dstraito
TB Fanatic
Of course this is a fictional story. And of course it could not really happen, could it?
Edward still lived with his parents even though he graduated high school three years ago. He lived in New Jersey and at the insistence of his parents got a job. The job was a trivial job but for the unambitious it would suffice. He boarded a subway every day to fill his role as a parking attendant in Manhattan.
Edward sat at his booth where he took a ticket from a car exiting the parking garage and then made change for the driver if necessary. He looked up from his magazines as the dark SUV approached the bar preventing the vehicle from exiting onto the street. He looked like he was reading a National Geographic but he had a Playboy lining the inside of Time.
The SUV driver rolled down the window and was about to hand him the ticket when he jerked his hand bank to cover a violent sneeze. He offered up the ticket again.
Edward’s stomach rolled. He thought “geez, what an asshole.” He had a job to do though. He had been warned not to be surly to the customers as several complaints had been filed against him. He gingerly took the ticket by its edge, touching it as little as possible. He punched in the time and the register displayed $39 dollars for the two hour and fifty two minute stay.
The large black man in the black SUV offered up $40 which Edward took and looked at the guy expectantly. The large man coughed and said “I’d like a receipt please.”
Edward thought the accent sounded African. There were a lot of people from Nigeria and Liberia that frequented this garage. He handed the man a receipt but the man left his hand extended with the receipt in it.
Edward sighed and gave the man a dollar back, lamenting the fact that no one seemed to ever give him a tip. He pushed a button and the bar keeping people from exiting lifted and the car left the garage.
A black Town car filled the spot the black SUV just vacated. The driver wearing a suit and a cap lowered the window and held out the parking ticket. The charge for this ticket was $52 for four hours. The chauffeur looking guy held out a hundred dollar bill.
“Uhh, we’re not supposed to take hundreds.” Edward said.
“Its all I have.” The driver said.
Edward was thinking of the last driver, Sneezy, at least that is what Edward had named him and decided to take the hundred dollar bill. He wanted to get rid of the two twenties Sneezy had given him thinking of the snot dripping from that drivers hand. He took the hundred in violation of his bosses policy and gave the chauffeur looking driver the two twenties he’d just taken in and eight ones back.
The driver took the two twenties and said “keep the change.”
This must be my lucky day Edward thought.
Later that day, after a long almost endless shift, at least it seemed that way to him, he punched out and headed toward the subway. He didn’t have any tokens so he had to stop by the booth and get some. He gave the booth cashier the eight dollars he’d gotten as a tip, his only tip that day by the way, and she gave him eight tokens in return. He got home that night and got high as usual blowing the smoke out his bedroom window so his parents wouldn’t know. He pretty much wasted the weekend doing nothing Saturday or Sunday.
His shift the next day was pretty boring until half way through. A big convention was in town all the cars that had entered that morning were now lining up to leave. He didn’t need this crap as he wasn’t feeling very good. If he’d felt like this before going to work he probably would have called in sick but oh well, deal with it and go home, he’d get high again tonight and would feel better soon. With four hours to go left in his shift, he sneezed on the change he handed a customer. That made him think of the guy on his last shift that hand sneezed on the ticket.
“Great.” He thought, that guy probably gave me a cold.
He processed more cars on that shift that ever before, feeling progressively worse as the end of his shift neared. Once again, he’d made change for hundreds of patrons and no one left him a tip.
Finally, the end of his shift came. He felt bad enough that he was just going to go home but on the subway ran into a friend, James, who talked him into going home to party. At James’ apartment, there were already five guys there and a low cloud of smoke hanging down from the ceiling. As they walked in one of the guys handed a joint to Edward who took a big long hit and handed it to James. The joint then made the circle of guys and back to Edward who managed the last hit.
He was feeling dizzy which was unusual because he had developed a high tolerance for pot. He just made it into the bathroom and threw up in the sink before he finished upchucking in the toilet. He slumped down around the toilet feeling feverish and had a real bad headache. Every muscle in his body was stiff and aching and he had a sore throat.
Edward woke up vomiting again and noticed he’d had diarrhea in his pants.
James walked in and yelled at him to get out and then some other things that he couldn’t quite make out. Edward stood up shakily and looked into the mirror at his pale face, his blood red eyes and vomit running down his shirt. He thought “I just have to get home.”
Edward made it home that evening though he didn’t remember much of it. When he walked in the door his parents took one look at him and immediately loaded him up in the car and drove him to the emergency room of the nearby hospital. They had to sit in the waiting room because the waiting room was full, it being flu season and all.
Edward was not seen until he collapsed after five hours in the waiting room. He’d thrown up several more times and finally got in to see the doctor. A nurse cleaned him up the best she could and the doctor came in, examined him and told him to quit being a junky. The examination took 60 seconds, it might have taken longer but he didn’t have any insurance. Edward took his prescription for Tamiflu out to the lobby and his parents took him home.
James cleaned up the mess Edward left all over his bathroom and the mess left by his other partying guests and crashed for the night. He vowed not to invite Edward over again.
The driver of the Town car felt bad when he left the parking garage but he progressively got worse. He ended his shift early and went home to his wife and six kids. He kissed each of the kids goodnight and his went to bed where his wife gave him a massage to each his aching muscles. When he got the chills she covered him up and didn’t take him to the emergency room until the next morning when he woke up.
Two days had gone by and each of the partiers at James’ house had gone to other parties. Some passed around a joint, others a pipe and a couple even shared a needle with their fellow partiers.
James’ wife left her job at a busy daycare to go home and take him to the hospital. She wasn’t feeling very well either but James was delirious.
Edwards’s parents called 911 when his symptoms got worse and he went into a comatose state. They weren’t feeling well either. As they followed the ambulance, they heard a chauffeur from Nigeria was in the hospital they were going to and was under quarantine for Ebola. The news was saying that they were investigating one hundred people that the chauffeur had possibly had contact with but there was no reason to worry, the chances of catching anything were small.
Three other attendants at the garage Edward worked at called in sick.
Half of the kids at the daycare where James’ wife were kept home a couple of days after she went back to work, after all, she had to pay for the hospital bills where since James was still in intensive care.
Many people that took the subway or a particular Town car started coming down with symptoms. People would agree, it was probably the flu as that was reportedly going around. Most of them went to work anyway saving their sick days for when they could play golf or do something else fun.
The party hardy group didn’t feel much like partying as they were all in the hospital and several dozen people they had partied with weren’t feeling too well. They were still partying but it wasn’t as much fun when you had headaches and sore throats.
Hundreds of people that frequented a certain parking garage started getting sick.
An inordinate amount of people in the buildings around that parking garage started getting sick.
Two weeks go by.
Manhattan was in a panic. Several people had been diagnosed with Ebola with hundreds more being quarantined with suspicious symptoms. Schools were closed. Business was closed. The subways were shutdown. The town was under martial law. Before the airports where shutdown, tens of thousands of people that had come in contact and were within six degrees of that SUV driver, and were flying all over the nation, all over the world. Many could not get back in to this country as the fear of an Ebola epidemic prevented re-entry.
The hospitals were quickly overwhelmed as were most government services. The number to be quarantined quickly grew greater than the capacity to hold them so the FEMA camps were activated around the country. Unfortunately, the fatality rate was at 70 percent so the people in the FEMA camps were quickly rotated to the bio containers as was dictated by the rules for disposing people and contaminated items. The CDC suggests “Hermetically Sealed Caskets” For Ebola Victims and the multiple people were stacked in each bio container as there were not enough containers to go around.
As awareness grew, so too, did prevention measures but Pandora was out of her box. There were too any vectors, too many touch points, the world population was headed toward extinction, save the 500 million or so that had access to the vaccine.
e
Edward still lived with his parents even though he graduated high school three years ago. He lived in New Jersey and at the insistence of his parents got a job. The job was a trivial job but for the unambitious it would suffice. He boarded a subway every day to fill his role as a parking attendant in Manhattan.
Edward sat at his booth where he took a ticket from a car exiting the parking garage and then made change for the driver if necessary. He looked up from his magazines as the dark SUV approached the bar preventing the vehicle from exiting onto the street. He looked like he was reading a National Geographic but he had a Playboy lining the inside of Time.
The SUV driver rolled down the window and was about to hand him the ticket when he jerked his hand bank to cover a violent sneeze. He offered up the ticket again.
Edward’s stomach rolled. He thought “geez, what an asshole.” He had a job to do though. He had been warned not to be surly to the customers as several complaints had been filed against him. He gingerly took the ticket by its edge, touching it as little as possible. He punched in the time and the register displayed $39 dollars for the two hour and fifty two minute stay.
The large black man in the black SUV offered up $40 which Edward took and looked at the guy expectantly. The large man coughed and said “I’d like a receipt please.”
Edward thought the accent sounded African. There were a lot of people from Nigeria and Liberia that frequented this garage. He handed the man a receipt but the man left his hand extended with the receipt in it.
Edward sighed and gave the man a dollar back, lamenting the fact that no one seemed to ever give him a tip. He pushed a button and the bar keeping people from exiting lifted and the car left the garage.
A black Town car filled the spot the black SUV just vacated. The driver wearing a suit and a cap lowered the window and held out the parking ticket. The charge for this ticket was $52 for four hours. The chauffeur looking guy held out a hundred dollar bill.
“Uhh, we’re not supposed to take hundreds.” Edward said.
“Its all I have.” The driver said.
Edward was thinking of the last driver, Sneezy, at least that is what Edward had named him and decided to take the hundred dollar bill. He wanted to get rid of the two twenties Sneezy had given him thinking of the snot dripping from that drivers hand. He took the hundred in violation of his bosses policy and gave the chauffeur looking driver the two twenties he’d just taken in and eight ones back.
The driver took the two twenties and said “keep the change.”
This must be my lucky day Edward thought.
Later that day, after a long almost endless shift, at least it seemed that way to him, he punched out and headed toward the subway. He didn’t have any tokens so he had to stop by the booth and get some. He gave the booth cashier the eight dollars he’d gotten as a tip, his only tip that day by the way, and she gave him eight tokens in return. He got home that night and got high as usual blowing the smoke out his bedroom window so his parents wouldn’t know. He pretty much wasted the weekend doing nothing Saturday or Sunday.
His shift the next day was pretty boring until half way through. A big convention was in town all the cars that had entered that morning were now lining up to leave. He didn’t need this crap as he wasn’t feeling very good. If he’d felt like this before going to work he probably would have called in sick but oh well, deal with it and go home, he’d get high again tonight and would feel better soon. With four hours to go left in his shift, he sneezed on the change he handed a customer. That made him think of the guy on his last shift that hand sneezed on the ticket.
“Great.” He thought, that guy probably gave me a cold.
He processed more cars on that shift that ever before, feeling progressively worse as the end of his shift neared. Once again, he’d made change for hundreds of patrons and no one left him a tip.
Finally, the end of his shift came. He felt bad enough that he was just going to go home but on the subway ran into a friend, James, who talked him into going home to party. At James’ apartment, there were already five guys there and a low cloud of smoke hanging down from the ceiling. As they walked in one of the guys handed a joint to Edward who took a big long hit and handed it to James. The joint then made the circle of guys and back to Edward who managed the last hit.
He was feeling dizzy which was unusual because he had developed a high tolerance for pot. He just made it into the bathroom and threw up in the sink before he finished upchucking in the toilet. He slumped down around the toilet feeling feverish and had a real bad headache. Every muscle in his body was stiff and aching and he had a sore throat.
Edward woke up vomiting again and noticed he’d had diarrhea in his pants.
James walked in and yelled at him to get out and then some other things that he couldn’t quite make out. Edward stood up shakily and looked into the mirror at his pale face, his blood red eyes and vomit running down his shirt. He thought “I just have to get home.”
Edward made it home that evening though he didn’t remember much of it. When he walked in the door his parents took one look at him and immediately loaded him up in the car and drove him to the emergency room of the nearby hospital. They had to sit in the waiting room because the waiting room was full, it being flu season and all.
Edward was not seen until he collapsed after five hours in the waiting room. He’d thrown up several more times and finally got in to see the doctor. A nurse cleaned him up the best she could and the doctor came in, examined him and told him to quit being a junky. The examination took 60 seconds, it might have taken longer but he didn’t have any insurance. Edward took his prescription for Tamiflu out to the lobby and his parents took him home.
James cleaned up the mess Edward left all over his bathroom and the mess left by his other partying guests and crashed for the night. He vowed not to invite Edward over again.
The driver of the Town car felt bad when he left the parking garage but he progressively got worse. He ended his shift early and went home to his wife and six kids. He kissed each of the kids goodnight and his went to bed where his wife gave him a massage to each his aching muscles. When he got the chills she covered him up and didn’t take him to the emergency room until the next morning when he woke up.
Two days had gone by and each of the partiers at James’ house had gone to other parties. Some passed around a joint, others a pipe and a couple even shared a needle with their fellow partiers.
James’ wife left her job at a busy daycare to go home and take him to the hospital. She wasn’t feeling very well either but James was delirious.
Edwards’s parents called 911 when his symptoms got worse and he went into a comatose state. They weren’t feeling well either. As they followed the ambulance, they heard a chauffeur from Nigeria was in the hospital they were going to and was under quarantine for Ebola. The news was saying that they were investigating one hundred people that the chauffeur had possibly had contact with but there was no reason to worry, the chances of catching anything were small.
Three other attendants at the garage Edward worked at called in sick.
Half of the kids at the daycare where James’ wife were kept home a couple of days after she went back to work, after all, she had to pay for the hospital bills where since James was still in intensive care.
Many people that took the subway or a particular Town car started coming down with symptoms. People would agree, it was probably the flu as that was reportedly going around. Most of them went to work anyway saving their sick days for when they could play golf or do something else fun.
The party hardy group didn’t feel much like partying as they were all in the hospital and several dozen people they had partied with weren’t feeling too well. They were still partying but it wasn’t as much fun when you had headaches and sore throats.
Hundreds of people that frequented a certain parking garage started getting sick.
An inordinate amount of people in the buildings around that parking garage started getting sick.
Two weeks go by.
Manhattan was in a panic. Several people had been diagnosed with Ebola with hundreds more being quarantined with suspicious symptoms. Schools were closed. Business was closed. The subways were shutdown. The town was under martial law. Before the airports where shutdown, tens of thousands of people that had come in contact and were within six degrees of that SUV driver, and were flying all over the nation, all over the world. Many could not get back in to this country as the fear of an Ebola epidemic prevented re-entry.
The hospitals were quickly overwhelmed as were most government services. The number to be quarantined quickly grew greater than the capacity to hold them so the FEMA camps were activated around the country. Unfortunately, the fatality rate was at 70 percent so the people in the FEMA camps were quickly rotated to the bio containers as was dictated by the rules for disposing people and contaminated items. The CDC suggests “Hermetically Sealed Caskets” For Ebola Victims and the multiple people were stacked in each bio container as there were not enough containers to go around.
As awareness grew, so too, did prevention measures but Pandora was out of her box. There were too any vectors, too many touch points, the world population was headed toward extinction, save the 500 million or so that had access to the vaccine.
e
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