baritone of the newscaster, radio jock, or whoever he was. Ralph did not know any of these people, but apparently his mother did, and she did not have a high opinion of the man based on the way she sneered.
I'm Doctor Rita Lee, spokeswoman for the Wor
ld Health Organization. The first thing I have to say is to counter these preposterous claims that this flu is some doomsday virus. What other crazy theory will we have next, someone claiming the dead will walk?
The doctor snickered, which sounded more like a crazy lady losing it than someone trying to rebuff an absurd theory. He couldn’t really blame her for feeling a bit lost with the situation. Lately, people have been making the craziest stuff up to get attention, or for the fun of it. He hated listening to this nonsense instead of music, but his mother was listening attentively. God, she was going to make him take a vaccine if they convince her that something bad was going on.
So, Doctor, what about these conspiracy theorists’ claim that it's all to fill some fat cat's pockets?
Since when have they ever been right? They are barely saner than the doomsayers. Do you really believe the government would risk our health, which they have sworn to protect, for some scam to get money for some corporate donor? No, of course not! These are good people; they are at the helm to serve the people. And we, as a world organization, help these governments, foreign and domestic, to deal with situations that can have an adverse effect on our health. We are a nonprofit organization and we do not profit on making people sick; we cure people as best we can.
“Pleaseeeee,” mom said.
Doctor, can you tell us what is really going on?
It's a new strain of the flu. Our current vaccine doesn't work on it. As far we know, we have no reason to not believe that it's as harmful as the common flu.
Why then the call for a worldwide quarantine?
Because what many don't realize is that the common flu has about thirty thousand fatalities around the world each year.
We don't have a quarantine in those cases, so why now?
