Alex thought last week was an insanely busy week, but it seemed he needed to re-evaluate his definition of insane. He could not remember the last time there was a line at the counter so long that lasted all day; and it seemed longer today than yesterday. The customers, while at first moaning and complaining about the wait, had started to get a bit more vocal with their frustrations.
He already knew, at the heart of it, that he was doing the best he could for his customers. At the end of the day, they came to him for relief and remedy, and he was their only hope for medical salvation. After all, a doctor diagnosed while a pharmacist dispensed. He even had that little phrase hanging on the wall since he started this job so many years ago, a framed embroidery from his supportive wife. It was a constant reminder of why he had made the decision in college to be a pharmacist instead of a doctor. He knew back then, as he did now, that in the end it was the pharmacist who really provided the cure.
The next customer banging on the counter brought Alex out of his little daydream. Alex could tell from the dark circles under the man’s eyes that he had been missing sleep due to his illness, and was desperate for relief from his malady. Looking at the crumpled prescription, and based on the man’s wheezy breathing, he knew this was another case of that respiratory illness that was going around. As expected, the medicine outlined by the man’s doctor was different again from the past 15 or so customers from the morning’s rush. Different doctors, different opinions on what will best soothe their patients’ ailments.
What Alex found most interesting, was that every customer from the past week has been complaining about the same symptoms. And as each day passed, even new customers began to look more and more haggard. Each one’s symptoms looking worse with each passing day, and more were becoming repeat visits with different medications prescribed to combat the same sickness. It would appear, even to the outside observer, that nothing was helping these poor souls. When his wife started showing similar symptoms at home one night, he knew this had to be more than just the usual yearly increase in influenza cases. His suspicions were confirmed while watching the nightly news about a week after the influx in customers. Not only had these cases appeared locally, but they had originated in other countries across the globe. It was the same symptoms, the same level of infections, and the same resistance to any existing medications.
The following day, an internal company memo arrived; A new drug was being rushed out to all pharmacies. It was being touted by the media to be a miracle cure, and that the priority should be for young children and the elderly as the first receivers of the injections as they were most susceptible to the sickness. With memories of customers lined up around the building when the vaccine for the H1N1 was released, Alex already dreaded the type of long day that was ahead of him as he drove into work.
Nothing could have prepared him, however, hundreds of sickly people lined up around the building eager to be cured; and not one among them was over the age of 70 or had young children in tow. Shortly before the store was to open, accompanied by local police officers, the CDC official arrived at the back door with the store’s rushed allocation of the new drug. Opening the box, Alex did a quick count of the pre-measured syringes and sighed. There just wasn’t enough to inoculate all the customers. Alex picked up the phone and called his wife, who answered the call hacking and wheezing, and told her he loved her and to get as much rest as possible in his absence.
With a nod to William, the nervous looking store manager, Alex tried to enjoy the last moment of peaceful quiet before rush of customers began. He gave a reassuring smile to Nancy, his pharmacy technician, who was nervously arranging the materials on the table of the hastily constructed dosing station. The click of the manager’s key unlocking the front doors seemed to echo through the empty store, followed immediately by the cacophony of rushed footsteps, frustrated voices, and wheezy coughing.
Nancy quickly took the information from the woman lucky enough to have been first in line, and then ushered her behind the small privacy screen to sit with Alex. With a smile and quiet thanks, the woman barely winced as Alex administered the shot. Affixing a Band-Aid on the woman’s arm, Alex was about to wish her on her way when the first shouts from the front of the store began. A man had entered the store, having not been a part of those patiently waiting in line, demanding he be given priority as he had a sick child needing the “cure”. The store manager quickly lost control of the situation when he tried to tell the man he needed to wait in line like everyone else; the distraught father’s anger flared, leading to pushing and shoving of other customers, and the conflict quickly escalated to violence when the man shoved the manager to the floor with a frustrated roar.
The conflict was the breaking point for a mostly peaceful line of waiting customers to quickly transform into an fear and anger fueled mob. Nancy was screaming as she watched helplessly to see William brutally trampled underfoot by the panic of people forcing their way into the store. The glass of the front doors shattered under the combined weight, and it was easy to see more hapless customers were crushed in the ensuing blind surge of those desperate to get their hands on the drug.
It took a moment for Alex to recover from the shock of the situation to realize the closest customers were screaming at Nancy, demanding the drug. Alex tried to push Nancy back toward the relative safety behind the raised pharmacy counter, but the mob of frustrated customers pulled her from his grasp. Blinded by rage to the point of insanity, the crowd took out their anger and frustration on poor Nancy, her quickly battered and beaten form disappearing in the madness. Alex could only hope she did not suffer long in the midst of the chaos of flipping the table and scattering all the papers and forms while her muffled screams could be heard in her vain attempt to escape. Previous selfish thoughts of smuggling home one of the syringes for his sick wife were lost as, in a moment of desperation, Alex thought to distract the murderous mob by tossing them the box holding the wonder cure.
The action granted him a brief respite to attempt to scramble unceremoniously over the pharmacy counter and attempt to find amongst the rows of medicine-stocked shelves. He almost made it to the back door, a shining beacon of freedom, before it too burst open under the weight of those more clever customers from the back of the line that had stretched outside. The first few unlucky ones to make it through the door were quickly forced to the ground by those pushing from behind; Alex did not need to be a doctor to realize those unfortunate people too would meet their fates under the crush of the crazed infected customers pushing from behind. Seeing his only exits blocked, Alex could do nothing more than accept the inevitable fact that he would never see his wife again.
It all started with a cough…
J.L. Rach's Asylum 