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22 December 2023
Before a yellowed poster of a woman in a compromising position and very little clothing, he cocked an eyebrow and coyly addressed her glossy smile, "You see, darling, I work for the government."
She wasn't impressed. He turned and slumped. Time to go work for said government.
His cracked mirror and all the other shabby things in his cramped and musty living quarters had been paid for by said government. His microwave (the inside coated with artificial popcorn butter), his sofa (with the valley that neatly cradled his ass every day for hours), his six dusty portable space heaters of varying effectiveness-- all had been purchased with government money.
The twenty or so pinup girls who hung on his every wall-- those he bought with money his grandmother sent him for his birthday and Christmas. (The ones who leered from the ceiling? Well, okay. His government money bought those, too.)
He left his unimpressive bachelor quarters once a week, and once a week only. He had followed this schedule for the last nine of his 27 years: Every Monday at 10 a.m., go down the steps, around the corner, careful not to step on the sewer grate, over the curb, down 14 steps to the subway. Buy a token. Gingerly step onto the H train, hop off at Lourdes Station, up 14 steps, up the slight incline of the sidewalk, and into Remmings Military Hospital. Repeat in reverse to get home. Avoid touching or making eye contact with anyone he encountered along the way. (Groceries, toiletries, and saucy paper vixens arrived in the mail.)
In return for his weekly visits to the government's military hospital, he was given the sum of $1000, of which he spent roughly $300. By his calculations, he could retire from his government service at the age of 45. At which point he would never again leave his apartment.
"Ladies, ladies,.. I'll be back for you soon. No, no. Don't pout."
Before he set out for work that week, he took a close look at his image in the mirror above the sink, and saw his very ordinary, very pale face for a moment before fog built up the glass. He licked his thumb, and smoothed his shrub-like eyebrows with his own saliva. "Sorry, missy. I really must get going. Great scientific work depends upon me."
"Hurry home, Roger, it's so quiet here without you," called the bombshell without moving her lips.
Roger was a human furnace. He ate twice as much and weighed a third less than an ordinary man should. His temperature was a consistent 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He was too warm to touch, impossible to embrace. His blood steamed when samples were taken. Roger wore wooly sweaters all summer, and would faint if he were brushed by a frosty wind. Polyester fabrics melted on his skin, and he had managed to singe all his furniture. His home smelled of burnt toast. No coffee was hot enough to scald his tongue. Room temperature sodas felt icy in his mouth. Mosquitoes burst if they dined upon his blood. No shower nozzle had ever carried water warm enough for him. (You get the idea. Hot blooded guy.)
His immunity to foreign bodies and incredible metabolic rate were why Roger worked for the government. Bacteria and viruses of every make and model were no match for his heat. They were annihilated on contact with his searing skin, and he had never had so much as a sniffle in his life.
Doctors were convinced that a human should have been cooked from the inside if their body temperature rose as high as his. They were plotting military uses for duplicating Roger's immunity. To these men of science, Roger was a specimen, not a man, and he was known only by his military code name: Fever Uno.
It was by this name Roger introduced himself to the lovely receptionist in the lobby of the hospital.
"Mr. Feveruno to see the doctors on the top floor, if you'd be so kind, my dear."
For years, he had adored her from the other side of her desk. Her perfect, ivory teeth behind those conservative mauve lips. Her humble eyes. Her raven hair. The way her delicate hands danced upon her keyboard. Roger thought her more ravishing than any of the women who'd arrived at his apartment in packing tubes.
Once, four years before, he had brushed her hand with his, and she had shrieked in pain. "You've burned me," she'd cried.
And so Roger had dashed, thoroughly embarrassed, into the elevator, and seeing her bandaged hand the following week reminded him again why no real woman of any make or model would ever succumb to his charms.
In the four years that followed, he had nightmares about the faint scar on her hand, guilty dreams that smacked him awake. Her love felt more and more unreachable with each nightmare.
"Oh, you sexy devil, you never meant to hurt her. And you don't need her anyway; not with me right here. Honey, I'm right at the foot of your bed," cooed the redhead in the maid's costume. Every time he had the wicked dream, she would say kind things to him, shake her feather duster behind her glass frame, and send Roger back to sleep.
He was cleared for security and directed onto the silver elevator by his favorite woman in the world, whose hand he'd managed to scar with his, and whose name he didn't know. He rocketed up six stories, and emerged with a flourish, hat in one hand and the other jauntily perched on his hip.
"Morning fellows. Would you like some new data?" his mouth said. "Talk to me like my airbrushed girlfriends," pleaded his eyes.
Roger let the doctors document his temperature, measurements, blood chemistry, the acidity of his bile, test his strength, and take X-rays of his entire body. He leapt through mental hoops and supplied personal data on everything from his stool consistency to the frequency and intensity of his erections.
"Breakfast? Salami and peanut butter."
"Sense of taste noted as subnormal."
"Does this hurt?"
"Yeah, it always does."
"Circulation and nervous system noted as normal in lower extremities."
"Get any new lady friends?"
"Oh God, yeah. This lovely thing in a beer wench's dress and thigh-high stockings. She has this look in her eye that just melts me."
"Libido noted as above normal. That the Hillcrest Brewery Girl? I saw that one on a billboard."
"You saw that vixen larger than life? Oh, I doubt I could handle that."
Those who worked with his data wore thick protective suits to guard themselves from his heat. Roger hadn't been touched by human hands since he was three, when he'd gone down with the cursed fever and had not been able to get back up.
"Mom, I feel better. Why won't you come any closer? Why are you wearing oven mitts?"
While he was affixed to a heart monitor, a great booming siren smacked his eardrums. A flashing beacon drowned the lab in bloody light.
"We've got a leak," murmured the lab-coated man measuring Roger's statistics.
"Well, I've retained complete control of MY bladder," grinned Roger.
"Not like that. A leak in hazard containment."
And quite a leak it was. While Roger was vital to the military in that he might show them a way to protect their soldiers from biological hazards, so many others were valuable in that they might be carriers of biological hazards that might be useful against other country's soldiers.
One of these poor souls, only a few doors down the hall from Roger's exam room, didn't just carry his weapon; he had inadvertently used it.
The doors clicked shut. The elevators froze in their tunnels. A loudspeaker announced trouble: "Remmings Hospital is immediately under quarantine. Active hazard of classification A is present in this facility. More details to follow."
But they didn't follow. The woman who would have delivered them had already succumbed to a serious infection and a subsequently deadly fever.
The atmosphere of the hospital grew toxic. Ten thousand bacteria multiplied exponentially every five seconds through corridors and air vents. They were inhaled by the entire staff and every patient in a matter of minutes.
Having the body temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which was so ordinary to him, was alarming and quite painful to everyone else. The remaining population of the hospital were reduced to barely conscious wads of clammy flesh, with temperatures nearly matching his own. Roger was the only one with control of his facilities.
"Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, Just let Mr. Feveruno handle this."
Active hazard of classification A was no match for Roger's fire. While those around him grew dizzy and pale, he did his best to comfort them. He could touch them, cradle them in his arms, try to tell them calming stories, and for the first time since he'd become feverish, others were not repulsed by his touch.
"Sir, I feel,.. no,.. I know that I'm quickly dying, and I'd like to give a message to my wife. Please tell her that I love her more than anything. And that I didn't know that was her twin sister. It was very dark."
Roger scrambled for the medical notebook dangling from the man's paralyzed arm. Noting the nametag on the sweat drenched lapel, Roger scrawled the man's name and final words into a medical notebook.
Roger heard more voices calling out to him, all along the corridor.
"Take my last words. Write down my last words, too."
And as soon as Roger had jotted down one person's final line, he was summoned to record another.
"I want to tell my husband that Fritz Jr. isn't his."
"Tell my mother that I'm sorry I don't call enough."
"Please tell my father to stop letting my little sister drink moonshine."
"Let my son know that he has a half brother in Idaho he's never known."
"I'm so sorry I lied on my resume."
"Please forgive me for being a bigot."
"My wallet is full of counterfeit bills. I am so sorry."
"Write this: Dear Daphne, all my savings is behind the washing machine. I love you very much."
"Tell the police that I'm the one who killed Eva Custos."
"Sir, please tell my brother to clean out the space under my bed. That's where I keep all of my pornography, and I wouldn't want my mother to know."
"Tell my daughter I don't care about her tattoo anymore."
And on it went, Roger scampering through the halls, recording the last words of over 90 people. The dying screamed for him, to make a last confession to a layman who wore fire like a cloak. They whispered to him their secrets, longings, and dreams.
Mr. Feveruno had never had this intimacy. Never been able to hold, and touch, or relate. Today, in the blinking red hallways, between the yelps of the alarm sirens, he was a hero in a sleeveless undershirt with a blood pressure cuff dangling from his arm.
He'd raided the medicine closets for painkillers and sedatives, trying to give those around him less horrid final moments. He passed out thousand-dollar pharmaceutical cocktails like Halloween treats.
"Hey, boy, why aren't you writhing on the floor like the rest of us?" barked a legless veteran.
"I always have a fever."
"Must be nice. Tell my buddies in the 42nd that I forgive them for leaving me in that field. I got out okay."
Soon, the cries became scarce. The moans ceased. The painful thrashing stopped. Roger had emptied his pockets of pills, and his pilfered notebook was full of unscientific entries.
The sirens ended their song a few hours after the last victim expired. The flashing lights blinked out. By that moment, night had fallen on the world beyond the walls of the hospital.
Mr. Feveruno tried to position each body as though death had been sweet, painless. Gnarled fists were unclenched, jaws shut and eyes pressed closed. Legs were straightened and hair brushed away from faces. He worked for hours, arranging, covering, and tending to the fallen.
He thought of the redhead, and her feather duster. "Honey, when I get home, tell me this isn't my fault, or real, or anything I should worry about, all right?"
"Anything for you, Roger, sweetie."
Kneeling next at the side of the receptionist, whose rosy cheeks had smiled at him once a week for nine years, whose touch he had pined over for nearly as long, whose name he hadn't known, Roger paused.
Her purse was clutched in her delicate hand, the one with the small, white scar. She possessed a subway token, a mauve lipstick, a religious medal, a half a chocolate bar, and a credit card from Fortnight Bank. The credit card claimed her name as Violet Randolf. Violet Randolf didn't breathe anymore.
Nearly boiling tears fell and left dark, warm splotches on her sweater. Roger was unable to resume his work. No one else would be touched.
"Violet, I'm terribly sorry about your hand."
Under her desk, curled like a violin beside her, he wept. She was still warm to his touch. Her cheeks were still rosy. He lowered his head to hers and inhaled the make-up she wore. It smelled like potter's clay and lilacs. His lips brushed her cheek and he shivered, for he had owned no memories of ever giving or receiving a kiss.
Roger tumbled into sleep, full of dreams as wet and shapeless as snowdrifts, and was awoken by the buzzing of the telephone on the desk above him. Releasing Violet's now stiff and purple body, he answered.
"Hello?"
"Captain, we have a live one."
"Hello?"
"Yeah, I know we're supposed to be on recovery. Call in rescue."
"Hello? Can you hear me, sir?"
"Ah, yeah, sorry, guy. Surprised to be hearing from you. You're supposed to be, you know, dead."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not."
"No need to apologize. Anybody else up and around in there?"
"Just me, sir."
"Really? You hiding in an airtight closet or something?"
"I always have a fever."
"Right, right. Some special isolation wing in the hospital. Gotcha."
"May I leave please? Could you unlock the doors for me?"
"Locked for a reason, fella. See, there's something real wicked and nasty in there with you."
"I see."
"I gotta talk to my superiors about what to do with you. I'll call ya back when I find out more, uh-kay?"
"All right."
Mr. Feveruno found a washroom, and, over the crumpled bodies of three medical residents, he washed his hands and face and smoothed his hair. "See my darlings, I've got everything under control," he drawled at the mirror, "Smooth as silk-- everything's smooth as silk."
Turning to leave, he studied the pained expressions and contorted shapes of the resident on the floor of the bathroom. "Smooth as silk. Yeah, it's all real smooth."
He fled the room and returned to Violet's side.
For the next three hours, in the dim and silent hospital, he read. All the last words he'd collected. All the people who would be comforted, moved, or angered by the words he compiled would number in the thousands-- an impact made at last. By him.
He added his own message: "I am not a laboratory animal. My name is not Mr. Feveruno. It is Roger Dunk. I hope this book brings understanding and some degree of comfort to those who read it."
"Oh, baby, you're such the hero," cooed his beer wench.
"Thanks, sweetcakes. I'll see you soon."
A phone rang above Violet's now droopy, wet face.
"Yes, hello?"
"Your egress has been approved by the captain."
"Excuse me?"
"You can come out now."
"Oh, thank you. Thanks so much."
"Straight out the main exit. In the front. Walk. Don't run."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, and buddy, the pathogen can't live long outside a living body. But we need to disinfect you just in case."
"I understand."
"Then I'll see ya, man."
"See ya."
"Violet, you'll always be my real dream girl."
Shoulders back and head up, Roger clutched his notebook of deathbed speeches close to his burning chest.
He gingerly moved several doctors and patients away from the front exit, arranged them in neat rows, and leaned into the now unlocked revolving door. Roger spun his way out of the hospital, anxious to get home and talk over his day with his lady friends.
He hoped a marching band and a chorus of tubas would be playing as he emerged. He was a genuine miracle-- a sole survivor after all. The mayor, or a maybe a senator, would give a speech in his honor. A hero's welcome would be waiting for him. He smiled wide.
He was instead greeted with the vomit of five fire hoses; each spitting out a mixture of nearly frozen water and antibacterial solution. His body was tossed, slapped, and bludgeoned with the icy bath. His notebook was decimated-- not a word survived the deluge. And his body, his powerful, incredible wonder of a body, his antigen proof fortress, was exposed to a chill it could not bear. His heart, so sensitive to cold, became a solid knot in his chest, and his muscles unhinged from his bones. His eyes no longer blinked, and as the water pressure fell, so did he-- flopping on the pavement like a newly gutted salmon.
His fever had finally broken.
Five men in plastic suits and artificial breathing equipment advanced on his limp form.
"Well, he must've been infected. Wasn't long for the world anyway."
"Nobody can stand up to that strain of bug. It's really too bad."
"The report says it gives you a fever that cooks you from the inside in minutes."
"Well, lets bag him up and get in there. We have casualties to collect."
"And overtime."
"Lots of it. I love working for the government."
She wasn't impressed. He turned and slumped. Time to go work for said government.
His cracked mirror and all the other shabby things in his cramped and musty living quarters had been paid for by said government. His microwave (the inside coated with artificial popcorn butter), his sofa (with the valley that neatly cradled his ass every day for hours), his six dusty portable space heaters of varying effectiveness-- all had been purchased with government money.
The twenty or so pinup girls who hung on his every wall-- those he bought with money his grandmother sent him for his birthday and Christmas. (The ones who leered from the ceiling? Well, okay. His government money bought those, too.)
He left his unimpressive bachelor quarters once a week, and once a week only. He had followed this schedule for the last nine of his 27 years: Every Monday at 10 a.m., go down the steps, around the corner, careful not to step on the sewer grate, over the curb, down 14 steps to the subway. Buy a token. Gingerly step onto the H train, hop off at Lourdes Station, up 14 steps, up the slight incline of the sidewalk, and into Remmings Military Hospital. Repeat in reverse to get home. Avoid touching or making eye contact with anyone he encountered along the way. (Groceries, toiletries, and saucy paper vixens arrived in the mail.)
In return for his weekly visits to the government's military hospital, he was given the sum of $1000, of which he spent roughly $300. By his calculations, he could retire from his government service at the age of 45. At which point he would never again leave his apartment.
"Ladies, ladies,.. I'll be back for you soon. No, no. Don't pout."
Before he set out for work that week, he took a close look at his image in the mirror above the sink, and saw his very ordinary, very pale face for a moment before fog built up the glass. He licked his thumb, and smoothed his shrub-like eyebrows with his own saliva. "Sorry, missy. I really must get going. Great scientific work depends upon me."
"Hurry home, Roger, it's so quiet here without you," called the bombshell without moving her lips.
Roger was a human furnace. He ate twice as much and weighed a third less than an ordinary man should. His temperature was a consistent 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He was too warm to touch, impossible to embrace. His blood steamed when samples were taken. Roger wore wooly sweaters all summer, and would faint if he were brushed by a frosty wind. Polyester fabrics melted on his skin, and he had managed to singe all his furniture. His home smelled of burnt toast. No coffee was hot enough to scald his tongue. Room temperature sodas felt icy in his mouth. Mosquitoes burst if they dined upon his blood. No shower nozzle had ever carried water warm enough for him. (You get the idea. Hot blooded guy.)
His immunity to foreign bodies and incredible metabolic rate were why Roger worked for the government. Bacteria and viruses of every make and model were no match for his heat. They were annihilated on contact with his searing skin, and he had never had so much as a sniffle in his life.
Doctors were convinced that a human should have been cooked from the inside if their body temperature rose as high as his. They were plotting military uses for duplicating Roger's immunity. To these men of science, Roger was a specimen, not a man, and he was known only by his military code name: Fever Uno.
It was by this name Roger introduced himself to the lovely receptionist in the lobby of the hospital.
"Mr. Feveruno to see the doctors on the top floor, if you'd be so kind, my dear."
For years, he had adored her from the other side of her desk. Her perfect, ivory teeth behind those conservative mauve lips. Her humble eyes. Her raven hair. The way her delicate hands danced upon her keyboard. Roger thought her more ravishing than any of the women who'd arrived at his apartment in packing tubes.
Once, four years before, he had brushed her hand with his, and she had shrieked in pain. "You've burned me," she'd cried.
And so Roger had dashed, thoroughly embarrassed, into the elevator, and seeing her bandaged hand the following week reminded him again why no real woman of any make or model would ever succumb to his charms.
In the four years that followed, he had nightmares about the faint scar on her hand, guilty dreams that smacked him awake. Her love felt more and more unreachable with each nightmare.
"Oh, you sexy devil, you never meant to hurt her. And you don't need her anyway; not with me right here. Honey, I'm right at the foot of your bed," cooed the redhead in the maid's costume. Every time he had the wicked dream, she would say kind things to him, shake her feather duster behind her glass frame, and send Roger back to sleep.
He was cleared for security and directed onto the silver elevator by his favorite woman in the world, whose hand he'd managed to scar with his, and whose name he didn't know. He rocketed up six stories, and emerged with a flourish, hat in one hand and the other jauntily perched on his hip.
"Morning fellows. Would you like some new data?" his mouth said. "Talk to me like my airbrushed girlfriends," pleaded his eyes.
Roger let the doctors document his temperature, measurements, blood chemistry, the acidity of his bile, test his strength, and take X-rays of his entire body. He leapt through mental hoops and supplied personal data on everything from his stool consistency to the frequency and intensity of his erections.
"Breakfast? Salami and peanut butter."
"Sense of taste noted as subnormal."
"Does this hurt?"
"Yeah, it always does."
"Circulation and nervous system noted as normal in lower extremities."
"Get any new lady friends?"
"Oh God, yeah. This lovely thing in a beer wench's dress and thigh-high stockings. She has this look in her eye that just melts me."
"Libido noted as above normal. That the Hillcrest Brewery Girl? I saw that one on a billboard."
"You saw that vixen larger than life? Oh, I doubt I could handle that."
Those who worked with his data wore thick protective suits to guard themselves from his heat. Roger hadn't been touched by human hands since he was three, when he'd gone down with the cursed fever and had not been able to get back up.
"Mom, I feel better. Why won't you come any closer? Why are you wearing oven mitts?"
While he was affixed to a heart monitor, a great booming siren smacked his eardrums. A flashing beacon drowned the lab in bloody light.
"We've got a leak," murmured the lab-coated man measuring Roger's statistics.
"Well, I've retained complete control of MY bladder," grinned Roger.
"Not like that. A leak in hazard containment."
And quite a leak it was. While Roger was vital to the military in that he might show them a way to protect their soldiers from biological hazards, so many others were valuable in that they might be carriers of biological hazards that might be useful against other country's soldiers.
One of these poor souls, only a few doors down the hall from Roger's exam room, didn't just carry his weapon; he had inadvertently used it.
The doors clicked shut. The elevators froze in their tunnels. A loudspeaker announced trouble: "Remmings Hospital is immediately under quarantine. Active hazard of classification A is present in this facility. More details to follow."
But they didn't follow. The woman who would have delivered them had already succumbed to a serious infection and a subsequently deadly fever.
The atmosphere of the hospital grew toxic. Ten thousand bacteria multiplied exponentially every five seconds through corridors and air vents. They were inhaled by the entire staff and every patient in a matter of minutes.
Having the body temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which was so ordinary to him, was alarming and quite painful to everyone else. The remaining population of the hospital were reduced to barely conscious wads of clammy flesh, with temperatures nearly matching his own. Roger was the only one with control of his facilities.
"Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, Just let Mr. Feveruno handle this."
Active hazard of classification A was no match for Roger's fire. While those around him grew dizzy and pale, he did his best to comfort them. He could touch them, cradle them in his arms, try to tell them calming stories, and for the first time since he'd become feverish, others were not repulsed by his touch.
"Sir, I feel,.. no,.. I know that I'm quickly dying, and I'd like to give a message to my wife. Please tell her that I love her more than anything. And that I didn't know that was her twin sister. It was very dark."
Roger scrambled for the medical notebook dangling from the man's paralyzed arm. Noting the nametag on the sweat drenched lapel, Roger scrawled the man's name and final words into a medical notebook.
Roger heard more voices calling out to him, all along the corridor.
"Take my last words. Write down my last words, too."
And as soon as Roger had jotted down one person's final line, he was summoned to record another.
"I want to tell my husband that Fritz Jr. isn't his."
"Tell my mother that I'm sorry I don't call enough."
"Please tell my father to stop letting my little sister drink moonshine."
"Let my son know that he has a half brother in Idaho he's never known."
"I'm so sorry I lied on my resume."
"Please forgive me for being a bigot."
"My wallet is full of counterfeit bills. I am so sorry."
"Write this: Dear Daphne, all my savings is behind the washing machine. I love you very much."
"Tell the police that I'm the one who killed Eva Custos."
"Sir, please tell my brother to clean out the space under my bed. That's where I keep all of my pornography, and I wouldn't want my mother to know."
"Tell my daughter I don't care about her tattoo anymore."
And on it went, Roger scampering through the halls, recording the last words of over 90 people. The dying screamed for him, to make a last confession to a layman who wore fire like a cloak. They whispered to him their secrets, longings, and dreams.
Mr. Feveruno had never had this intimacy. Never been able to hold, and touch, or relate. Today, in the blinking red hallways, between the yelps of the alarm sirens, he was a hero in a sleeveless undershirt with a blood pressure cuff dangling from his arm.
He'd raided the medicine closets for painkillers and sedatives, trying to give those around him less horrid final moments. He passed out thousand-dollar pharmaceutical cocktails like Halloween treats.
"Hey, boy, why aren't you writhing on the floor like the rest of us?" barked a legless veteran.
"I always have a fever."
"Must be nice. Tell my buddies in the 42nd that I forgive them for leaving me in that field. I got out okay."
Soon, the cries became scarce. The moans ceased. The painful thrashing stopped. Roger had emptied his pockets of pills, and his pilfered notebook was full of unscientific entries.
The sirens ended their song a few hours after the last victim expired. The flashing lights blinked out. By that moment, night had fallen on the world beyond the walls of the hospital.
Mr. Feveruno tried to position each body as though death had been sweet, painless. Gnarled fists were unclenched, jaws shut and eyes pressed closed. Legs were straightened and hair brushed away from faces. He worked for hours, arranging, covering, and tending to the fallen.
He thought of the redhead, and her feather duster. "Honey, when I get home, tell me this isn't my fault, or real, or anything I should worry about, all right?"
"Anything for you, Roger, sweetie."
Kneeling next at the side of the receptionist, whose rosy cheeks had smiled at him once a week for nine years, whose touch he had pined over for nearly as long, whose name he hadn't known, Roger paused.
Her purse was clutched in her delicate hand, the one with the small, white scar. She possessed a subway token, a mauve lipstick, a religious medal, a half a chocolate bar, and a credit card from Fortnight Bank. The credit card claimed her name as Violet Randolf. Violet Randolf didn't breathe anymore.
Nearly boiling tears fell and left dark, warm splotches on her sweater. Roger was unable to resume his work. No one else would be touched.
"Violet, I'm terribly sorry about your hand."
Under her desk, curled like a violin beside her, he wept. She was still warm to his touch. Her cheeks were still rosy. He lowered his head to hers and inhaled the make-up she wore. It smelled like potter's clay and lilacs. His lips brushed her cheek and he shivered, for he had owned no memories of ever giving or receiving a kiss.
Roger tumbled into sleep, full of dreams as wet and shapeless as snowdrifts, and was awoken by the buzzing of the telephone on the desk above him. Releasing Violet's now stiff and purple body, he answered.
"Hello?"
"Captain, we have a live one."
"Hello?"
"Yeah, I know we're supposed to be on recovery. Call in rescue."
"Hello? Can you hear me, sir?"
"Ah, yeah, sorry, guy. Surprised to be hearing from you. You're supposed to be, you know, dead."
"I'm sorry, but I'm not."
"No need to apologize. Anybody else up and around in there?"
"Just me, sir."
"Really? You hiding in an airtight closet or something?"
"I always have a fever."
"Right, right. Some special isolation wing in the hospital. Gotcha."
"May I leave please? Could you unlock the doors for me?"
"Locked for a reason, fella. See, there's something real wicked and nasty in there with you."
"I see."
"I gotta talk to my superiors about what to do with you. I'll call ya back when I find out more, uh-kay?"
"All right."
Mr. Feveruno found a washroom, and, over the crumpled bodies of three medical residents, he washed his hands and face and smoothed his hair. "See my darlings, I've got everything under control," he drawled at the mirror, "Smooth as silk-- everything's smooth as silk."
Turning to leave, he studied the pained expressions and contorted shapes of the resident on the floor of the bathroom. "Smooth as silk. Yeah, it's all real smooth."
He fled the room and returned to Violet's side.
For the next three hours, in the dim and silent hospital, he read. All the last words he'd collected. All the people who would be comforted, moved, or angered by the words he compiled would number in the thousands-- an impact made at last. By him.
He added his own message: "I am not a laboratory animal. My name is not Mr. Feveruno. It is Roger Dunk. I hope this book brings understanding and some degree of comfort to those who read it."
"Oh, baby, you're such the hero," cooed his beer wench.
"Thanks, sweetcakes. I'll see you soon."
A phone rang above Violet's now droopy, wet face.
"Yes, hello?"
"Your egress has been approved by the captain."
"Excuse me?"
"You can come out now."
"Oh, thank you. Thanks so much."
"Straight out the main exit. In the front. Walk. Don't run."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, and buddy, the pathogen can't live long outside a living body. But we need to disinfect you just in case."
"I understand."
"Then I'll see ya, man."
"See ya."
"Violet, you'll always be my real dream girl."
Shoulders back and head up, Roger clutched his notebook of deathbed speeches close to his burning chest.
He gingerly moved several doctors and patients away from the front exit, arranged them in neat rows, and leaned into the now unlocked revolving door. Roger spun his way out of the hospital, anxious to get home and talk over his day with his lady friends.
He hoped a marching band and a chorus of tubas would be playing as he emerged. He was a genuine miracle-- a sole survivor after all. The mayor, or a maybe a senator, would give a speech in his honor. A hero's welcome would be waiting for him. He smiled wide.
He was instead greeted with the vomit of five fire hoses; each spitting out a mixture of nearly frozen water and antibacterial solution. His body was tossed, slapped, and bludgeoned with the icy bath. His notebook was decimated-- not a word survived the deluge. And his body, his powerful, incredible wonder of a body, his antigen proof fortress, was exposed to a chill it could not bear. His heart, so sensitive to cold, became a solid knot in his chest, and his muscles unhinged from his bones. His eyes no longer blinked, and as the water pressure fell, so did he-- flopping on the pavement like a newly gutted salmon.
His fever had finally broken.
Five men in plastic suits and artificial breathing equipment advanced on his limp form.
"Well, he must've been infected. Wasn't long for the world anyway."
"Nobody can stand up to that strain of bug. It's really too bad."
"The report says it gives you a fever that cooks you from the inside in minutes."
"Well, lets bag him up and get in there. We have casualties to collect."
"And overtime."
"Lots of it. I love working for the government."
artid
1136
Old Image
5_6_pinup.jpg
issue
vol 5 - issue 06 (feb 2003)
section
pen_think