It's been raining in my head for months. Suffocating fog falls over buildings, coating everything around me in a thick sputum, coughed up by a self-induced sickness. People walk through the streets unaware of the virus they carry within themselves, dormant like a beast in hibernation. It infects their minds, inflaming the spaces between their head and their hearts. Their bodies fight it off, but their ill-fated resistance only lasts so long before their terminally ill souls shake and rattle into an early grave. Yet, they still walk among us, as if no one told them they had died. Their performance is enough to convince even themselves as they sit back in their chairs and enjoy the theater they put on, mouths burned by the salty distractions they shovel into their mouths to pretend they are satisfied. But they aren't. We are nothing more than hollow husks, wrenching and writhing in the belly of the monster we have all willingly offered ourselves up to. We are but food for the masters we serve, and their hunger is never satisfied. I'd like to believe I'm different. Of course I would. We all would. That's how I know I am already dead. Slow music plays as the credits have already begun to roll in the theater of my mind, and it's just a matter of time before the light flickers out and the tape clicks against the reel as it falls to the ground.
I’ve heard it all before, so many times, yet this time I notice something in me that i hadn't seen before. I didn't care. Or at least, I didn't care like I know I should. A strange woman sits in the back of my ambulance, telling me her life story, pleading with me to fix all of her problems. Her story drones on in the background, but I am somewhere else entirely. Part of me is tired, yet part of me is stunned by the realization that I am angry at her. She tells me that her body hurts, that nothing she does quells the ache. She tells me that she's been sick for days, and all I can think is "why did you wait until now to call 911?". I am indignant as if right now was the most important moment of my life, and she has stolen that moment away from me. I do my best to hide my frustration, and to form words in my mouth that don't betray my inner dialogue.
I manage a passing concern.
"What kind of symptoms have you been having?". It doesn't sound convincing, but she buys it.
"Well, it started a few days ago - my nephew is sick, and I watched them at their place last week. Their mom and dad went on a trip, you know, one of those all-inclusive resort stays, they have the 3-course meals and everything. It's a bit much if you ask me, but my sister is always doing too much, so that tracks."
She didn't answer the question. They rarely do. You ask one simple thing, and instead of a direct answer, you get this drawn-out, snooze-fest of a life story. Just tell me if you're sick. My eyes draw to the floor in an attempt to hide my lack of patience for this story I didn't ask for as I wait for her to get to the answer.
"-he's been coughing since last week, and we thought it was just an itchy throat, and obviously they didn't want to cancel their trip, and normally I don't get sick, so I was like ok fine. But I started throwing up and not to be too gross, but it's coming out of both ends..."
A cough. She has a cough.
"How long have you had a cough?" I interject. She hasn't coughed once.
My patient care voice is practiced and convincing, and at one point it was even earnest. It still is sometimes, but I can feel the resentment that has built in my throat over time. It's not that I resent the people. I don't. But I resent the system that grinds us all to our bones. I despise the greed and self-righteous leaders that see us as numbers and not people. That resentment has turned to bitterness in my throat, and it goes down like a harsh brandy, sour and prickly on the tongue. I don't want to be this way.
A voice, crackled and monotone, falls from a speaker overhead.
"Blood pressure - 137 over 78 millimeters of mercury. Heart rate - 92 beats per minute- oxygen saturation - 97%. Patient condition - stable."
After 1/5th of the country became ill all at once 6 years ago, everyone panicked. A virus swept through the country like the vengeful spirit of God over the Israelites, and after millions died and hundreds of millions left the workforce all at once, life nearly ground to a complete stop. Our military presence overseas retreated as we could no longer afford to gallivant around the world, and our positions of power withered away. The stock market reached record lows, and for the first time in human history America was no longer the superpower of the globe. Our presence on the global stage crumbled and was reduced to a pitiful cosplay of our former selves. Other nations would have pitied us if not for our incessant preaching of self-appointed superiority. Our nation's leaders called upon help from our allies, but thanks to our ego, we were met with a deafening silence. This period became known to the world as The Withering of the West. To Americans, it was a rebirth. With the country on life support, both literally and metaphorically, it wouldn't be long before a messiah arose from the grave to save us. The news called it a miracle drug. Doctors called it modern innovation born out of turmoil. Politicians called it the indomitable Spirit of the West. I called it convenient.
"Recommended treatment - Lesynol" . The voice faded.
A half-hearted "Confirm" fell from my lips, followed by a rattling sound behind me. I turned around and grabbed a small, white pill embossed with the letter "L" from the receptacle. Turning back to my patient, I handed it over to her, and without instruction, she shot it into her mouth, crushing it between her teeth until muted crunches turned to soft chewing. Lesynol is a chewable tablet that starts rigid, but as it breaks down between your teeth, it activates and slowly turns into a paste gum that you then chew for 10-15 minutes before the full effects of the "medicine" can be ingested into the bloodstream. Once the flavor begins to fade, you can dispose of the gum, or as most people do, stick it on the first available surface to be cleaned up by someone else.
In a desperate attempt to save America from its darkest hour, generous donors emerged from the shadows to fund a long-shot mission to cure the world of this unseen killer. From their efforts was born a magical cure. Lesynol. Convenient, cheap, and marketable - it became the savior we needed. It was unbelievable. Life during the withering was a nightmare for those of us on the frontlines. Bodies stacked so high in the streets they blacked out our headlights, and what was once a machine meant to save lives became a hearse. We were overworked and breaking under the pressure of societal collapse, and everyone looked to us to save them from it. The public cried to us when the virus came for them and their loved ones. The news villainised us, attributing the ever-growing body count to our ever-shrinking capabilities. We were not immune to the virus either, and quickly our numbers faded like the rest of society. We were drowning in bodies, and many of us who managed to survive the virus left healthcare as soon as we were healthy enough to. We didn't sign up to bear the weight of society. We signed up to help people, not become their saviors. The few of us that remained did so tired and changed by it. You didn't make it out of that hellish roller coaster ride the same. No one did. Those that survived the withering did so malnourished and fractured. The nation's population decreased by 24% when all of the dust had settled. Despite this colossal death toll, somehow the rest of the world remained unscathed. When news of the initial outbreak spread, containment efforts moved faster than the virus, and North America was isolated from the rest of the world. All flights to and from ceased, and with it, so did trade. Americans lost more than lives. We lost luxury and comfort. We lost bananas and avocados and lithium batteries. Things we thought we could not live without.
Twenty months into what felt like a life sentence, a light broke through the clouds. A lifeline came from China in the form of a miracle drug and an unspoken contract. Unbeknownst to Americans, a union had formed between the other powers of the world, and born out of this union was Lesynol. It wasn't called that in the beginning, and it wasn't a pill either. At first it was an IV drug, delivered directly to the bloodstream slowly over an hour. It drip-fed mercy into a dying man's veins, slowly over the course of a week, unclenching the cold grip of death from a man's being and pulling them from the grave. Quickly, with the backing of megacorporations and slimy contracts signed under duress, miracles were distilled into convenient, 1-gram-sized pills. Soon, the nation became addicted to salvation in the form of a cherry-flavored candy, and with strong jaws, we summited the shadowy mountain of corpses we nearly suffocated beneath. We were saved.
Nowadays, Lesynol has become so ubiquitous its hardened corpses cover the city's underbelly like barnacles on a whale's belly. No chair, handrail, or city block is safe from its cherry-flavored proliferation. The city has become so overrun by its presence that it is now known as "Candyland". As the drug became more widely accessible, society began to stir from its deathbed, and the nation's wealth began to rise. People were able to re-enter the workforce, and the money started to flow again like blood in our veins. But some blood ran thicker than others, and megacorporations flourished under this new regime. The gap between them and us widened to staggering new heights, and a new way of life was born. We had many to thank for our new life, but none more than China, and in thanks we erected monuments to our new gods. Mandarin adverts became as common as English ones, and as schools reopened, they did so with foreign language classes heavily encouraged by our new benefactors. Neon signs hung like vines in every major city, the most invasive of which could be found in Candyland. She had become a haven for the sick. With 37 hospitals spread throughout the city and tens of millions of citizens residing within the city limits before the virus, such a dense population was first on the list of candidates to test-run the miracle drug in its infancy. When news of its efficacy spread beyond the city limits, every capable person for miles to come flocked to the city, overwhelming an already crumbling infrastructure. Being the fix-all that we are, emergency services were deployed to every corner and used to fix all manner of problems. Taxis, food delivery, supply chain, pastoral caretaker, gravedigger. We were stretched far beyond our capabilities, and even after everything settled down, most of us never returned to our original shape. Now, malformed and distorted, those of us that remain do so as a crude effigy of our former selves. A walking memorial of wounds shared by millions. We were so relieved by the effects of Lesynol that all we could do was accept it and ride in its slipstream. It came down in the last hour like an angel from heaven, blinding us with its awesome power, and we, cowering in its light, accepted it with trembling arms. I was no different. I needed it just as much as everyone else, and I accepted all the same.
In the days since the virus, Lesynol had adapted to be more than just a one-problem solution. Patients turned into recurring customers, going to their doctors with fake symptoms and feigning an encroaching doom. People began to take note. One such set of noticing eyes was those of investors intent on capitalizing on the moment. With swift hands and clever minds, opportunists began to craft a triumphant story, an epilogue to tragedy. Lowered regulations and mass production paved the way for accessibility, and with the backing of the church, which was nestled ever so comfortably in the pockets of the rich, it became sustenance. The general public, addicted to their salvation, began to flock to dispensaries now deposited throughout cities the nation over. With the scan of a wrist, medication popped out of machines like candy, and millions of people became addicted. But it didn't stop at our beaches. The Chinese were the first foreigners to adopt this newfound craze, and quickly what started as millions became billions as the rest of the modern world followed suit. Within one year, nearly 5 billion people, 41% of the global population, consumed Lesynol. Now, 6 years since its inception, it has reached every continent, the moon, Mars, some moons of Jupiter, and has even left our star system on a deep space vessel headed towards the Andromeda galaxy. A new religion was born, and it soon spread to every remote corner of the known universe and even some unknown ones.
Her cherry red lips smacked as she chewed her candy god. An annoyingly familiar sound. I lean over, unbuckling her from the cot and open the side door. She scans her wrist as she steps out, and I call to her as she walks away.
"If you begin to feel a tingling sensation, your symptoms get worse, or your vision becomes blurred, do not hesitate to call us back-"
Before I finish shes turned the corner and out of sight. "Another life saved," I mumble to myself mockingly. I step out of the rig and get into the driver's seat. An automated voice crackles overhead, and we lurch forward, off to save another life no doubt.
