The doctor’s office is very bright and sunny. Spring breaks through the closed window frames and the fine mesh of tulle curtains. A gray-haired woman in a white coat carefully looks at a yellowish sheet with a bulky chart. Little Sasha sits opposite her, dangling his legs off the chair, barely reaching the worn linoleum with his brown sandals, sniffing and trying to rub his watery eyes. His mother stops him again and freezes, waiting for the words from the gray-haired woman.
“I can’t give you any good news,” the doctor finally says. “Twenty out of twenty-four allergy tests are positive. So you should stop this. You don’t have viral conjunctivitis. Nor do you have an acute respiratory viral infection.”
“What now?” his mother worries.
“I’ll put you on record. You’ll come periodically for check-ups,” the gray-haired woman sternly looks at the mother through her glasses. “Asthmatic symptoms may appear. Shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, chest spasms. Then you’ll need to be hospitalized.”
“Oh no! We don’t have anything like that.”
“They may appear,” the doctor repeats and begins writing something in the medical record in an illegible handwriting, continuing to speak. “Throw away feather pillows and blankets. Replace them with synthetic ones. Do wet cleaning more often. Ideally, three or four times a week. Don’t go outside yet. I’m giving you a week’s leave and exemption from vaccinations. And pills. One tablet twice a day after meals.”
“How many days?” his mother clarifies, glancing at the prescription.
The female doctor gives Sasha a slightly regretful glance, then raises her eyes back to the mother.
“We’ll see next week. Maybe you’ll live with them all the time.”
* * *
Of course, nothing changed after a week. Nor after a year. Nor after another year. Over the years, only one thing changes: years pass. That’s what Sasha’s grandmother used to say. And she was probably right.
Alexander stepped out of the dark, cool entranceway into a light drizzle, took a deep breath of the damp fresh air, pulled up the hoodie’s hood, and went for a walk. He loved days like these. All spring and the first half of summer, he could go outside without problems only in rainy weather. When it had been raining for two hours already, and the droplets, piercing through the air, literally cleaned it of all dust and debris. When the smallest particles of soil got wet and clumped together, no longer rising up after each step. When small flowers and pollen-spreading grass spikes bent under the blows of raindrops. Only then Alexander truly felt easy. So easy that he could take a deep breath without fearing that he’d soon need an inhaler.
Not particularly worried about getting his feet wet, the young man splashed through puddles that had already gathered on the square-tiled sidewalk. He crossed a small road lined with overgrown acacia trees. He turned into the archway of a large brick building and, climbing up the slippery, damp steps, entered the pharmacy.
Even at the entrance, Alexander hurried to remove the hood from his head, thinking that dressed like this, he looked like some kind of drug addict. But the girl in a white coat behind the glass counter still gave him an unfriendly look, immediately grumbling:
“There are no masks.”
Slightly choking on the medicinal air, saturated with some special, distinctly medical smell, the young man coughed. A couple of elderly women wearing masks, already picking up their stacked medicines at the cash register like Mayan pyramids, stepped aside and muttered something extremely displeased.
“Thank you, no need,” Alexander calmly replied to the girl and, glancing at the departing grandmothers, smiled. “Cyclorizine, 60 tablets.”
The girl silently slapped a box of pills onto the counter. The young man touched his card to the payment terminal, slipped the packet into his pocket, and mechanically thanked the not-so-friendly pharmacist before leaving.
* * *
But still, the grandmother of little Sasha, whose life fell into a generally peaceful time, was mistaken. There are years that bring surprises.
This spring, everyone seemed to have gone crazy because of another epidemic. It seemed that the entire space around was infected with talk and messages about some super-bacteria that had appeared from nowhere. Some scientists linked its emergence to global warming and the melting of permafrost, where the microbe has been dormant for tens of thousands of years. Conspiracy theorists came up with one absurd theory after another, claiming that the bacteria was synthesized in a secret government laboratory but leaked out, or even brought from space by a meteorite, almost as if aliens had done it.
But doctors, whom Alexander regularly visited—about 3-4 times a year since he was seven—had long put an end to this tragic story. Humanity, accustomed to swallowing pills at every cold and believing in the miraculous power of antibiotics, now faced an ordinary E. coli bacterium. Once a harmless symbiont living in everyone’s intestines, this year the bacteria, as they put it, had reached “complete resistance.”
While some maniacally washed their hands, bought masks, and locked themselves in their apartments, while others shouted about a fake disease and crowded in squares, a small organism was already spreading within everyone. Unrelenting fever or mild malaise, hacking cough or slight stomach upset, useless pills and asymptomatic patients, and eventually—sudden failure of entire organ systems and death. All too often, you could see a person lying on the street—still alive or already dead—and people were afraid to approach them.
But Alexander wasn’t afraid to walk through the emptying city, because it was already impossible to get infected. Everyone was already infected. By an epidemic of their own stupidity. Yes, after all, nothing changes over the years…
* * *
The doctor’s office is bright and sunny. The bright spring sun shines through slightly drawn cream-colored blinds. A tightly closed window keeps out the barely perceptible but irritating smells of grass and flowers. The air conditioner pleasantly blows cool, dry, and slightly filtered air onto Alexander’s face. A tall, strong man in a white coat looks attentively at the young man from behind his glasses.
“So, how do you feel?”
How do you feel…? Alexander pauses for a moment, suddenly remembering how many times he’s heard this question. How can you describe your condition when you can’t sleep because of constant throat irritation that nothing can relieve? Or when you wake up in the middle of the night choking, realizing that your nasopharynx is filled with unpleasant sticky mucus that you can neither swallow nor spit out? Or when, having woken up in the morning, you can’t open your eyes because your eyelashes and eyelids are glued together with dried pus. And then you realize that all you need is a pill, which you have to take every day. For your whole life.
“Everything’s fine,” Alexander replies.
“Do you take H2 blockers?”—the doctor shifts his gaze to the computer monitor, where all medical histories have long been transferred.
“Yes, of course,” the young man demonstratively places a box on the table, which he carries in his pocket.
“Excellent. Fifth generation. Good medication. Then I won’t prescribe anything new to you yet.”
Alexander watches with a light sad smile as the doctor copies the previous entry onto a new page of the electronic chart, choosing a convenient moment to ask his question.
“And what about my tests?”
“Yes,”—the doctor switches between database windows somewhat hesitantly and seems to be waiting for the patient to show interest—”The results have come back… You have traces of E. coli-25, but you’re ‘negative.’ Already…”
“What does that mean?”
“Well,” the doctor says, looking somewhat confused, “I’ve sent your blood for further testing. Perhaps additional analysis will be required for an immunologist-infectiologist… They’ll try to isolate antibodies. But it’s already clear that your immune system has dealt with the pathogen.”
The man in the white coat looks carefully at Alexander again. “Did you often get sick as a child?”
“Constantly…”—the young man answers hesitantly.
“Well, maybe that’s for the best… Your diagnosis was always perceived by patients as a sentence… But now, maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know if you’ll help everyone else… But you yourself will live.”
* * *
Alexander stepped out of the building into the beginning rain and instinctively pulled the hood over his head. He crossed the courtyard, walked across the road lined with acacia trees, and, stepping out of the archway, stopped near a flower kiosk.
The seller, wearing a mask and gloves, silently took the money upon seeing his gesture and handed him a small ready-made bouquet. After all, even under the threatening blows of a deadly epidemic, the economy proved immortal.
The young man smiled and crossed the road to an empty bus stop, where only one silhouette stood out against the darkening sky.
“Hi!” the girl greeted first, sniffling slightly, “Is this for me?”
“Probably for you…” the young man smiled.
“Beautiful lilies. Only I’m allergic to them.”
“You guessed right,” Alexander laughed and thoughtfully looked at the leaden sky, from which the first large drops were already falling. “Shall we go for a walk?”
“Let’s go,” the girl opened a colorful umbrella.
“Tell me… Do you like kissing in the rain?”
“I love doing everything in the rain,” the girl said sadly, blowing her nose loudly into a handkerchief, and handing Alexander the umbrella, she took his arm.
“I understand… What do you take?”
“Trichloropyramine.”
“Oh… Probably two tablets a day?”
“Three… Two tablets no longer work for me.”
“Listen, try ‘Cyclorizine.’ It’s already fifth generation, and one tablet lasts for twenty-four hours…”
Talking leisurely, the young people turned onto a park alley, and their voices were lost in the rustling of leaves and the noise of the intensifying rain.
