2152
Like every morning, I get dressed up. I wear my starched white doctor’s coat.
My Medal of Honor catches the morning light and shines like the memory of my glory days. For outstanding service to Earth during the Great Epidemic of 2152.
Coffee in hand, I wait for work to show up, but an unbearable ennui arrives instead.
I’d like to say we cured Disease. The many good doctors and nurses who jumped head first into work during that nightmarish year. Recognition came promptly after. Days of jubilation and then nothing. For a long time since then, no one has come to see us.
Freddy, my neighbor walks by. I can tell he has a sprain in his right ankle just by the way he’s walking. It’s very likely that he tripped while mounting his air scooter. Such a common problem! I can help him, but he won’t come to me. To any doctor, for that matter. Person-less healing pods are on every street corner. They’re faster and precise. They’re machines.
There is no disease. After the epidemic, we insulated Earth. Every city is a giant aseptic globule on the face of a polka-dotted Earth. We humans mimic it. Self-quarantined inside infinitesimal worlds of our own.
But a child’s laughter is unfailingly sweet. Sophie is walking her dog. She looks up at me and waves. Her pigtails bob as she skips ahead of her mother. Her shoes are a size too big for her. Just as that thought crosses my mind, she trips. Her lower lip is bleeding. Her mother tries to get her up. She looks at the healing pod a few steps away and then right at me, also a few steps away. She chooses me. A tiny leap for humanity.
Wow, that’s some fiction..I liked it and maybe you could spin a story around this theme which is bigger….could become a short story of 2k + words easily..give it a try. 🙂
I loved the concept.
Thanks, UK! I’m glad you liked my very first dig at writing sci-fi 🙂
Fantasies are made of this!! 🙂
Good one!
Thank you so much!
I like how you brought the larger issue into focus by centering the tale on this one nurse.
Thank you, Cyn!
I really like the changes you made. It feels very Mad Max meets Erie Indiana. Does that make sense?
Haha! Makes complete sense! I’m so thrilled you compared it to Mad Max! Huge thanks to you, Danielle.. It probably wouldn’t have made it to the grid if it wasn’t for you 🙂
You conjured a world so fast here, Hema. I’m very intrigued.I’m glad you had one of the neighbors acknowledge the doctor; it would have been creepy to have all of those people pretend she’s not there.
Thanks Nate! It’s so Interesting that you thought the narrator was a “she”. I was imagining it to be a man 🙂
I love the question you raise in the last couple lines of who we would choose. I’d like to see this expanded!
Thanks, Laura! This was my very first dig at writing sci-fi and totally out of my comfort zone. It might take me a while but I’ll try and take this story further 🙂
Wonderful! I loved how you put across the world of tomorrow and how person less healing changes a doctor’s life. The way you ended was a great nod to humanity. Good one!
Thanks, Parul 🙂
Healing pods. Interesting