Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S1

A woman is waiting in the bare X-ray room. She coughs behind her mask and Iris feels Sigrid’s grip tighten. The man disappears quickly into a neighbouring room having clearly kept the furthest possible distance from the coughing woman, who in turn is looking with tired eyes at Iris. Then she catches sight of Sigrid and tries to perk herself up.

“Your daughter must wait outside when we take the X-ray. Do you want to be in the corridor, or in that room?” she asks with just as bright a voice as she can muster, but her tone is forced and it only makes Sigrid more suspicious.

“Wait in the corridor. I’m sure the door can be kept ajar, that way you can see me the whole time,” Iris says, careful not to phrase it as a question in case the nurse objects.

Reluctantly, Sigrid goes out, stands by the door and places her foot in the opening when it looks as if it might swing shut. Iris spots a little yellow shoe and the tip of a nose in the gap. Love and fear jab in her chest.

The nurse places her in the correct position, lifts Iris’ arm to the desired height and tells her to keep still. A searing pain shoots through her and for a moment she thinks about punching the nurse in the jaw, but then she remembers the little nose in the doorway and clenches her teeth instead.

Three pictures later they return downstairs, this time without an escort.

“A doctor will collect you down there!” the male nurse calls from inside the control room. Once back in the waiting room, Iris begins to doubt the doctor will ever come.

The number of people in the waiting room has doubled in the twenty minutes they were away. They find a little spot on the floor beside a wall. Sigrid has to sit in Iris’s lap. The noise is deafening, people coughing, sniffing, panting and whimpering, and somehow it reminds Iris of that hidden camera footage from poultry battery farms. Every now and again someone breaks through the din and screams something about why isn’t anything happening, what the hell is going on and that this constant defunding of the Swedish healthcare system is a fucking disgrace.

Sigrid stiffens with every outburst. “Mummy, I want to go home,” she says several times. “Can’t we go and see if daddy is back?”

“He’ll be there when we get home, I promise,” Iris wants to say. In fact, she’s beginning to think it’s true, but it’s not a thought that eases her mind. The opposite in fact.

“Soon,” she says instead and gives her daughter a tired smile. “We’ll be called soon.”

A man in his fifties stands up and starts rooting around in his pocket. He takes a step forward, so as not to lose his balance. A younger man sees this as an invitation to take his seat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The younger man looks up with a fevered grimace. “What’s your problem, you got up?” he snaps and turns away.

The older man’s punch is surprisingly well-placed and forceful, given his condition. It lands with a crack on the young man’s nose and blood starts streaming down his face.

“What the fuck?!” he manages to howl before launching himself at the older man.

The sudden movement only makes the blood spurt more and it splatters over Iris’ jeans, paints a red stippled pattern on Sigrid’s shoes and showers the girl next to them in the face.

The girl’s reaction is instant, she is on her feet and directing the force of her rage at the young man’s groin with her knee. “Ooof!” he cries, grabs his crotch and bends over double.

“Mummy,” Sigrid whimpers, “Mummy, what…” She falters as the girl kicks the young man again, this time in the head.

“You idiot!” she screams, “you fucking idiot!” Another kick, now at his face. He is on the floor, trying to shield himself from the attack.

The older man looks surprised at this violent chain reaction, thinks about stopping the woman from kicking a third time, then is suddenly swept up by her fury.

“You little shit!” he screams. “It’s idiots like you that are destroying this country!” and aims a foot at the young man’s crotch.

“Stop, what are you…” Iris starts, but stops herself when she realises no one else is about to intervene. There are over fifty people in the waiting room, and most of them have their eyes fixed firmly on the fracas, but no one is reacting.

In fact, Iris thinks she can see anger start to ignite in several more feverish and sweaty faces, not because they are concerned by the injustice of it all, but rather because they “WANT IN...”

Iris pulls herself slowly to her feet, takes two steps forward and cries, “Stop it! Can’t you see what you’re doing?” The woman turns to her, her eyes burning with contempt. Her top is soaked through with sweat.

“Shall I kill you too?” she asks casually, as if asking the time. “Because I will, if you come any closer.”

Stunned, Iris stares back at her.

Just then, the older man starts coughing violently, interrupting the barrage of kicks he has been aiming at the man who is protesting feebly on the ground. The coughs are coming from deep inside his belly. He reaches for the wall to steady himself, expels coughs like machine gun fire until suddenly, he stops. He stands still for a couple of seconds, then sways over his victim. He opens his mouth and out cascades a fountain of blood. Some meets the wall, but most pours down his chin and chest directly onto the face of the young man on the floor, who in his state of shock, doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening. With one long drawn-out moan, the older man collapses on top of him, across his chest, and doesn’t move again. The young man makes a few futile attempts to get free, but he looks more like a fish on land making its last, gasping stand before it’s all over. Everyone is quiet for a few seconds.

Then the waiting room erupts in panic.

Dano is sitting on a bench in a small commuter station. His little brother Bilal is sitting in his lap and crying uncontrollably, screaming incomprehensibly. His only coping mechanism against the pain in his stomach, like most eight-month old babies, is to screech out his pain, spray it in a mixture of tears, saliva and mucus.

He doesn’t actually know if Bilal has stomach ache but that’s his guess as his brother keeps striking his little arms in spasms against his lower abdomen, as if trying to hit away the pain, hold it at bay with the only meagre means he has at his disposal. Dano watches his brother’s frenetic, cramp-like movements and tries to fix them with his eyes, as if he could make them false by seeing them clearly, halt the blurry little fingers tapping tapping tapping against his tense stomach…

No. He can’t. Dano wants to let go, let Bilal fall to the concrete beneath and throw his arms around himself instead, screw up his eyes and press his hands against his ears so that he can shut out everything that is happening around him. Instead, he does the opposite. Pulls Bilal tight to his chest, tries to share the pain.

Their mother is lying on the ground beside them. Her breathing is raspy and the colour has drained from her face. Her head is resting on the little rucksack Dano’s father usually carries on his stomach. He placed it there before taking Line in his arms and going to look for help, for someone who could do what the people on the other end of the emergency number couldn’t. They rang 112 from their mobile but no one answered, no voice came to say “Hello?” not in Swedish, English or Arabic.

“Stay here,” his father said. “Stay here and look after your mother and little brother. We’ll be back soon with help.”

Dano has no idea how much time has passed since. However long it is, it’s been too long.

“Mama?” he asks. “Mama , can you hear me?”

She doesn’t answer at first, but he sees that she heard him, her face twitches and she turns slowly, arduously towards him, tries to open her eyes, but after a few failed attempts, gives up.