Disease

Madrid had been a ghost town for 12 straight weeks. Today was the 21st of the month of snow, yet no one seemed to bother. The pebble-walled houses had no wreaths of any design. Not a single admirer whistled at the sight of the ladies' fur trim winter coats, their oxford boots, or large purple French-fusion hats. The men, who usually walked with pride and canes, did not light a cigar. They paced faster than usual and covered their smoke-tinted mouths with a white mask.

The flu had been killing everything these times. The garbage collection, the postal service, the tourist spots. Worse, the just-fallen naval empire of Spain had to take each ounce of responsibility. Their prized doctor—their last bastion of hope is not even around. He had been in a luxurious Parisian cruise for a while and he failed to return.

"They'll think I'm dead, Abelard." The scientist complained; his strained eyes focused on the lens of the compound microscope. He tweaked the specimen's slide forty-five degrees left and saw a picture of higher clarity and optimum quality.

"I don't see what zis ze problem? You're safe here in ze ship! Ay, Acicalado, do not poison your thoughts with ze love for your hometown. Stay, my good friend." Abelard was a tall Frenchman, who fashioned a blue-green jacket and a Westernized tie. His look was very straightforward, and so were his accented words.

Clearly, the doctor wasn't interested in waiting around for a miracle. His diminutive self worked and worked with antiquated materials. "I need to help my country, amigo. Have a little esperanza sometimes! We shall be saved."

"What's ze point of returning? Madrid had been an infested cavern of corruption and death. Haven't you heard? Your beloved ruler contracted zis abominable disease." Abelard placed a teacup in the birch table where Acicalado tinkered with his experiment. Silver shears whose translucency filled the room with dim twinkling light settled next to a mortar and pestle brimming with brown powder. On the other side, a test tube placed above a Bunsen burner igniting with a bluish-red flame. A short while later, bubbles exited the tube's mouth and filled the room with their childish puffy figures.

"Alfonso the Thirteenth?" The scientist stretched his arms and hearing no sudden response, sung a Latin prayer in languish. He repeated, "Alfonso?" The businessman nodded with sympathy.

"Well, Spain will fall." Acicalado tore apart his filthy liquid-stained notes. He smashed the 400 ml beaker and threw his fountain pen across the wall. "It is hopeless."

"What is hopeless, brother?" Abelard took off his hat and tapped his friend's shaking shoulder. The doctor's lab coat had been dusted since he entered this secluded chamber in the sea vessel, and he has not stepped out into the ballroom for a week, give or take two days.

"The cure. This H1N1, as the American idiots call it, is as complicated as the jigsaw puzzle my grandmother made me solve when I was twelve. An enigma that when solved, could have been the groundbreaking answer for every dilemma. Alas, it could not be! Unsolvable damnation!" He prepared to wreck the observation instrument as well, which had been imported from the glacial Moscow. Abelard restrained him with his fierce hands.

"You will save your country, alright? Alright. Amigo, listen, did you solve the jigsaw?" He barely held the doctor's body which tried to frolick around and smash the devices and dossiers which contained a plenty of classified information. Acicalado furiously broke out of his friend's muscular arms. Perhaps he was a literal Mad Scientist.

But the latter pacified him enough to make him sit on an almost-broken stool. "Yes. When I was fourteen." He showed a blank expression. No fear, no regret, no patriotism, no hope.

"Great! Zis is what you need to finish the cure!" Abelard applauded loudly as a drum and bugle performance on USA's Day of Independence. "A jigsaw puzzle?"

"Tut, tut. Time!" He grinned and his polished teeth glimmered. He then plucked a yellow envelope from the Results shelf and a handful of baby-sized plastic gloves, then gave them all to the weeping adult.

"What I need is hot chocolate. Twelve glasses of it." Acicalado wanted him gone. No, he wanted to be alone. "Ah, it's Nativity anyways. Let me get you some to warm off."

And so he was alone.

Abelard returned carrying a couple of cups. A taller man was following him. The man sported Mackinaw jackets and three expensive rings on one hand alone: ruby, sapphire, pearl. Like the colors an unwavering flag raised during an unwavering anthem.

"Sorry. They ran out of zis cups. But I guess siete is enough, right friend?" Acicalado thanked him kindly, but his eyes were fixated on the other guy who wore a white mustache that extended to his upper dark lip.

"Who're you? German minister? Some Russian billionaire? Or the captain of this ship?" The man lent a stiff hand and he shook it quickly. "Let me repeat that. Who. Are. You?"

"General Stone. US Navy." He presented an identification card with the eagle insignia etched into its surface. "I've come with good and bad news." He cleared his throat.

"The bad news is... there have been two confirmed cases of the H1N1 on this ship." The two gasped, stricken by panic. Stone sighed and shed a tear. His crying seemed to have been forced, like the ones used in infiltration. "The good thing, however, is that we have countermeasures. Protocol 17 of the American Marine Base—European Region orders us the following. This ship will not land and will sail continuously until we deem appropriate."

Acicalado held Stone's irregular collar. "Who deemed you appropriate?" He shook Stone back and forth, but he could not shatter his inner confidence. "Huh? Who, damn it?!" The soldier pushed him back slowly, yet he almost kissed the wooden floor.

"I have orders, Doctor. My higher-ups have signed a treaty with the ill Spanish king. I can give you a copy of the document, should you request one, in three days' time. 'Til then, I suggest you follow the authority." He paced towards the chamber's unlatched door.

"But my other equipment's in Madrid! You have to let me go!" The soldier diverted his exasperated face to him again. "I cannot. There is an Allies naval base in your country's capital and about a hundred fifty thousand units housed in it. We cannot risk more infection."

"So you're doing this to win some stupid war! Hasn't America won enough battles already? Don't you think the world's had enough bloodshed? Tell me why. Why stop deaths to make more?!" Acicalado screamed as deafening as a thunderstorm conquering the skies. The soldier dashed away; his mouth speechless and his eyes a bit aghast.

Abelard rubbed his red eyes. "We're going to die. Zis man does not want to suffer ze gruesome death!" He knelt and raised his arms towards the heavens. Then he begged, and begged, and begged. For salvation. For at least a minute more of his beloved life.

"It's France's fault." The scientist's knuckles turned violet after punching the table with wrath. "Excuse my asking! How is zis my country's mistake? This is the Spanish flu, remember? Spain should have been blamed!" Acicalado gazed towards his friend. His glasses reflected the serene moonlight's beams that pierced towards a broken wall. "In our place, we call it the French flu!"

"Does it matter, friend," Abelard responded, "the first case was reported to be in Camp Funston!" The doctor appeared quivering. His doubt resonated with his surprise. "Kansas?" His amigo nodded. "Then America should be blamed!" Acicalado helped him stand up like a tribune on a podium. Abelard hesitantly argued. "No one should be."

"How?" The scientist asked him, discombobulated. "How, brother? How?"

"Because no matter where zis started, or who propagated its existence, the only thing that matters is stopping zis disease." The two sat down and gulped some refreshing hot chocolate. "And you believe we need to work together to end this influenza for good?"

"Oui. Spanish, French, America. Allies, Central Powers. Ze rest of the planet. All of us. Zis is our fight together." Acicalado nodded in agreement. Then he giggled loudly. "I guess this is the World Flu then." Abelard laughed too. "Ha! I guess it is."

After taking a half bath, Acicalado geared up for another intense experimental work. Mask attached, gloves worn, and lab coat tidied. He returned to the microscope and adjusted its focus several times. Drops of aspirin, a couple of Chinese herb extracts, and a miniscule of previously destructive bacteria. Then he saw it: a purple dot devouring the virus' structure.

"Any luck? You might want holding on an Irish four-leaf clover. Kidding, good work, amigo." Abelard inquired optimistically. Acicalado scratched his scalp, perplexed. "Never seen this—how to call it? An amalgamation?—before."

An uninvited guest entered the room. A golden medallion of valor embraced his neck and a cardigan sweater enclosed his blood-stained untinted sleeveless shirt. "Stone! What are you doing here?" The soldier placed in front of him several beakers, slides with rare specimen, and tripods. "Got this for you, Doctor. Gift from your hometown."

Acicalado chuckled. "Sorry about calling your race idiot." Stone shook hands with him, in gratitude and camaraderie. Afterwards, they started exchanging news of the outside world. A race for a vaccine—much better, a cure—was set into motion. Acicalado had no interest in participating a contest. All he wanted was to heal a land—to heal as one.

Stone proudly congratulated his decision. "Acquaintances?" The doctor replied joyfully, "Partners. Partners, amigo."

He then stepped forward to his masterpiece. "Did you manage to make ze vaccine by chance?" Abelard posed like the Thinker's statue.

"No. But with this I could finally map its structure and a vaccine might be developed. But of course, it'll need time. It won't develop in a jiffy. Time. Thirty years, I estimate." They all bursted into laughter. The doctor noted his findings on a leather journal.

"Let's save the world, people." Acicalado was to live for another decade or two, and he was certain no plague could ever devour humanity's unity.