“Hey, happy
New Year! How was your Christmas?” Susan
asked as Penny entered the office.
“Christmas
was OK, but no-one came at New Year, they were all sick,” Penny replied.
“Tell me
about it. Chris called in sick this
morning. Said he was coughing so much he
fell and hit his chin on the counter.”
“Knowing
him, he fell over drunk,” Penny replied.
All around
the office they could hear people coughing and grumbling. It was hard for Susan to concentrate on her
research. The newsroom wanted her to
come up with at least three January dieting fads and a comparison of their
success rates.
Natasha
strode in dressed to the nines as usual, a waft of perfume preceding her.
“You’re on
with Charlie today, Chris is off sick,” Susan told her.
“Hungover
again,” sighed Natasha and went on her way.
Later
Charlie and Natasha debated diets on the lunchtime news after cursory coverage
of the ferry sinking in the Mediterranean.
“God, I feel
rough,” Penny complained to Susan after watching the broadcast, “I think I’ll
go home.”
Susan nodded
distracted and began her research on the effects of sea sickness
medication. It was thought that this combined
with alcohol had caused a crew member to drive the ferry onto the rocks.
Later Susan
went to her doctor’s office to collect a repeat prescription. It was full of people coughing and
shivering. Susan put her hand over her
mouth. Behind the desk a tired looking
doctor was talking urgently to the practice manager. Susan caught snatches of their conversation; “...
epidemic ... phones ringing and ringing
... out of hand ... patients collapsing ... emergency call outs ...”
Typical, she
thought, a bit of flu and the overstretched system collapsed. As she was about to leave a woman behind her
fainted. Susan tutted, some people would
do anything to jump the queue for the doctor.
At home her
boyfriend shivered under a duvet complaining of headache and fever. Susan warmed him some soup, then continued to
work on researching the efficacy of abs exercises. Did they burn fat or simply create muscle behind
the fat causing the post Christmas bulge to grow? She left her boyfriend to sleep alone, his
soup untouched. In the morning he didn’t
come out of the bedroom to say goodbye to her and outside their front door was
a body. The homeless guy. There was blood around his mouth. Susan shuddered, stepped over him and
continued on her way. Someone else would
call the Police, she was far too busy.
All morning her smart phone had been alerting her to emails from
work. The abs exercise report had to be
written and the sea sickness piece finalised.
Chris was still off sick, Penny was too ill to come in and Natasha was
running late because she’d had to take her children to the doctor.
Hardly
anyone was in the office, Susan was able to concentrate on meeting her
deadlines. Charlie approached her desk
looking uncharacteristically troubled; “Chris has died,” he said, “pneumonia.”
Susan looked
up from her keyboard, her face draining of colour.
“Now, Susan,
don’t get upset, we all knew he drank.
It wrecked his immune system.”
“There was a
dead homeless guy outside my house this morning,” she whispered.
“Oh dear,
not a good start to the day all round.
Hey ho, must keep going, the News never stops. What’s the progress on that abs exercises
piece?”
