Consider (3 page)

Outside the shower area a towel waits for me. After I cover up, a HAZMAT woman hands me two paper hospital gowns, one to put on facing backward, one to put on facing forward, so I’m not exposed as I walk. As soon as I’m ready, I must turn in my towel for bagging just in case I’m still leaking alien radiation after the shower.

Next, another worker points me toward a sectioned-off area labeled with a paper printout that reads CLEAN. The sign makes me wonder what they considered us before. My body shivers uncontrollably as I shuffle barefoot down the corridor. Cardboard and plastic cover the floor. A worker assigns me a hospital cot and tells me to leave the curtains open. My file is clipped to the end of my bed. I am a disinfected patient with a serial number.

Time passes. More women and children join the CLEAN area. I touch my hair. It’s drying wrong and curling in weird directions. I need the extra ponytail elastic that’s in my purse. Then I think of the vertexes. The holograms. My hair shouldn’t be important during a world crisis, but it still is. If I’m going to die, I’d rather not die wearing a paper hospital gown with my hair sticking up like a ball of brown cotton candy.

My hands start to shake. I need to talk to Dominick or Rita or my parents, but they confiscated my cell phone with everything else. I refuse to cry. If I do, I’ll crumble.

Another HAZMAT worker appears at my side. She reads my name and birth date from the file, then asks a billion questions:

“How much do you weigh?”

“Approximately how long were you exposed to the phenomenon?”

“How close were you standing to it?”

“Do you feel any itching, burning, tingling, or swelling?”

“Any nausea?”

“Vomiting?”

“Diarrhea?”

“Headache?”

I try my best to answer all her questions truthfully, but the whole experience is becoming a blur. I have no idea how close I was to it. I can hardly believe I was there at all. That it was there at all.

She proceeds to take my temperature, blood, and a urine sample. When she discovers the wound on my elbow, she asks, “When did you get this?”

I’m not about to tell her that I froze in a line of police fire, so my boyfriend had to throw me to the ground. She might send me for a psych evaluation. “I fell getting on the bus.”

“Are you sure?” I hear the urgency in her voice.
She wants to turn me into a lab rat.
Her alien lab rat.

“Yes, I’m sure. I fell. There was even dirt in it earlier. Before the shower.”

She jots down notes into my file.
Probably writing crap about me.
About my nervous behavior being a possible sign of exposure to extraterrestrial energy. Further evaluation needed.
Wonder what she’ll think of my dad when he gets here.

She cleans my wound, applies a clear antibiotic cream, and bandages my arm. I feel like a science project. She’s lucky I’m not a hypochondriac. Medical things don’t scare me since science is technical. It uses data and provides clear answers. In fact, the whole time she’s working on me, I watch her every step. I swear if I ever have to have surgery, I’ll ask to stay conscious. No ambiguity, no anxiety.

A commotion begins down the hallway as a team of HAZMAT workers struggle with an unruly patient. The HAZMAT woman finishes my medical interrogation and moves to help. They bring the female patient over to our area but avoid placing her near any children. She’s around my mother’s age with long brown hair that’s dripping wet from the forced shower. When they carry her through the unit, the smell of burnt rubber follows her body, even after being cleaned. As she struggles with them, her paper dress rips and exposes her ribcage.

I want to cover her with a blanket and force feed her oatmeal.

She puts up a valiant fight against invisible demons, her eyes focusing on inanimate objects instead of people.

“Between the idea and the reality,” she screams at a wall.

“Relax,” I hear a male voice command from a HAZMAT suit. She kicks and bites at his uniform. One person preps a syringe. They lay her on a bed and hold her down.

“Falls the shadow,” she yells at a monitor.

Someone pulls the curtain closed. “She’ll be out in a second,” I hear one HAZMAT suit say.

The curtain opens, and most of the HAZMAT team leaves her private cocoon.

As they pass by me, I hear one of them say to the other, “This is only the beginning.”

As I sit
on my hospital cot waiting for the next round of testing, I can just make out the crazy lady through a crack in the curtain. Her chest rises and falls like a robot on a schedule. I’m not sure what they gave her, but whatever it was, it worked. Something about her stirs a deep fear in me, and I think about my dad. After returning from active duty, he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Gulf War Syndrome. When Benji and I were little, we used to watch Dad secretly as he unraveled at night. Seeing the crazy lady spout nonsense reminds me of Dad back then. I hated watching him self-destruct, yet I couldn’t stop being the ever-vigilant daughter. Still can’t.

Hours tick by. If it takes any longer, I might need some of crazy lady’s medication when mine runs out. I wish I had my journal to keep track of everything. Plus it would give me something to do rather than just sit and think in circles.

The HAZMAT worker with the cold blue eyes returns. “Your parents are here. They have to wait in a separate area apart from vertex patients, but I’ll let them know you’re okay.”

“Thanks,” I say. I almost ask how my dad seemed, but I stop myself. “How much longer?”

“I have no idea. It’s up to the CDC.”

CDC. Center for Disease Control.
My anxiety antenna spikes at the thought of having an alien disease.

Another staff member turns on television sets and plays
Aladdin
on all screens.

I close my eyes and visualize my safe place. It’s a scene I remember from a screen saver.
Bright blue island sky. White rope hammock tied to palm trees. A book waiting for me.
Pages flipping in the wind.
I wonder how Dominick is doing. If they called his mother. If she actually showed up. If he’s as afraid as I am.

The staff brings cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with milk or juice. It’s weird to accept food from people wearing head-to-toe protective gear. All I can think about is the
Doctor Who
episode where people’s faces turn into gas masks. Makes the food much less appetizing.

An hour later, my legs can’t sit still anymore. I need information. As soon as the workers move out of our section, I scramble off the cot, patter across the plasticized floor for the remote, and change the channel to the news. I run back to my cot before anyone can blame me.

I watch as the media replays a hologram’s message for the public. It’s identical to the one I witnessed in Quincy, but the bottom of the screen says it’s located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The newscaster returns to the screen with a microphone in her hand.

“As of the hour, scientists claim that no comet of this magnitude and trajectory has been detected anywhere in our vicinity. Scientists across the globe are rushing to verify the information. Governments warn everyone to stay away from the phenomena until further testing can be done to determine their origin and safety. They are asking people to remain calm and wait for more information.”

One worker returns and stops short when she sees the television screen.

“Who put the news on?” she asks.

No one tells on me. She clicks it back to
Aladdin
and moves to the next bay, taking the remote with her.

So they’re telling us the truth. Well, the truth as far as anyone knows it. As far as they can tell, there’s no comet. That’s good news.
But then why are the holograms here?

After
Aladdin
, the workers play
Cinderella
, and then start
Mulan
. I try to pay attention to the talking dragon and the battle scenes, but I can’t get past the musical numbers. After what must be more than five, agonizing hours, they reevaluate us with the same checklist of questions and tests. The little boy nearby has fallen asleep on his mother. I watch as they try to examine him. When he wakes, he screams like his brain is being probed with an electrode. My hands start to shake again, so I hold onto my thighs through the paper gown. There’s only so long I can live in an outfit that crinkles like a potato chip bag.

Another HAZMAT worker approaches me for reevaluation.

“How long is this going to take?” I ask for the umpteenth time.

She answers with the same response as every other time I’ve asked. “Depends on the CDC findings.”

“But I feel fine.”

“So far. Radiation symptoms show up within the first six to twelve hours. Depending on the tests, doctors will make a call whether they want more tests at the twelfth hour.”

“What?” I complain. “Six more hours?” I lie back on the cot. They will need to strap me down soon if they think I can stay here much longer.

I focus back on
Mulan,
trying to ignore how strange and terrible my date night has gone, when exhaustion hits. I wake up to a woman handing me a black T-shirt, jean shorts, and flip flops. They aren’t the clothes that I arrived in, but they are clothes that I recognize from my wardrobe at home.

“What’s going on?” I ask, groggy.

“Everyone’s been cleared. All testing came out negative so far—on people and at the sites.”

She hands me a cup of water. As I drink, I realize she’s the same woman from before without the HAZMAT suit. She watches me with the same cold blue eyes, but now I can see her cropped black hair. She is younger and prettier than I expected. Tormentors should be hideous.

“So they aren’t afraid we’re contagious anymore?”

“No,” she answers. “The government released a statement. Scientists have tested several vertex sites, and all of them are completely sterile and benign. Cell phones have worse radiation emanating from them. It took a while because the data kept scrambling. Some sort of incompatibility with our technology. Speaking of cell phones”—she returns my cell phone and purse—“I believe these are yours.”

I hold on to my phone like she’s handing me a newborn. “So this was all for nothing?”

“If that’s how you want to look at it. I’m just happy to go home like you.”

“Where are my other clothes?” I ask.

“They were sent for decontamination. If anything had been found, the CDC would’ve burned everything. You can pick them up at the front desk.”

The attendant hands me discharge papers that explain the warning signs of exposure to radiation. If I experience vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, dizziness, weakness, or end up with a fever, I must return immediately. Apparently, there’s also the chance of death at any point in the next two weeks if there was actual exposure that our primitive earthly machines cannot measure.

Stuff to look forward to. Worry about. Overanalyze. Thanks a lot for supplying my brain with dire side effects and possibilities.

She closes the curtain and leaves me to get dressed. As I pull the T-shirt on, my brain replays everything she just said, everything I just experienced. Something inside me finally breaks and releases an avalanche of tears. I pull tissues from the box on the counter and try to piece myself together. Hands shaking, I hunt through my purse for my pills. My bag slips and goes into a nosedive, contents scattering everywhere. I crawl on the plastic lining the area and collect the items. Lipstick. Tampons. Loose change. Hair elastic. Pill bottle. Gum. Wallet. Tears blur my vision. I check to see if my money, license, and debit card are all still there. Everything seems intact. Normal. On my phone a string of texts wait to be answered, mostly from Rita.

Dominick texted a few minutes ago:

Are you okay? I’m waiting for clothes
.
Meet outside?

My hands shake so out of control they don’t feel like mine. I text back:

I’m fine. Just tired. Do you need a ride?

He doesn’t respond. I wipe more tears with a tissue and pop a pill before leaving the bay.

Everyone in my unit is allowed to leave, everyone except crazy lady. As I walk past her curtained area, I can’t help but peek inside. She’s alert and makes eye contact with me.

“Mississippi?” she says and climbs out of bed.

I pull back from the curtain.

Her IV stand crashes to the ground. She gets a weird look in her eyes and starts patting at her paper gown and frantically searching the floor around her bed.

“No!” she screams. I back farther away. Thankfully, the nurses arrive, pulling her back into bed. She flails, about to fight them, but keeps focused on me. I turn and run.

I need to go home. The world is not safe. The world has gone mad.

The moment I hit the waiting area, Mom runs and hugs me. Dad stands and waits.

“Thank God,” she breathes into my hair. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just tired. I can’t believe they kept us so long.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Dad mutters, looking everywhere else but at me.
First sign.
My heart drops lower in my chest.

I look around at the crowd of people waiting for loved ones. Dominick’s mother and little brother are nowhere in sight.

“Did you see Dominick?”

“No, honey,” Mom says, taking a cursory look around.

“Wait, I need to see if he needs a ride back to his car.” I pull my phone back out.

Dominick has texted back:

Probably. Be right there.

“Doesn’t that boy have a family of his own?” Dad complains. Mom touches his shoulder. It’s a love warning. It means, “I know you are annoyed but you are crossing the line.”

While we wait for him, I head to the front desk to pick up my clothes.

“Last name?” the attendant asks.

“Lucas. Alexandra Lucas.”

“One moment.”

She disappears behind another door and returns shortly with my clothes and shoes neatly folded in a plastic bag.

“Thanks,” I say. As I turn to leave, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a door window. My curly hair is flattened on one side, sticking up on the other. I grab the hair elastic in my purse and pull my frizzy, brown hair into a quick bun. Just in time—Dominick appears around the corner.