Joseph Talluto - White Flag of the Dead

“Ugh.” “How’s that?” “Ugh.”

“Come on caveman, your son is calling you.” My wife of six years poked me in the ribs and pushed my feet off the bed. In the background, soft music played through the monitor, indicating that Jake, our son, was awake and had activated the toy. “I’m too tired to play daddy today. Get someone else.” I groaned, rolling over and burying my head in my pillows. “Move it or we’ll never play at making another one,” she threatened. “Empty threat. I’m too good for any woman to give up cold turkey.” Ellie grabbed my pillows. “Fine. How about it’s your turn since I got up at 2?” I rolled out of bed and lay on the floor. “I’m nothing if not fair.”

The words “Have fun.” floated over the bed and down to my ears as I started my morning routine of pushups and sit-ups. I barely felt them anymore, since I had been doing them since I was a kid. But habits are habitual, and it woke me up in the mornings.

I walked down the dark hall, feeling very much like a zombie. I am sure I looked it, too. But things needed to be done, and as the wife said, it was my turn. 5am was waaaay to early for anything, let along getting up from a very sound sleep. Jake, my five-month old, was wiggly and wanting to move out of his crib. He was just learning to sit on his own, although he couldn’t push himself to a sitting position yet. He rolled all over creation, and dragged himself along in an attempt to crawl. We thought he was the greatest thing, being new parents, but even we were surprised at how happy he was all the time, and what an easy baby he was, if judging by the grousing my brother did about his kids.

“Hey, buddy.” I said stepping over to his crib. Jacob had activated his plastic fishbowl, which had alerted us to his state of wakefulness. Jake looked at me and smiled through his binky, swinging his arms in excitement. How these little guys remained so cheerful all the time was a mystery me. If I could bottle it I would be rich.

I picked him up and headed downstairs to make a bottle for him, since Ellie was not breast feeding. She had tried, but it just seemed to not be in the cards, so here we were, spending lots of money on formula. I didn’t blame Ellie, how could it be her fault? She felt bad enough as it was, since she believed she was not getting that special “bonding time” that so many people say is so important. On the plus side, it allowed both of us to have some special time with the little guy, so we enjoyed it for what it was.

Downstairs I made him a bottle and a small bowl of oatmeal cereal. The doctor had said he could start it, so we got some and he really seemed to enjoy it. I tasted it once and it reminded me strongly of glue, but I didn’t let Jake know that. I turned on the television to see what news there could be had. I generally watched Fox for news simply because it was slightly harder to spot the bias. Ellie liked the local stuff and once in a blue moon I turned on CNN. Most of my news came from the internet, but it was good background noise.

“…incoming reports remain sketchy, but there seems to be some sort of outbreak in New York City on the lower east side. We go to Hannah Graves at the scene of Angel of Mercy Hospital. Hannah, what can you tell us?” I glanced at the screen, but Jake decided to make a grab for the food bowl, so I lost the reporters comments.

“Okay, thanks, Hannah. We’re going to our interview with Dr. Rafik Narwal, from the Center for Disease Control. Dr. Narwal, what can you tell us. Are we looking at a pandemic?”

That got my attention. I picked Jake up to give him the rest of his bottle and stood in front of the television. Dr. Narwal looked bad, like he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep lately.

“Nothing of the sort. We have taken precautions, like we normally do, when we have a situation where an infected person comes down with symptoms we haven’t seen before in this country. In Africa, this sort of thing is routine and would not even be a story.” Something in his manner was not sitting right with me. I had spent the last four years of my life as an administrator in public schools, and I knew when someone was lying to me or when they were trying to cover up something. Right now, Dr. Narwal was lying, and worse, he seemed scared. When the CDC spokesman looked scared, check your antibiotic supply because things were not good. I started to think about what I had read recently, where estimates of the death toll from a pandemic avian flu outbreak could reach 150 million. I started to pay very close attention

“What kind of symptoms, so we will know what to look for?” Darla the commentator asked. I called her Darla because I didn’t know her name and she looked like one, anyway.

Dr. Narwal looked nervous. “The symptoms are relatively flu like, with profuse vomiting, diarrhea, sweating and salivating. If anyone comes down with these symptoms after being infected, it is a very good idea to isolate them, as they are very contagious.”

“Is this a new disease?”

“All reports indicate we have not seen this strain of virus before, no.”

“Where did this begin?” Why people cared about this I wasn’t sure, but maybe it gave them some sort of relief blaming someone else.

Dr Narwal explained. “One of our colleagues was doing research in a remote village in the Congo Basin. Nothing out of the ordinary there, many of our diseases and cures come from largely unexplored regions like the Congo and the Amazon. Dr. Roberto Enillo was researching a new virus outbreak and discovered this new disease. We are currently running tests as to what kind of virus this is, what the incubation rate is, its survival rate in the open, what kills it and what feeds it.

I noticed he used only the past tense when talking about Dr. Enillo.

“What can we tell people to do.?” Darla asked, leaning forward, looking concerned for the camera. I felt her concern, and appreciated the glimpse down her shirt.

Dr. Narwal relaxed a bit, as this was familiar ground. “People should not panic. If a relative comes down with the symptoms, isolate them and call the authorities. If you feel you are sick, go to a hospital or clinic and they will take care of you.” Something was ticking in the back of my mind, but I didn’t pay close attention as I knelt down to change a dirty diaper. Jakey was finished with his bottle and gave me a satisfactory belch to complete his morning routine. I laid him on the floor and smiled at him, which got a full smile and arm flapping in response. What you don’t know about the world, buddy. I thought.

“In world news, England mobilizes its Territorial Army for a possible containment operation near Wales. Details are sketchy at this point, but there appears to be rumors of some sort of patient uprising in a local hospital. Further details as reports come in.”

“Okay, thanks, Hannah, in other news…”

I turned off the news as my wife came down, yawning and stretching. “Anything on the news?”

“Something about a new virus going around that seems to be hitting hard in a lot of places.” I said, placing a few toys about for Jake to play with while I got my breakfast.

“Really? Anything I need to know about?” Ellie stayed home with Jake three days a week, taking a year off from full time work. We did the math and realized that she would be working just for day care for Jake, so what was the point? She worked as a cardiac nurse for a hospital in the city, so she generally worked the shifts no one else wanted, Saturdays being one of them.

“Just keep an eye out for flu-like symptoms, and call the authorities if anyone has been infected. They didn’t say anything about transmission, but that it was very contagious.” I replied.