A short story I wrote

Eye contact



An odd urban tale

During an era, a strange contagious virus launched its deadly action in one of the most highly- populated cities of the world. Its potency was so radical that it managed to utterly annihilate its residents within a few days. Its spread extended to the next city and later on to the next one. It didn’t take more than a week and the entire expanse of the Western civilization was being endangered by that new and sudden threat.
Its high- scaled impact was so unexpected and unprecedented that the scientists from all around the world, decided to unite their knowledge and their skills for the first time in the chronicles, in order to find a quick and effective fix for that inexplicable predicament.
Transfers and contacts between the ill Westerners and the unaffected population of the Eastern world were prohibited. Airplanes and boats anchored in land and the economic world collapsed in the same way a child’s tower in the sand falls apart, when the first wave inundates it, due to the cruel but –must say- necessary restricts.
At that time, people were living in panic. It was hard for them to integrate the frequent spectacle of the dead bodies being lied down on the streets and the subways, or the pavements and nearly everywhere else, in their everyday routine. In that mess, not all dead could get buried (some even didn’t have relatives or friends to seek for their corpses) and every city was using the same procedure to get rid of the supernumerary bodies. A few drains of a brown liquid made from a combination of chemical elements were the magic filter, able to decompose the human flesh within two seconds or less from the time it would come in contact with it. It was so toxic and so effective on burning, or to put it better, on vanishing the lifeless flesh but unpleasant smells weren’t occurring. If you were present in the place and the time one of the many times the event was repeated, you would feel like what you had just watched was something almost magical. The body was disappearing in front of your eyes in a flick of a moment. As if it had never even been there in the first place! This may was even more shocking than the body itself. Perhaps if someone was in great hurry, he wouldn’t be able to know for sure if he had seen the “polish” or if he had just imagined it.
The virus’s last stop was the city where Jean and Jane had grown up and continued living. They were so young and so in love with each other but in no case they could be described as two careless youngsters, beside their great enthusiasm about their recently- built relationship. And how could they be careless when the whole universe and primarily (for them) their lives were in such great jeopardy…
Not many precautions could be taken so that they could feel safe from the danger, except one. The bizarre killing virus, whose identity and cause of birth was still remaining a riddle, was imparting from a people to the other through the contact of the eyes. Yes, quite odd, but in that epoch, way too many odd occurrences were taking part in general that this was not taken aback those people. Healthy men and women would get sick and eventually die in ten or eleven hours from the contagion and all this by looking in the eyes a contaminated person. No symptoms were visible during the left over space. They were just loosing their senses when the sly virus had reigned in every single cell of their blood.
One of those days, Jean came back home and before he get inside to the living- room, where Jane was watching the latest news about the goings- on of the pandemic that had crushed their city too, he told her very seriously and anxiously not to turn and look him in the eyes. Full of concern and probably by instinct, the woman turned her look straight to his. Possibly instinctively too, Jean had already covered it with his two hands only a flash of a moment before. Jean went on talking in this way, without removing his hands from his eyes and told to his lover that their neighbor and friend from the next apartment, Todd, stopped breathing just before they both reach their destination stop at the subway. It was clear that he was affected and Jean was sure that he had too, since they had spent a lot of time, one sitting next to the other talking and it was inevitable to exchange a glance or two, despite the fear that was making everyone striving to avoid other people’s eyes at that time.
Upheaval occurred to the wagon right afterwards, since everybody around feared that they may had been affected by the dead man. If there was one to have the virus in his blood, everyone near him was a probable virus- carrier, as well.
The subway’s guards realized what had happened in that wagon only after all passengers had gone. That saved their lives because policemen and army forces were authorized to shoot everyone who was suspicious to carry the virus.
Jane took it for granted that her lover was affected but when at night he was still alive they both felt relieved and surprised. Naturally, they couldn’t see this to each other’s eyes because that would kill Jane but they both could feel it and could tell it. It was not logical why the virus hadn’t claimed his life, as it was happening with the rest of the affected people, but they both presumed that his blood was stronger than the virus, or at least enduring to it. Of course, a professional opinion could not be asked since they knew very well which would be Jean’s end if they would announce to a doctor that he was caring the virus.
At that same night a worldwide announcement was released through the total of the media. Scientists weren’t proved capable of finding the solution but the more practical minds did. People from every city the virus had made its appearance, were obliged to stay inside their houses for a day. If any person was being seen in a public place, it was proclaimed that he would get shot. Paradoxically or not, nor even one was shot by authored fires during that day.
This simple restriction appeared to be the most powerful of all actions against the pandemic. During that time, the affected got killed by the deadly molecule and the healthy ones didn’t come in contact with them. When the imposed curfew came to its end, the virus had died with its last carrier. A few days later, all that history seemed like a bad past joke which everyone seemed to had totally forgotten everything about it and all had returned back to their everyday routine again or at least they were pretending they had.
A year later and after their night out in the club they first met, Jean announced to Jane that he wanted to leave her. They had spent a year not seeing each other in the eyes (Jean had managed finely not to have eye contact with every person he was meeting at streets and everywhere else; fortunately, as time was passing by this was getting easier and easier) and this turned out to be more important than they both had though it would be, in the beginning. The lack of that kind of contact between them was the main reason that made Jean’s inner gaps and insecurities grow. He was feeling like he wasn’t sure if there was still alive the sense of trust and sincerity between them. It was like they were cursed to be near to each other but being like they were living miles apart. It was almost terrifying, to be so close but at the same time to be divided by an enormously huge space; because even though all of their feeling were poisoned, they were still remaining deeply in love. Jane was feeling the same way but she couldn’t possibly imagine herself apart from her partner. She tried to convince him think otherwise but he had already made his mind and they both knew that this couldn’t change.
Jean took his coat from the chair beside the door. He turned to say goodbye and at that moment he wished he never had. Jane looked him straight in the eyes, probably purposely, and as a natural reaction Jean looked her back. Everything they hadn’t said for a year was said just in that moment.
At night, Jane was the last victim of the virus and Jean a sad man.


End of story