Diane fought the sniffles and a sore throat for nearly two weeks. Now it's mine. My head is foggy and I can't breath.
In my present state, I can't remember if I published this old short story, but sensing a theme, here it is: Common Cold.
"Achoo!"
"Knock it off, Bruce. You don't have a cold." Littermeir peeked over the cubicle, shaking his greasy head. "Just cut it out, will ya? You didn't have a cold last month, not last week, and not today."
"I had the flu last week."
"You did not. Nobody's had any of those things for over twenty years. I bet even you've never been sick. Now just cut it out." Littermeir hoisted himself up and threw his arms over the top of the divider.
"Don't lean on that, you'll break it." He looked up at the beefy arms and bulbous face that towered over him. He practiced a sniffle. "I had a cold once."
Littermeir snuffled in reply.
"I caught a cold when I was eight and had to stay home from school for two days. I think I'm catching something this time. I'm almost sure that my ears are plugging up."
"My God, it's probably cholera. Wasn't that one of those childhood diseases?"
Bruce shook his head weakly at him. "No, it wasn't. I just think I'm catching a cold."
"Isn't it about your nap time?" Littermeir reached down behind the divider and produced a single, white powdered donut, which he leered at before popping it whole into his mouth. "Just take a little nap and you'll feel better," he said with a mouth full of yellow and white, then he laughed in clouds of crumbs and dust. He flapped a hand at Bruce as he thumped down from his perch.
Bruce felt his forehead and cheeks. He was flushed with embarrassment, not fever. He'd just moved to this cubicle from his comfortable one in the corner last week when Littermeir had peeked over the divider and had caught him staring at his terminal with his eyes closed, his cheek resting in his hand. The worst part was that it was true. This job was so boring and undirected that he regularly took naps and went to great pains never to be caught. It was his only sport. He opened the center desk drawer and plucked out a small mirror, then held it close to his face. With the fingers of his right hand he pulled down his lower lids. The whites of his eyes were clear and white. "Damn." Open mouth, tongue extended--pink, even flesh everywhere. He put the mirror away, then pinched one nostril closed, inhaled, then the other nostril. His breathing was unobstructed. He rested his chin in his palm and stared at his terminal and with his free hand, reached out to the keyboard and punched random keys. Tomorrow he'd bring in his Merck Manual of Disease and Diagnosis. Maybe during his forty-five minutes of lunch he'd flip through the pages of the tattered volume and find something that he could still catch.
Three o'clock. Bruce straightened in his chair and looked across and up the narrow aisle to the woman who was furiously working there. She would, in moments, answer the first of at least fourteen telephone calls. The first would be her daughter checking in from school. That would be followed by calls of what to wear, when to do home work, what to wear, and so on throughout the remainder of the afternoon. This was the best part of the day. Bruce tried to imagine the other side of the conversations, but that ended up boring him too. A couple of aisles over he could hear two other employees arguing in increasingly louder tones. He stood, pretending to stretch and catch a peek of who it was, but when they both stopped their arguing and stared at him he changed his stretch into reaching for a manual on a top shelf. He grabbed at random and sat back down. Flipping it open he discovered it to be terribly out of date, probably from the previous inhabitant of this cubicle. He flung open a lower desk drawer to drop it inside, but it was already overflowing with out-of-date materials. He rolled back from the desk and dropped the manual in the waste can, then began pulling thick memos, stapled, clipped, and folded documents, and dropped them one at a time into the can with only cursory glances. He tossed out hanging folders, envelopes, and then in the back, pulled free a heavy plastic bag zippered at the top. He moved aside his keyboard and papers and set it unopened on his desktop to examine its contents without disturbing them, in case it held something important or illegal. Instead, Bruce saw with growing wonder and nostalgia the packages, bottles and containers that would push aside his boredom.
The bag was full of over-the-counter cold remedies.
Bruce smiled broadly. He laid the zippered bag on its side and carefully shook it so the contents were evenly displayed. He pressed his face close to the murky plastic so he could see the shapes of elixirs and unguents that would offer him relief, if only he were sick! He twisted the bag around, pulled it close to his nose, and then gingerly peeled apart the seal. A short sniff brought the long missed hint of dust and the bitter-sharp tingle of acetylsalicylic acid. Aspirin! He reached in and carefully brought out a little tin and followed the instructions to, "Press red dots with both thumbs". The lid popped back to reveal the crumbling white tablets. His grin broadened. He wet the tip of his finger to collect a few grains and place them on his tongue. He tasted the healing tartness. He closed his eyes to savor its astringent dryness. Had he dared, he would have crushed a whole tablet between his teeth. He considered it a long while, but thinking it over, decided it was stupid, foolish to take a drug that could be, well, who knows how old. Oh! If only it were orange too! He remembered being bundled up in bed, hot cocoa on his nightstand, and the tiny orange pills his mother had him chew. He had loved the way the tiny, hard pills snapped and crunched between his teeth, lingered on his molars. He snapped the lid closed before he was overcome with temptation.
What next? A bottle of liquid cold medicine that smelled strongly of alcohol, an unopened box that revealed some sort of nasal spray. He read the directions, and then removed the cap. He cautiously sniffed, but inhaled a fine mist of the decongestant. It startled him, but within seconds he could feel the membranes shrink and move within his passages. Suddenly frightened, he scooped the discovered items into his top desk drawer and hurried to the restroom, cupped his hands under the faucet, filled them with water, and sucked it into his nose. He coughed and choked, then did it twice again. When he looked up in the mirror it seemed as if he were in a cold sweat. He grinned hugely. "Oh, you look sick." he said.
He returned cautiously to his desk, but no one took notice of him. At first, he went back to the report he had been working on that morning, but all he could think of was what was in his desk drawer. He cracked the drawer open and slid out an individually wrapped packet of capsules. He pushed one out through the foil backing and fingered the thin gelatin case that enclosed the multi-colored balls. He spread a sheet of clean paper on his desk and creased it to form a trough, then twisted the capsule, pulling the halves apart. He poured the tiny pieces out on the paper and it rustled gently. He stirred the pieces with the end of a red pencil. "Too bad I'm not sick," he said with regret.
The rest of the package contained a small box of paper napkins, some sort of eye drops, a gelatinous blue mask, and several hard candies that smelled of honey and menthol. The last item was a cobalt blue bottle, half full of a thick, greasy stuff that let off such a strong odor that he quickly recapped it, then stuck it back in the bag and resealed it also. What a treasure! What a joy it would be to have a cold.
* * * *
Bruce remembered the day, in the vagaries of his youth, when they released the vector. After the years of testing and argument they announced the day and hour when the bulk of human suffering would end. His parents had graciously allowed him to stay up for the midnight television broadcast, then threatened to send him to bed for fighting with his little sister. Someone read a speech, and just before he dozed off, they released the balloons.
The leading causes of death today are:
1. Suicide
2. Domestic Disputes
3. Household Accidents
Bruce wanted to add boredom to the list, but acquiesced that it probably fell under category one.
* * * * *
At home that night, Bruce dreamed.
He was swaddled in blankets and wore a huge sweater that wrapped around and about him. His dream self tried to stand, but gently swooned and felt the room slowly move. When he closed his eyes and the entire room accelerated with him at its center, but it stopped jarringly when he forced his eyes open again. He dabbed his nose with tissues. They piled in mounds about him. Suddenly, he felt the sensation growing within him; the odd, high feeling in the front of his nose, the small catch of breath, the anticipation was over! He sneezed. He relaxed back to the womb of pillows with a sigh that released the burden of years. Bruce stirred and woke, but the smile of the passing dream took him quickly, easily back to sleep. Maybe tomorrow.
* * * *
He just couldn't concentrate. Today, of all days, he had many important things to do, some of them actually interesting, but he couldn't find a place to start. His hands kept slipping off the keyboard and down to the desk drawer. Twice he found his hand inside it, turning the little tin box of tablets over and over. Each time he'd close the drawer, re-straighten his desk, and turn back to the bit of work in front of him.
He looked for things to do. He called his home phone number to see if he had any messages on his answering machine. He did not. He dialed for time and temperature to check his watch and desk clock, then dialed again to make sure it was accurate, but the urge to peek and explore did not subside. Finally, he pulled the entire bag from the drawer and tossed it in his waste can, then thrust away from the desk and headed for the restroom. He marched briskly down the aisle and reached out to push open the door. It moved away from his hand and he fell forward, into the pillowy softness of Littermeir on the other side. He looked up at him as he tried to squeeze by. Littermeir looked as if he had held his head under a faucet, then combed his hair with his fingers. He held an open and partially eaten candy bar in fingers that themselves had been nibbled and eaten down to slivers of nails and puffy, wrinkled finger tips. Littermeir grinned down at him, huge and unsafe, now freed from the cubical divider that normally protected him.
"What is it today? I think you've made at least four trips down here."
"Nothing. Excuse me."
He didn't move from the partially opened door.
"Diarrhea? Are we pretending to have diarrhea today? You're really pitiful, Brucey, really pitiful."
Bruce pushed past, avoiding contact. Once, he had stood at the bus stop out front and Littermeir pressed up close to his side in the crowd. When Bruce had reached down, he accidentally placed his hand in Littermeir's coat pocket, not his own. It was lined with moist crumbs, the remains of a dying cookie. He'd pulled back quickly, but the revulsion and shock of the moment made him want to keep clean, open spaces between them. The door closed slowly with Littermeir still standing there, grinning in at him. He hurried to a back stall and shut the door, then leaned his head against the cool surface.
Standing there, he discovered a strange, hard lump in his pocket. He felt it through the fabric of his trousers. Ah, of course, he thought. Sometime during the fidgeting at his desk he had placed the little blue bottle of ointment in his pocket. He pulled it out and popped the lid, just enough to catch the aroma of menthol. He inhaled deeply and decided with no hesitation. No one was here. He stepped out of the stall and up to the mirror, threw his tie over his left shoulder and opened the top buttons of his shirt. He dipped two fingers into the opaque, sticky-thick goo and pulled out a mobile lump, bringing it to his chest. He rubbed it in circles, matting the black hairs into tight, flat curls. The rising vapors made his eyes water. The last bit he worked into each nostril and smeared across his upper lip, as directed. It was exhilarating. His grin widened, making his face feel tight and hot. The reflection looked manic and dangerous. "This is good," he said without dropping his rictal smile, "if I can't get sick, I'll get insane."
He let the smile fade and the muscles in his cheeks relax. The fumes were making him dizzy, tired. He reached up to rub his eyes, instantly stinging them with the residue of the ointment. Instinctively, he cupped his hands under the faucet and brought the captured water towards his face, but then he stopped and let it drain away. He pressed close to the mirror, holding the basin on both sides and slowly forced his eyes open, waiting for his vision to clear. They were shot with red. He shook his head at himself, then bent and washed his face clean.
Bruce dried himself as best as he could with the blower, and then returned to the stall. He thought for a moment before lowering his trousers. It was impossible to sit comfortably on a toilet with your pants up. That, and it would look strange to anyone walking in. But this was too strange for Bruce, sitting with his pants around his ankles, his shirt sticking to his chest, his eyes watering. He could barely catch his breath. He pulled free several turns of toilet paper and reached up under his shirt to wipe away what he could. That seemed to just move it around. He stood, rearranged himself, flushed for cover, and exited without rewashing his hands.
On the way back to his desk he firmly resolved to complete a memo and to append the weekly report, and . . . he walked past his cubicle, his stride lengthening. He passed his supervisor's desk. She took no notice of him, but the medicated aroma settled on her in his wake. She peeked around the corner as he forsook the elevator and pushed open the door to the stairs.
Bruce took the stairs two at a time. His hand slid down the rail and propelled him in tight turns down the well. He burst into the lobby, past the reception desk, then out into the morning sunlight. There he slowed, then stopped as he reached the curb. The exertion of his escape made his heart pound within his chest. For a moment he stood there, at the stop, by the bench. He stood in this exact same spot every day, but he had never been out here mid-morning. He stuck a finger behind his tie and into his shirt to feel the greasy mat of hair and shirt. He pulled it out and it was coated with the pungent ointment. He wiped it on the concrete bench. 10:30. He sat on the bench and considered what he might do next. The answer came immediately: Go back.
With that settled, he sat a moment more, waiting for his second wind. He didn't know how long that might take, since he had never pushed past his first one. "I'm not strong enough to stand being sick," he muttered by himself. His eyes hurt, he was sticky and smelly, and who were these people? Here it is, mid-morning, and the street and sidewalk is full of people. The strangeness of being away from his desk and out caused Bruce to scan the faces. The injustice of their freedom agitated him. Why weren't they working? What were they all doing out here? "If I have to work, everybody has to work." The reverse did not occur to him. Surely they weren't all runaways like him. Even now, within minutes of his flight, the guilt of his absence grew. He reluctantly stood, turned towards the office, and cursed the happy multitude behind him.
Back at his desk, a grimy candy bar wrapper sat on the floor near his trashcan. He cautiously picked it up to drop it in . . . the can was unexpectedly empty . . . the bag of medicines was gone. He listened. Soft, unpleasant sounds came from over the divider. He peeked. Littermeir was cradling his head in his hands and moaning. In front of him, on his desk, were the cellophane wrappers of medicated candies and a little plastic cup/lid with a residue of green liquid. The bottle lay on its side, empty. Bruce gasped, then laughed sharply. Littermeir turned to look at him. His face was pale with panic and pain, and . . . He hiccupped slightly, then turned and threw up on the floor. Bruce stared in disbelief as Littermeir leaned forward and rolled from his chair. He lay on his side across the aisle. Faces peered above and around dividers.
Bruce ran to the end of the aisle and back to where Littermeir lay.
"What did you do?" he whispered to him. Littermeir looked up at him, then retched and threw up again.
Bruce stepped past him, lifted the empty plastic bag from the corner of the desk, and quickly swept the empty wrappers and remaining medications into it. He reached over the divider to his own desk and tossed it back and under his desk. He turned back to kneel beside Littermeir. After a moment, the supervisor strode down the aisle and looked down at them both: Bruce cradling Littermeir's head in his lap.
"What's going on here?" she demanded.
Bruce looked up at her and with a grin of triumph said, "He's sick!"
