I wanted to hear them again desperately, but when the phone call announcing their safe arrival to Auckland came, I suddenly couldn’t wait for the video call to end. Dad and Ruby were tired, but in a very good mood, excited about the festival and all the upcoming adventures, blind to the danger hanging over the world like the sword of Damocles.
They were just in a taxi, on their way to the B&B where they were going to stay the first two nights. Ruby yawned nonstop, still holding onto her stuffed elephant and chattering happily into the phone.
“We’ll call again when we’ve had some sleep,” Dad said and took the phone away from Ruby.
“Alright,” I whispered. How many more times will I be able to talk to them like this? The idea that all we had left were phone calls made my breathing stop.
“You should get some rest too. Maybe you can take a nap before work.”
My work now only consisted of attending a protest I’d completely forgotten about. The loss of physical closeness to my family had erased everything else from my mind. It all seemed so insignificant, so pointless.
But since I’d already agreed to have the virus injected into my body, and since I’d said my final goodbyes to those two, there was no point in sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. I got dressed and forced down a simple breakfast so I had some energy to accomplish my task. It’d completely slipped my mind to ask Mark or Andrew what exactly I was supposed to be doing at the protest, but in the end I decided that my presence alone will be enough.
I drove to the centre and parked right next to the block packed with protesters. I spent some time just hanging around on the pavement, but in the end I merged into the crowd and let it carry me down the long street.
I didn’t let myself think about the occasional encouraging smile from others, or to the fact that we’re actually fighting for a good cause here. The street was packed with bodies, and elbowing each other and stepping on each other’s toes was inevitable. Loud chants about animal rights were mixed with quiet apologies.
Why the hell do we have to spread the plague here of all places, these are clearly considerate people who care about the living standards of innocent animals! But it would have been harder to gather a big crowd of drug addicts fighting for cocaine and heroin legalisation or paedophiles demanding regular access to children.
Andrew had mentioned something about this before. I couldn’t recall his exact words, but it was along the lines of how the whole population was so tightly interconnected, that you always reach good people through the bad–criminals need their victims, and vice versa–criminals must have parents, siblings, blissfully ignorant acquaintances.
I wandered through the crowd for hours. I was overcome by coughing fits, expecting to be asked to leave any minute now, for the risk of spreading a disease, but everyone probably assumed it was just an ordinary cough, and nobody paid me any attention.
Suddenly I felt a wave of anger rise within me. I was furious with The Collective for having forced me into this position, without any way out. I ignored the fact that the decision to be a primary virus carrier was entirely my own, because really, I’d been manipulated. They made it so that I’d connect all the dots and arrive at the desired reaction. I’d thought that I’d be saving the world from evil, but I was robbing myself of precious moments with those I loved more than my own life.
More than my own life…
“Connie!” someone shouted behind me.
I turned to face the familiar voice. Mark made his way through the crowd.
“I thought it was you!” he smiled.
All of my anger diminished. I wasn’t unhappy to see him, but all I could really think about was how much happier I would have been to see two other faces.
A coughing fit came over me and, as if out of solidarity, he started coughing too. I took a closer look at him and noticed how unusually pale he was, drops of perspiration of his forehead and dark bags under his eyes. I must have looked similar.
“Aren’t we a pair,” I said dully. I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. Who could blame him? We were dying of a plague, after all.
“How do you feel?” Mark asked while looking at me, wrinkle forming between his eyebrows.
What was he asking about? My physical state? Or my broken heart? He didn’t have family, a partner, or close friends, but he’d had his Grandma, the only kindred spirit he had been able to lean on during his life.
Surely, he knew that everything in me was dying, that I couldn’t breathe–not because of symptoms of the flu or bronchitis, but because I would never see my family again.
I didn’t answer and gazed out into the distance over his shoulder, as if I could find some answers there. He didn’t seem to mind my lack of reaction. He took my hand in his and squeezed it. I was so desperate for some human connection that I didn’t pull away. He motioned forward with his chin, although the crowd was moving slowly. There wasn’t anywhere to go. Should we turn around and go back?
“I know,” he whispered, voice rough. I didn’t know what he meant by that, but it didn’t matter.
We hadn’t known each other very long or very well, but it still hurt to say goodbye when the protest was over.
The streets were crazy, there were
