The smog wasn’t too bad today. Thanks to a heavy rainfall
two days before the chemicals in the air had been damped down. Usually the
atmosphere was so thick it was like walking through fog. John adjusted the
setting on his mask from heavy to medium. He couldn’t ever remember a time when
it had been set on light.
The concrete sidewalks were falling apart and what few trees
lined the streets were leafless, the smaller limbs long since broken off for
fuel or shelter. He hated walking to his appointments but, as usual, the two
vehicles allotted the Health Department were in for repair.
John removed the clipboard from the side pocket of the metal
briefcase he carried and double checked the address of his next assignment. He
quickly spotted it: the number twenty-three was scrawled on the front door in
dripping red paint. The house, made of slabs of crumbling concrete, with a rutted
corrugated tin roof and a pitted metal door, looked like something a couple of
kids might have thrown together as a fortress.
He hefted the case to get a better grip and started up the
littered walkway, picking his way through the rocks piled haphazardly along the
sides. He rapped his fist on the door and a creaky voice called out “Who’s
there?”
“Health Department!” he barked. He hated yelling but it was
the only way to make himself heard through his mask.
There were sounds of furniture being moved then the door
swung open and a wrinkled face, partially hidden by a mask that covered the
mouth and nose, looked into his. The tear-drop shaped mask was made of a
flexible, off-white plastic and black nylon straps on either side held the mask
in place at the back of the skull. John hadn’t seen one of these in a long
time. It reminded him of a jockstrap. Dirty strands of gauze hung loosely at
one side of the mouthpiece, and perched on top of the nose ridge was a pair of
badly scratched glasses. “Come in.”
John stole a quick glance at the clipboard as he came
through the door into the single room. The subject was an older female named
Irma. Most of the time it was hard to tell what sex they were but in John’s
experience women survived the atmosphere much better than men did. He could
tell right away that Irma was like most of his other cases: old, alone, eking
out a pathetic living by stealing food to supplement the meager government
handouts. The door shut behind him.
“Happy Birthday!” he yelled, turning about and trying to
smile with his eyes.
“Oh thank you!” Irma gushed, a pinkish blush creeping up her
sagging grey cheeks.
“Now...let me guess how old you are...” John kept his tone
jovial, as though he were talking to a small child. She was only forty-one but
looked as ancient and broken down as the trees outside.
“I’d say, oh, twenty-three?”
“Oh stop! You know I’m thirty-nine today.” She gestured at
his clipboard. He didn’t bother to correct her. Let her keep some semblance of
youth, no matter how tenuous. Maybe it was vanity, or insanity, that kept her
alive.
“Well. Shall we get started?”
Irma dragged two wooden crates over and they sat down. John laid
the clipboard on the floor and drew the metal case up into his lap. As he bent
his head over the open case and fiddled with the vials and jars inside he surreptitiously
surveyed the room.
In one corner was her bed, a ripped open wooden crate
stuffed with plastic bags, newspapers, and bits of cloth. A thick book, faded
and dusty, lay beside it but from his position John couldn’t make out the
title. A yellowed photograph of a man in uniform hung on the wall above her
bed, and further along the same wall was a pile of dirty melamine dishes and a
small cooking stove. In the furthest corner was an old plastic pail covered
with a weather-blackened wooden plank. The toilet.
He withdrew a small plastic vial, already labeled with Irma’s
case number, and offered it to her. Irma knew the procedure and took it from
him, wrapping her claw-like hands about it. She took one raspy breath, lifted
the mouth covering of her mask and spat a gob of brownish phlegm into the vial.
Dropping the mask back over her mouth she handed it back to John. He capped the
vial and stored it back in the case while Irma sat quietly on the crate and
waited for the next step.
John took out two sets of tweezers, one of which was already
fitted with a round white filter pad, and leaned in close to Irma. “Okay deep
breath,” he instructed. Irma screwed up her face and sucked in air.
With the first set of tweezers he pulled the old filter from
the mouthpiece, quickly grabbed the second pair and slid the new filter pad
into place.
“Breathe now,” he said, but Irma was already breathing in
noisily.
“Nothing like a new filter, eh?” he said. Irma smiled and
nodded. Her eyebrows relaxed.
He put the used filter into a plastic baggie, labeled with
the case number, and stored it in one of the pockets of the metal case.
The next step he always dreaded, as did every other Health
Department worker he had ever known. When he removed a large jar and a pair of
steel tongs from the case, Irma stood and led him to the pail in the corner.
She removed the plank and John was thankful that his mask filtered out most of
the stench. Inside the pail a gross collection of human excrement floated in a
sea of pale urine.
A few dozen cockroaches, subjected to the sudden light and
movement, rushed upward and over the sides of the pail, scurrying into corners
and beneath dishes. John’s stomach lurched upward but he mentally pushed it
back down. A couple of roaches had crawled right across Irma’s bare feet but
she didn’t seem to have noticed.
It amazed him that, without a mask, any other living
creature would be dead within a week, but these hideous bugs had found a way to
thrive on the pollution. John knew that in earlier, cleaner days cockroaches
hadn’t fed on shit but, he supposed, they’d evolved. The strongest and most fit
to survive. No wonder all the research money went to the study of these little
buggers. Years ago it had been the tsetse fly; now it was roaches.
John reached into the pail and snagged the firmest of the
feces with the tongs and dropped it into the jar where it made a thick plopping
noise as it hit the bottom. He capped the jar, also labeled, bagged the tongs, and
stowed them away in the metal case. He picked up the clipboard from the floor,
flicked off a stray roach, and made his notations. He handed the board to Irma
and she pressed her thumb on the line he indicated.
“Are there any openings?” she asked, her eyebrows once again
knotted.
It was the standard question, asked by every subject.
Fictional hospitals had been built to keep her hopes alive but John knew you
couldn’t live on hope. He felt a stab of guilt and pressed a few entries on the
board, stalling for time.
“You’ve moved up the list a bit,” he said, giving her the
standard answer but not meeting her eyes. “We’ll be sure to let you know.” He
returned the clipboard to the case pocket and walked to the front door.
“Oh can’t you stay just a little longer? I don’t get company
very often.” Irma was anxiously banging her hands against her sides and her
eyebrows were so tensed they appeared almost joined over her glasses.
“I’m sorry,” John said, honestly feeling it. “I have to go
back and fill out my reports. Don’t you have any family? Neighbours?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t go out very often. Sometimes, at
night I do...” she trailed off.
John apologized again, feeling like a shithead for wanting
to get out of this dingy rat hole. He closed the door quietly behind him and
walked back to the clinic. After he dropped the case in the front office,
unloading the vials and jars and tucking them into the slots provided, he
returned to his room in the military-style barracks where all the Health
Department workers lived.
At the door to his quarters he pressed his hand against the
side plate and the outer door slid open then closed smoothly behind him. John
stood in the anteroom and waited for the beep to signal that the air filter
system had detoxified his garments. He pressed his hand to the second side
plate and the next door slid open.
He flopped onto the bed and crossed his arms behind his
head. Even with all the air filter systems he still had to keep his mask on, in
case of emergency. Lying there, he wondered for the billionth time it seemed
what the hell the point was? All the Health Department tests were a crock, a
public relations ploy to convince people that the government cared about them
or, maybe worse, that they could actually do something about the situation.
John sighed and rose from his bed to check his mail. There
was a short note from an acquaintance of his at Health Department No. 19,
another ad for porn, and a memo from R. Waters, the Health Department’s chief
officer.
“Due to government spending cuts, the Health Department is
forced to lay off twenty-five employees. Please finish your weekly assignments.
Effective April 22, you will be escorted from the premises and assigned new
living quarters. Your compensation will be credited to your account.”
John stared at the screen for a moment, stunned. He knew
exactly what “new living quarters” meant. He thought of Irma living in a
dilapidated shack with the red number twenty-three dripped on it. Irma, or
someone like her, was going to be his new neighbour. He closed his eyes and
hugged his arms tight around his body, trying to squeeze down the panic that
suddenly rose in his gut.
Four months ago, when the last round of layoffs had come,
armed security officers had arrived early in the morning and dragged the
workers from their quarters. All John could think of was their open-mouthed
screams that he hadn’t been able to hear through the soundproof windows.
“No!” he yelled into the stillness of his room. He wouldn’t
be forced. He wouldn’t be dragged. And he couldn’t win.
He turned off his terminal and stood up from his desk. After
opening the inner and outer doors John stepped out into the early evening. The
sun was sinking, the sky a burnt orange colour with steel grey clouds scudding
low on the horizon. He took off his mask and dropped it on the ground. He
started to walk. To number twenty-three.
