Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
Aneesh lay in bed and watched the ceiling fan turn. Every turn a day, and every day alike, except this one. Sunday meant a visit to the grocery store for his zone, a chance to look up and see the sky and not a fan. He rolled out of bed, and lay on the ground for effect. He liked to think he was the star of a show the world watched. He waited for the taped laughter to roll in his head, stood up, took a bow and walked into the shower. 42 degrees, the precise angle mixed the right amount of hot and cold. Months of small changes had led him to this answer, good things needed patience. Clean, dressed and perfumed he walked into the living room.
His flat mate, Sid was sprawled on the couch scrolling through Netflix. Aneesh stared at Sid and smiled, it had been 82 days since the “Incident”. It had changed things between them, you can glue a lot of things but not all, like you can’t stick petals back onto a flower. Making sure Sid’s eyes were on the TV, Aneesh walked up to the fridge, removed the last vaccine vial, pocketed it and replaced it with another one. He had done this every day for the last 12 days, he wouldn’t do it again. Like clockwork, Sid jumped up, sauntered over to the fridge, picked up the last vial and went to the bathroom for his jab, once a day for 12 days, and you were immune.
Aneesh stepped out onto the porch, wore his glasses and slid his mask up. He wore it not for his safety, but for others. The virus hadn't done him much harm because of the vaccine but he could still spew a billion viral particles in a simple “Hey” at an unfortunate soul. 257 steps to the store. Policemen lined the pavement, armed with tasers and guns, tasers to knock down anyone who strayed from the set path, guns if the tasers missed.
He entered the store through the mist. He liked counting the items on display, 64 orange oranges, 12 cans of grape soda, 12 cans of cola and the diet ones in the back. Health, like the clergy had lost its grasp, people had realized that praying and yoga did little against a virus. He picked veggies by color, a few red ones with the same number of green, a few purple ones to balance the yellow and a dash of white to make the basket look pretty. He then turned to walk through the final aisle before the billing counter, the biscuit section. He took 7 steps, sighed, and looked to the left. He was relieved and angry, nothing had changed for years. Between the cream and chocolate ones was an empty shelf that hadn’t been filled since the Incident. It punched him in the gut, bile rushed up to his throat, he gulped it down and hurried to the counter, swiped his phone to pay and ran out the door. It hadn’t been easy, the last 82 days, but he knew he was at the end.
He strutted the 257 steps back home, placed the bags on the floor, walked up to his flat mate, and hugged him. Sid looked surprised, Aneesh hadn’t spoken to him since the Incident. Aneesh took a step back, holding onto Sid’s shoulders, coughed, took a few more steps back, smiled as he took a bow, and walked back to his room. In a few days Sid wouldn’t be able to taste his breakfast, a day later he would run a high fever, in a few more days he would be sprawled on a white sheet. The doctors would try, and fail, why hadn’t the vaccine worked they wondered, the counter went up by one, no one noticed, except Aneesh.
The Incident
Sid and Aneesh sat at the table watching Friends re-runs. They had been mates for years. A packet of Marie biscuits lay open at the table, they took one each time in turn. One, Two, Three and kept going….Sid dunked his in his tea, but let it linger, and they both watched as it sank into the brown expanse. Sid picked up the last biscuit, used it to fish out what he could of the previous one and ate them both. He looked up to see Aneesh staring at him. “Sorry”, Sid mumbled, mouth full of biscuit. Aneesh replied dryly, “You will be”.
The End (especially for Sid)
