“Does it hurt?”
With all the gangrene on his left hand, the answer was obvious. But, sometimes you ask just to make a conversation. Since my bed was closest to his, we became friends while in the quarantine.
“Look, it’s like my hand is doing the devil’s horn. all the time! METAL!”
Dave made a point since his left hand only had 3 fingers left. His enthusiasm made Keitch who’s in a bed across the room look up in annoyance.
“There are other people too you know!”
Keitch resumed his daily Ishihara test. It’s that dotted picture you use to test color blindness. Today, he cannot tell red from orange anymore. Keitch took one block off his “mood tower” and tossed it across the room. He sweared silently and went inside his blanket. I sipped my coffee.
What is a “mood tower?” Let me inform you. Since the “germ” four of us contacted are new, the doctor wanted to minimize the contact. One way to check on our mental wellness is to made us stack 10 wooden blocks on each of our bedside table. 10 means you’re all jolly. 1 means you’re spiraling down to madness. Not too dificult to guess that each of the patient’s tower got shorter day by day. Keith had 4 now. Dave had 6, which meant his happy facade was just a way of coping. Gloria, who stared out the window since day 1, barely eating, had 2. From what I’ve heard, the infection caused a permanent damage to her vocal cord. Thus, ruining her singing career. Not too hard to imagine how horrible she must had felt.
“Man! Can you tell us when we gonna get out? I missed my cat!”
Dave’s whining was ignored by the medical staffs. might be because it’s all he asked. As the doctors were discussing our cases in PPE suits, I overheard that they described the symptoms as “random.” Limb necrosis. Vocal cord tear. Color blindness. I’m no medical professional, but I know what this new strain of “germ” was after, and it’s the same reason my mood tower stayed at 10 since the first day, unwavering.
“So, are you gonna tell me about your genius theory about is germ?” Dave sprayed bits of corn on my gown.
“You told me that you played guitar, right?” I cleaned the corn bit off.
“Dude, I may look like this, but I was serious about my album. But, look at my left hand, guess it is just a dream now.” His sigh filled the room.
“It really felt like this “germ” knows your dream and finds a way to specifically destroy it.”
My theory made Dave speculated at first, but after I mentioned Gloria, he opened a little bit.
“And Keith-“ I whispered to Dave.
“I’ve heard that he wanted to be a pilot.”
“Dude! this germ IS cruel!”
“Shh!”
“But, what about you? You seems fine.”
“Exactly, I think that I am perfectly immune to this germ! Because of this fact.”
“What fact? You’re killing me with all the anticipation!”
“Since when little, everyone knows what they want to be. A police. An astronaut. An artist. But for me, I have no desire. AT ALL. I’ve never felt the pull to anything. Passion. None of that. I can enroll in any kind of work and live a mundane life. I’m free from desire. That means I have nothing to be taken. And THAT is the thing I’m different from you guys.”
“You’re weird, man. Not because you don’t have any dream, but you seem arrogant about it.”
Call it hubris and all you want, but I’m free from wanting anything. just a cup of coffee in the morning and I can do anything and be anywhere. I was sure this pandemic would have passed like a breeze.
2 weeks. Then, 1 month passed. Gloria and Keith’s tower reached 0. Dave was at 3. It was dense in the ward, but my tower stayed a solid 10. A sipped of my coffee and the day repeated. Easy as that. Dave smiled less. He became more deranged when the germ began affecting his hearing.
“It’s not fair! not fair!”
He seemed upset everytime he saw anything related to music. But the most of all, he was angry at me.
“Why? Why it’s so wrong to have a dream. Why do you have to take it from me you asshole germ!?”
At the second month, he had to be isolated because of aggression. I never saw him since. The other two were stuporous. I had no one to talk to right now. That meant I had no one to share my newfound secret.
at 2 months, my first symptoms arrived.it was at the morning that I felt this rash on my back and arms. It itched so much I wanted to scratch until my skin peeled. I know that it’s no point asking a germ its purpose, but I know that this germ was different. What did it trying to do giving me some rash? I didn’t care about my look that much. I would just covered it with sleeves and applied some lotion.
Then I realized, it was my coffee. I requested a different brand of coffee. Changed to tea. Rash persisted. I had to stop drinking my coffee all at once or else the allergic effects propagated. Right now, even the smell of coffee would put me in an anaphylactic shock.
So what? I could live without my morning coffee. Was that all you can you? Germ? I felt more arrogant not only being free from societal pressure, but above this new germ, a force of nature. Can’t even do anything to me. The lastest blood culture found no germ. Which meant I would be back home next week.
After that, I resumed my daily life as usual. The germ was nothing to me.The only one thing was that the damage lasted. I couldn’t enjoy my morning coffee anymore. Such a trivial thing, right? Small, small thing. No, I never want anything in my life. Just losing this stupid cup of coffee was nothing to me, right? right?
The last day, I packed my stuffs and was ready to go home. My life would be the same. Why wouldn’t it? Before I got out the door, I looked back to my bed.
Not sure when did I do that during my coffee-less week, though.
My mood tower now had 9 blocks.