Untouchable

Aida Armstrong’s problems were only beginning when her knock-off 70s vintage wallpaper gave way to a shimmering doorway. 

Frozen - coffee-cup halfway to her lips; swirling tendrils of bitter, sweet meeting her nostrils - she sighed.

“Fucking just what I wanted today!” she muttered. 

All three perfectly aligned pens jumped in fright as she slammed down her mug. Warm, milky liquid slipped over the rim and gathered in a watery circle on the fake-wood desk. A matching circlet mere inches away. 

“And let me guess,” she asked, sarcastically, “you want me to step through you?”

“Well, I’m not going to wait around all day, girl. Move yo’ arse.” The doorway replied in a gravelly voice, like an irritated woman. 

Not a doorway - really. A mouth.

Aida’s eyes widened. 

It was 2020, but not even Back to the Future-level technology could’ve produced a talking, animated doorway like this. 

She couldn’t deny that she longed to step outside onto desolate streets. Reckless naivety whispering she was untouchable; whatever churned in the belly of her country it couldn’t touch her.

Besides, she had 23 packets of toilet paper, and spaghetti and canned tuna to feed her whole suburb twice.

Slowly, Aida rose to her feet. Brushing her thumb against the Gold locket about her throat, carved with a  swan in flight; Goddess Saraswati.

Edging one step at a time, she held out her hand - eyes squeezed shut - feeling her way.

Her fingertips brushed against a light film; like fairy floss or winter’s first snow.

“Jeez, girl!” The doorway sighed dramatically. “There is no time to hesitate. Are you in or out?”

I want to go out. 

Every scent called to her; every sound enchanting. 

“That’ll do.”

“H-”

A thick air surrounded her, static, before enveloping her in a tumultuous vacuum; each limb flung out in a different direction. Her eyes snapped open to swimming greys. When it ceased - rushing away like a wave from shore - she blinked twice. 

A towering building that looked suspiciously like the Parthenon, but whole and shiny, stood in front of her. Sunlight dancing through its marble pillars, causing her to raise her hand to shade her eyes.

She was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

The sun ducked behind a cloud bank and her eyes adjusted to her surroundings.

Holy shit! What happened to my tracksuit! Her arm was startling bare. Her skin as milky as her spilt coffee, long gone behind her. Faint bronze vines laced in intricate swirling patterns about her hand and wrist.

The space-time continuum doorway, woman, thing, obviously did not stick around to see how she would manage in this foreign land.

Aida straightened, dropping her hand. 

Too bad she’d lived in a foreign land for over half her life. 

She’d gone out in short dresses before, letting her dark curls tumble down her back - free of its usual braid. A cigarette between her fingers, the stem of a wine glass in the other. Apparently boys liked ‘an exotic girl’, but only if she acted like a white girl.

Glancing down at herself, she prepared for the worse; chuckling nervously when she found her curvy body covered in a coarse white sheet. The door had come with a costume change - brilliant. 

Her hands flitted up until they wrapped around her locket. 

She blew out a breath - gaze jumping between her sheet and the shiny Parthenon; trying to understand what the hell was going on.

A restless breeze kicked up a rough cloud of dirt, red earth whipping at her sandaled feet and face; her eyes slit, watering to expel any unwanted debris; battering her until she held up her arm as a shield and dropped her gaze to the ground - moving down to her thick, hairy legs.

“Okay! This is really uncool!” she yelled at no one. The wind ceased and she lowered her voice, “You could’ve shaved my legs!”

An older man with a thin slip of white hair wrapped around his burnt scalp - started. Staring as he limped towards the Parthenon stairs.

Thank Vishnu, she wasn’t a ghost!

After a moment she followed, head tilted slightly. A few other sheet-clad bodies glided up beside her. 

“What’s going on?” Aida asked a lithe woman with thick dark curls. 

The woman gawked, gathering up her sheet and dashing away without a word - leaving Aida blinking at the empty space. 

A little cicada nipped at her churning stomach. 

Back home she’d done research on places like this; many articles about an issue she didn’t want to think about. Not here. Not now.

“This was supposed to be my day off,” she grumbled to herself, hesitating a moment longer on the steps.

She glanced over her shoulder as a group of raucous men walked towards her, shovel-like tools propped over their shoulders. 

She clenched her fists and started naming the Gods to calm her mind. Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna…

Sweat beaded across her brow, in her cleavage and under her arms as the sun beat down. Her own body odour overcoming every other scent. Every effort, as she climbed, reminded her that she wasn’t in a dream.

As she heaved herself up to the landing, across from her, a wooden door boomed open - startling the lithe woman and old man. They scattered out of the way of a young man who stumbled about like some carved God before his martyrdom. Dark hair stuck to his forehead in dirty tendrils, a creamy pallor set alight by fiery cheeks and swollen eyes.

A subsequent boom sounded again, closing off the hall beyond. Her eye was not trained on the stone archway, but the boney looking man. His long limbs slack by his side, his posture hunched and his skin pulsing with dark veins.

He mumbled incoherently as he approached. 

“Hello?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

“Se parakaló sóse me. Se parakaló sóse me.” He responded in a rough, choked voice.

If she didn’t know better she’d have thought, is this man insane? 

But she knew exactly what stood in front of her when he licked his chapped lips and his blood coated tongue swished a fine paintbrush-stroke of crimson across his mouth. A fetid scent emanating from him.

His limbs lumbered like a rabid beast; no rhythm to his gait. 

At the last moment, she stepped aside for him - clamping her mouth shut and holding her breath.

The man swayed for a moment on the top step, teetering like the porcelain statue of Lord Krishna her mother had kept on their shrine back home before falling. He dove headfirst down the stairs; over and over and over. Until he settled in a pile of dust and blood on the thirsty ground.

She gasped, covering her mouth to muffle the sound. 

Aida Armstrong never get surprised. She chided herself.

Before she could drop her hands, the men with shovels hurried over and surrounded the body. Gathering him up as one might a Persian rug they wanted to sell at a flea market; hauling it up over their shoulders and back towards the embankment.

“Wait, no!” She cried after them, taking the first two steps back down. “Please! The blood! It’ll infect you.”

No eye of men fell on her. Just as no eye of the Gods fell on them. 

Straightening, she set her jaw and dashed back up the stairs. Hands stinging as she grabbed onto the brass handle of the door and flung it. “Ex-”

Her words died on her tongue.

Bile rose in her throat.

Lining every inch of the long hall were bodies. 

All wasted away; no more than breathing corpses. 

Women with fine pottery tended to each man, woman and child. White linen cloths dabbed upon sweaty brows, soft lips kissing inflamed cheeks, and fingers, caked with dried blood and muddy oils, caressed snowy hair.

Panic seized her. 

Death lingered here, she could smell his putrid presence. Hear his merciless scythe scrape upon stone. He would not only reap the breathing corpses; he would take the women too.

Aida inhaled. 

“Stop!” she shouted with all her might. “Stop it!”

Her voice echoed down the pillars of white marbles. 

Heads turned to her, brows furrowing deep. 

“Τι?” one woman stepped forward, confused. A bloodied cloth wrung in her hand.

Aida didn’t speak Greek. She didn’t know anything about the language and they wouldn’t know hers. 

She remembered on a Google search page Athens 430 BC.

If not already, this illness would wipe out hundreds of thousands of people.

She glanced down at herself and immediately tore a shred of material off her Chiton. Carefully approaching a middle-aged woman, Aida dipped her slither of material into the fresh jug of water. Then with exaggerated actions, scrubbed the front and back of her hands.

Women gathered to watch. 

Once done she tore off another piece and handed it to a shirtless, young woman with only a thin sheet around her waist - motioning for the woman to follow her movements. She obliged.

Another woman stepped forward - this one only wearing sandals, dirt covering her body.

Aida bent and tore another strip off; smiling as she handed it over.

None of them too wearily of her once she started guiding their uncertain hands. Aida made sure never to insult their rituals or use her modern thinking mind to change their medicine. She just ensured death would not take them all. 

She tore and tore and tore - until she stood naked, in nothing but her locket, a simple thread around her wrist and henna. All the women cleansing their hands with a piece of her Chiton between patients

It wasn’t until long fingers of orange sunlight danced through the hall, did the sensation grab hold of her like a bird’s talons around its prey. She covered her head as the world warped and writhed. 

The beast settled in a place that smelt like burning metal. Loud ship horns trumpeting in the busy night.

People bustled past her - here and there. Shrill voices crying out orders, trying to be heard over the others. Walls surrounded her and a triangular roof shut out the starless night.

“Quick. Bring us some wo’a, wouldya?” A woman in a dark headdress and cross at her chest snapped her fingers at Aida.

Aida blinked and nodded. Only noticing the tightness at her waist when she tried to expand her lung in a calming manner. Smoky figures still falling into place about her as she turned and rushed blindly through the room as it painted itself around her.

In her university days, which weren’t all that long ago, she had self-taught mindfulness activities to keep her anxiety at bay during exam periods.

Slithering like an oily snake through her insides, she found a knot forming in her abdomen; vicious fangs sinking into its own tail as it circled tighter and tighter. Her breath came to her more rigidly with every clicking step she took.

She counted out three things she could see. 

Stained glass windows. An altar. Bodies - everywhere.

Her heartbeat quickened. 

Two things she could smell. 

Urine and rosemary.

One thing she could taste. 

Death.

Stopping to collect two buckets from the ground; one in each hand, she spun on her heel and nearly dropped them both. 

A long nose crow stared back at her. 

Her breath caught. This wasn’t right… 

Surely her neckline dipped too low and silky material clung too close to her well-endowed curves for there to be quacks. Surely it was 1918?

But perhaps that’s what these people needed... 

“Sorry.” She lowered her head as she skirted around the ominous figure and towards the nun. Her curious eyes wandered back only once; the quack hadn’t moved - he didn’t belong here either. 

Navigating through the maze of beds, she held her breath. Eyes darting around the heated bodies pressed to damp sheets; warming the air. Putrid scents wafted here and there as bodies spasmed with sneezes and splutters. 

She stiffened her shoulders and tried not to grimace - wishing for a surgical mask as she readjusted her grip on the water pails. Huffing as the metal immediately dug into her hands and she readjusted her grip again - the sound of her breaths smothered by sharp moans and gurgling groans. 

If death was not here now; he’d be there any minute. 

Stepping over a protruding limb, she dropped the buckets at the nun’s feet- who frowned down her long nose at them, she snapped her fingers. “More!” 

Obliging, Aida ran water pails until white, hot sores appeared on her hands and her muscles shook violently. 

Dawn began to break and Aida paused the doors to look over the iconic skyline of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Bridge, the Tower and Big Ben. Silence prevailed; as much as silence can in a restless city. Soft bird chirps heralding the arrival of the sun. They hadn’t lost anyone in the night. 

Sighing, her body sagged as her eyes drifted shut in the silence and sunlight. 

She felt the tug immediately. 

It came on quickly this time - disorienting her as her tired mind struggled to comprehend where she was. 

She appeared to be standing in a tent, but there were no swags or the scent of a campfire; instead, there were dark bodies separated by curtains and connected to beeping machinery. 

Glancing down at herself, her lungs expanded greedily. She wore her blue scrubs under a strange suit that made her feel like a Martian.

The hustle and bustle of London seemed far behind her. Here, it felt like she stood behind a pane of glass, isolated from city noises and early-morning traffic.

A 24-hour military clock sat on a plastic table, next to hand sanitizer, surgical masks and tissues. It read 0713 with April 23, 2009, printed in white letters below. 

“We need more beds.” A male voice came from behind one of the curtains, drawing her attention. His accent was like hers. “We cannot sustain this.”

Aida’s fingers slipped beneath her head mask and found Saraswati.

“This is all we have.” A woman hissed back. 

“We’re going to have to start choosing who lives and who dies.” Strain pulled his tone flat.

“It’s what we have to do. We can only help them so much. Without the materials to reduce the rate of infection and their inability to isolate themselves… This is going to take millions of lives.” The woman said gravely then paused. “We can only do so much for them, Henry.”

An alarm went off to Aida’s right and she rounded the curtain without a second thought. 

The man with dark, sunken eyes was struggling to breathe; body seizing at the lack of air circulation. Her training guided her - using what was there to the best of her abilities - sweat beading under her mask. 

She’d only had to deal with a few patients like this.

Her supervisor had said, the first time, “When in residency, this all seems like someone else’s problem. The doctors, the better-trained nurses, the fucking hospital cook. But death and those dying are everyone’s problem. From the man on the street who called 911 when this young lady was run down to the paramedics and all the way up to the nurse who diagnosed the collapsed lung vis-a-vis the X-ray. Death is everyone’s problem. And it’s everyone’s responsibility to help stop it. Do you understand me?” All five residents nodded. “This patient died because of all of us in this room, we couldn’t help save her, but we will work harder every single day to prevent something like this happening again.”

Something about that speech struck her, and even with a heavy heart, she nodded fiercely. Not quite understanding what he meant but thinking herself smart enough to do the right thing.

Death was here, now, while she evaluated each situation and prayed to Lord Hanuman and Goddess Saraswati that she didn’t screw up. She ignored the ominous scrape of his scythe, a ticking clock until he reaped this man’s soul. She’d make death her problem. 

“What are her vitals?” The woman, whose voice she’d heard before, asked. Her thick-rimmed glasses all that was visible through the sheen of plastic in front of her face, as she rounded the curtain - not at all surprised to see Aida there. 

“Dropping.” She informed the other woman. 

“Okay. Let me take over.” 

They both worked on the man. Administering a light sedative through an IV while the other woman carved a hole in his throat to provide a new airway to the lungs.

When they were done they stepped back admiring their work, a machine pumped air into the man’s chest. They watched it rise and fall for a few taunt minutes.

After they were sure he was stable, the doctor patted Aida on the shoulder. “Good work, kid.”

Aida sensed death shift.

Everything turned black. The world spun in dizzying shades of grey, a whining ring ricocheting in against her skill until a bright doorway appeared. 

“You’ve done well.” The door said as she was flung out; tumbling into her living room in a heap. Her eyes darted to her fingers expecting them to be covered in blood, then down to her Adidas tracksuit where she expected to be naked, then back to her hands where ghosts of blisters stung.

A new email was open on her desktop, catching her eye.

February 2 2020

Dear Miss Armstrong,

We regret to inform you that Alice Sutherland’s test has returned positive for COVID-19. Please stay in isolation for two weeks and contact your GP if any symptoms persist. 

Regards,

Dr Chris Wu, 

Chief Medical Officer at the Infectious Disease Center 

Alice Sutherland testing positive for COVID-19, was the least of Aida Armstrong’s problems today. 

Moving to the couch, Aida let sleep drag her under. When she dreamed, death stood over the globe with his cloak pulled low to hide his cowardice face and his long scythe in slender hands. Beneath the world, her and her colleagues strained under deaths crushing weight. 

They would never give up.