Dara

The television was the jumpy moon in the cave of his apartment. The measly device completed with a prehistoric VHS player was his only window to the fallen society. Fallen prey to only themselves. Seven weeks of quarantine, bounded not an inch further than two city blocks had drove the pacing man to streaking roots. His loneliness had turned into despair. He had never mastered the art of solitude and was always dependant on the intimacy of humanity. He needed to get out.

Let’s called him Richard.

Richard shuffled the room with motives and temperaments, suggested a hunt in progress. The television went on undaunted by the lack of love, it’s projectile lights contoured and fucked with both speed and sound. He had turned on the news a while ago, which after he had gotten bored of masturbating himself to old Japanese pornographic videotapes. The Internet was cut off for two weeks now, part of the Hans Scolofey’s intervention for Internal Security. His administration had to stop the jitters of conspiracy theories from reaching more households. Big brother is watching you.

‘Eighteen additions to the Public Healthcare Checkpoints had installed over the nation with adequate medical resources in aid to combat further transmissions.’ The television crackled, ‘For the safety and the welfare of yourself and your love ones, it is mandatory to register yourself or your love ones with the Checkpoints should you present with the following signs and symptoms…’

Richard peeked into the fridge. The ration of electricity had stretched the expectancy of the perishables to its max and had them dying in his pantry. At least he had eggs. But he wasn’t looking for food. The apartment was a dump, just the way Dara had left it before the outbreak.

Dara.

Richard felt a muscle tightened in his guts. Where on Earth are you? Dara. I missed you so much. Eighteen hours ago, he had contacted Dara’s household since the family had been evicted from the Hotspots. Dara’s mother had only muttered that her daughter was dead and put down the phone. Richard hadn’t been feeling like himself again. The news had promised that the quarantine would end soon, the disease would die quickly, that people would be okay again, and the vaccine was found. Seven weeks! No one is okay, the disease is in this room with him and Dara was dead!

Dead!

Fuck it. He wouldn’t believe it. How can someone be so alive in his head be dead? Dara is not dead. She can’t be. She is the only thing that holds him together in the womb of his own flat. She is the embryonic fluid, encompassing and divine. Don’t plug a hole to drain her out, please, not today, not ever!

‘Persisting fever, fatigue, muscle spasms and coughs. Sudden onsets of seizures or syncope. Rigidity of body parts. Photophobia. Phonophobia. Rashes over lower extremities. Breathlessness. Hallucinations. Headaches.’ The television quacked.          

He had saw the face of Dara in every limited faces he had seen. The moaning and the thrashing pornstars, the nape of their pale stomachs, their fluttering eyes of ecstasy, their brown and black and blonde hair. He heard her last said words of fury beating against the chest of the wall like an imprisoned butterfly and her gritted sentences the carbon monoxide sapping the sweet air. He needed to get out. He had his papers, his fitness seal, his cloak and his mask. He needed a weapon. Hopefully for self defense. The quarantine was strictly enforced on martial laws. In the cyanotic rush of public outrage, the people had propelled in pigheadedness the Reformative Socialist Hans Scolofey to fill the power vacuum abandoned by the incompetent ruling party. Hans Scolofey had proved himself to be fascist in his new lawmaking. The terror regime under the even more terrible plague stricken South had caused the citizens of their freedom and him his occupation.

Richard pulled out a power torch from the stack of belongings in the closet. He felt the burly weight of the metal, stark black and heavy in his hands. Someone rapped on his door. Richard stood in disbelief. A sound that was man made, not of nature, science or fantasy. He moved only upon hearing it for the second time. ‘Who is it?’ He called out in his quivering lips. He wrapped his fingers around the torch. It must be the military. This apartment must have been zoned. Zoned for eradication. The stories on the Net, that stuff about ridding everybody, it must be true.

‘It’s unit fourteen.’ The sound was crumby and grainy.

‘Huh?’ Richard moved closer to the door and barked. He put his eye to the peephole and saw that it was a brown girl with a child in her arms.

‘I… I lived down your left. Unit fourteen? I’m your neighbor?’ She explained.

‘What do you want from me?’ Richard barked again.

‘I… I need something. Well, it’s my boy.’ She said with much effort. ‘I haven’t got anything else to feed him other than the milk. I was wondering if I can get some food from you? Anything? Maybe an egg?’

The son looked very small and tired in her arms.

‘What is your name?’ Richard asked hastily, ‘You said you lived on the left, what is your name? How come I have never seen you before?’

‘Does it matter? Sorry. I’m Kasmilah.’ She introduced herself. ‘This is my boy, Sal. He’s four.’

Kasmilah. He almost sank to his toes from listening to her name. Nobody had talked to him in weeks. He would remember this name for years to come.

‘Kas… Kasmilah.’ Richard said to the door. ‘Turn away, please. I have no food here. But I have many sharp things in the house. I will use them if you don’t leave this minute.’

Silence.

Beneath the door, the shadow shifted and disappeared.

‘The government is urging the people of the South to be patient.’ The television squeaked, ‘The vaccine has been developed and clinical trials had been proven very positive on human agents.’

‘Shut up!’ Richard roared at his electrical moon. ‘Shut the fuck up! There is no cure. This is no hope! There is no vaccine! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ He threw his torch into the television, ruined it and sat in the darkness for the longest time.