Avoid Touching MEN

Despite more speed, more kilometres remain and swiftly a sixtysomething Nelly disappears in twinkles. His mind stitches to a something. A haven with ventilation and solution. An isolation camp. A sport centre requisitioned for test and treatment. He’s directed to go there. This instruction is known to the companions trapped in the madrush with him. Oversped and burst down in a deep pothole. The grandson, inexperienced for a tyre-fix in pen, eye glasses, and a phone in his hand, hurriedly slids out of the roll-coaster.

’’Take eighteen-wheeler and change the tyre’’.

‘’Uh.’’ Layla’s eyes dart from grandson to Nelly, back to grandson, and to Nelly again before collapsing to her seat. ‘’Um...’’

There, she sits, calm, contemplative; in the midst of traffic noise and confusion solemnly unruffles. Her relationship with Nelly, meanwhile, occupies her mind more and more. ‘We were never really engaged’, Layla scraps bits and pieces of her sexual memories in marriage. ‘There were no romances, hardly a sex, but squabbles, fights, every night, every weekend’. These are propelled all the more by outbreak of notorious virus erupting around them, throwing up new messages and new messengers on social media.

In the beginning of resistance advocacy, an instructive, yet misleading icon exhumes from a video uploaded by Jack Jackinson: ‘’Touch Not’’, a short clip on how to prevent the spread of the virus. The icon reads – AVOID TOUCHING MEN. Within weeks, MEN, as it becomes known, is hailed by many people, drawing in more than 20,000 viewers. It becomes their ‘’unofficial guide’’. In the most desperate act of compliance, Layla disengages with all her male acquittances including her only loving husband, believing that it would help in ‘driving the virus from the land’.

 ‘’Fast, fast,’’ Nelly jeers the grandson up, as he presses towards the tyre’s chamber.

 ‘’Let him off the task. Too young for that, he’s still a kid’’; Layla said turning her ribbons- pink, purple and blue- into her brownish bag.

.

‘’SCR-E-E-E-CH...’’ Nelly crumples to the ground with his foot hurling one round stone into a creek across the road. Sharp pain travels through his body and his eyes yellow like lemons. Nelly can’t walk well enough, even if his driving were smooth. It’s getting tougher for a sick sixtysomething adult like him. A dusty small hand massages round his legs and a young voice whispers,

‘’Take it easy Papa’’.

‘’Ah, sweetheart, take it easy’’. A distant voice -soft and quiet- comes from his back.

Nelly is none too pleased with her empathy. Upon viewing the popular MEN video himself, he had hoped above all else to view it together with her. But Layla’s impatience for action, unofficial guide, hasty approach and creation of touch-not gulf between them all blighted his erotic feeling. Since the video, no sex, no kiss, no hug or even a handshake.

As Nelly continues groaning in pain, a short and stocky woman wearing a lumber jacket and sturdy boot appears in a Mercedes Benz, to be greeted by Layla who had been on their roll coaster vehicle, with the viral story of MEN.

Debby – the short woman -  ignores her, annoys to see her afar off instead of proper care to her husband. She hates it when women show no concern to their men.

‘’You want him dead, woman?’’

‘’Not really.’’

Layla stares blankly at her. She could understand her quite alright. She herself knows that women are truly meant to be active aprons, cleaving side-by-side and most often flesh-to-flesh with their partners. But she couldn’t just help being held in monstrous awe, insisting Nelly left home for isolation centre. At least, it’s a beautiful and terrible place- virulent men found ready attention with dozens of equally virulent ladies. And in case of any sexual urge, he may bed a lady of his own choosing.

Moving closer to Nelly, Debby gently rubs his ankle.

‘’Ouch! Don’t kill me.’’

‘’I’m sorry... Is it paining you that much?

‘’Little by little pl-e-e-e-s-e; it’s curiously painful.’’

More splashing noises. Grunts of pain and relief. Apologies and curses. His teeth clicked and his face rough

Layla gasps, stepping back against a side road pole, away from the scene. She watches with dismay as Debby intentionally touches Nelly – a MAN. She recalls the warning of how any close interaction with MEN could incur the wrath of virulent spirit, which is to be avoided at all costs. She feels like screaming, you know.  Absent-mindedly, her eyebrows rise above her hairline, her nose scrunches, moulding her face into a helpless expression.

‘’Haven’t you watch the video clip?’’ She bursts out.

‘’Yes’’, she says. ‘’But it has nothing to do with this’’

She impulsively reaches out to her phone and logs into her facebook account. There are notifications, a few videos but the MEN clip is not as hidden as she had thought it would be. She takes a deep breath. ‘’Here it goes’’

It was as much the need for her to play the video brought Layla to watch the clip once again, and underlying message throws itself clear to her. All about MEN, as it now dawns on her, essentially is a simple representation. It involves abbreviation for Mouth, Eyes and Nose. Layla looks at the icon again and again, especially those words in tiny font beneath the abbreviation, sighing comically. ‘’Only Touch Them After Sanitizing Your Hands’’.

‘’I dunno, that’s what it actually means. Just for attention, that sort of thing’’. Layla subtly admits her impatience, wetting her lips with a mix of neutral and pink pigments. It makes her more attractive. Nelly’s eyes skims hungrily over her. For once, he’s glad to see her wearing a seductive mask. Blood rushes between his legs and he begins to imagine how he would move his mouth over her lips, parting them; how he would move his mouth along the smooth column of her neck to the grim swell of her breasts; how he would part her thighs and thrust his loaded weapon inside her. She shoves past into the car and expects him inside.

 Does she want to start touching MEN? Let’s wait and see.

Jack Jackinson deserves a knock on his head for his video clip that ravages more than the virus itself.