Streams - a short story

Streams

Ninety percent of all household dust consists of dead human skin cells. The perfect transportation device for a virus.

Suriv Anoroc stood on a flake of dust. Airborne. His view was dim and blurred. One day he floated into a stream of sunlight. When the edge of shadow met the light, he saw millions of others like him as they floated on their respective dust flakes. He was alone. The faces of the others were painted with fear. He imagined his face portrayed hope, but the light caused the same emotion as the others. He and his kind were afraid of the light. Afraid of the reflection mirrored in their faces. But, as quickly as he entered the stream, he left it. Safe from the light. From truth. But truth as he knew it was provided by the darkness. He who was. Destined by the current, he wondered if he would see the others like him again, despite the terrifying light, to know them beyond instinct. Soon shadow turned to utter darkness. 

For the first time he could remember, he landed. The surface seemed unstable and barren. The black void eliminated his ability to see, but he felt at home in the dark. What was this place? A tremor of instinct permeated his body. But it was more than a need to survive which engulfed his being. He stood on the edge of his dust flake and maneuvered down to the surface. The further he wandered, the more he wondered about his purpose.

"COVID-19 Virus" by Trinity Care Foundation 
is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Suddenly, he felt a tremor and he quickly scurried back to his dust flake which took flight on a new current. He started to feel weak, and slowly drifted off to sleep. Dormant. And he dreamed. Dreamed of a battle. A battle in which he fought and killed. He woke up and screamed. I am not a killer. He trembled at the thought as he floated in the shadows.

Suriv could not remember the last time he ate. In fact, he could not remember his first meal. He wondered if he was born to starve. He hungered for the truth. His survival instincts became primal. Without warning, a large mass approached his position. It wasn’t long before he and his flake of dust were transported down a long tunnel. In some strange manner he passed through a nearby wall and was quickly swept away by a red stream. Immediately, he was certain of his purpose – search and destroy, and then feast. But he was reminded of his dream. The conflict boiled within him. He felt the stream begin to heat up. Without warning, he found himself surrounded by white objects much larger than he. They began to attack him. He defended himself but he was in foreign territory. As the battle ensued, his strength faltered. In a desperate move, he saw a tributary downstream and he steered himself to the right of the fork, away from danger.

He fought the urge to kill, but he felt the life drain from his senses. He looked upstream and saw others like him killing and feeding. The white army were in pursuit. He remembered the stream of light. But the red stream provided him with the necessary prey to survive. Instinct. Fear. Death. Make death or avoid it. He struggled with the morality of it all. They were at war. Again, he was faced with an approaching force as the white army closed in upon his position.

Self-preservation, or somehow cooperation. He attempted to rally the others like him – including their attackers – in order to persuade them to seek an alternative to this violence. He shouted out his resolution. Nonetheless, his comrades continued to fight. He defended himself, but to no avail. The battle lasted all night, and the white army was victorious. Just before he died, Suriv wondered if it was the white army who were the defenders, protecting their stream from his army of darkness.

His remains soon exited the red stream. Shortly thereafter he floated on a small yellow pond which soon began to swirl in a clockwise direction. And Suriv was swept away by yet another stream.


(Written March 2019)
#coronavirus