The air duct was almost too small for Erica, the walls rubbing against her shoulders, and the ceiling brushing her back as she squirmed down the dusty shaft. Fortunately, she was small for a nine-year-old. Climbing into the air duct when the doctor left the room had been a desperate move, but something was wrong here — she’d sensed it the moment she’d walked into the clinic; the moment she’d seen the scores of children waiting for vaccination.
Erica paused as she came upon another vent cover, peeking through the grating as a grey-haired nurse stuck a needle into a young girl’s arm.
“There you go, dear, all done,” the nurse said. Walking over to a stainless-steel medical cabinet, she placed her thumb against the blue gen-lock. The cabinet opened with a metallic “snick,” revealing a neat row of fluorescent purple bracelets. “Just show this to the guards at the desk,” the nurse said, taking one of the glowing trinkets and fastening it to the girl’s wrist. “They’ll let you back into the lobby to join your parents.”
As the girl left, a fortyish doctor with a glittering ocular implant stepped into the room.
“Dr. Smith,” the nurse said, greeting the man with a warm smile, “how can I help you?”
“Hello, Pricilla,” the doctor said. “By any chance, did you inject the girl in room four and release her?”
Pricilla frowned. “Why, no,” she answered. “I was assigned one and two. I thought four and five were your rooms.”
Combing his fingers through his receding hairline, Dr. Smith sighed. “They are,” he confirmed sourly. “But I seem to have misplaced a patient. I’m certain I locked her inside when I went to get her dose. When I got back, she was gone.”
“One of the nurses must have treated her,” Pricilla hypothesized. “You’ve been so busy since the presidential order; one of them must have decided to lighten your load.”
“You’re probably right,” Dr. Smith admitted. “But how am I supposed to verify her treatment if I didn’t administer the dose?”
Pricilla sniffed. “You worry too much,” she chastised gently. “She would need a release bracelet to get into the lobby, and she wouldn’t have gotten one if she hadn’t been dosed. Stop being such a worrywart and sign the papers. No one’s going to report you.”
Dr. Smith grinned. “You nurses are impossible,” he chuckled. “You have the hearts of angels, but flout procedure like devils.”
“Our future is at stake,” Pricilla said simply. “It’s the mission that counts — not the paperwork.”
“Of course, this epidemic must be stopped,” agreed Dr. Smith. “Come on. Shift change is in five minutes; I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Flirt,” Pricilla accused impishly. “I bet you buy dinner for all the help.
“Why, nurse, how could you say — ”
The door slid closed, cutting off the banter. Erica didn’t mind. She was more interested in the cabinet Pricilla had so conveniently left open than in anything Dr. Smith might say.
Squirming around, Erica placed her feet against the vent and pushed. The grating popped out, bouncing off the floor with a tinny “clang”. Easing herself out of the shaft, she dropped into the room and hurriedly brushed the dust from her clothes. Moving to the cabinet, she paused for a second to study the neat lettering inscribed above the row of bracelets.
Voices sounded in the hall, jolting Erica into motion. Snatching a bracelet, she chewed her lip, anxiously trying to puzzle out the tiny latch as the voices grew louder.
The door slid open, and a petite nurse with electric-blue hair came into the room. “Oh,” the woman exclaimed. “No one told me I had a patient waiting.” Smiling sweetly, she lifted a shiny syringe. “Oh well, are we ready for our vaccination?”
“Nope — all finished already,” exclaimed Erica, holding up her fastened purple bracelet. “I just came back to ask the nice lady if she was giving my brother a shot, too.”
Eyeing the bracelet for a moment, the blue-haired nurse shook her head. “Only girls need the vaccine, honey,” she said. “Now, you should get going. We are very busy today.”
“Okay,” Erica said. “Bye.”
As Erica moved toward the lobby, she wondered if she should ask her parents about the long words inscribed in the cabinet. She decided against it. After all, there was a dictionary program on her home computer; “Population Control Sterilization Initiative” was probably listed.
Timothy Miller writes in Wisconsin.
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22 Responses to “VACCINE • by Timothy Miller”
Comments
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December 1st, 2009 at 1:28 am
I don’t think “flaunt” means what you think it means.
There are far “better” (in an engineering, not ethical, sense) ways of achieving population control. As once before on an analogous subject, for obvious reasons I will not go into them.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:04 am
I like the concept of this (it somewhat reminds me of the hospital scenes in Northern Lights), although some of the prose is a little awkward – as PM said, “flaunt” is not the right word, maybe “flout” is what you were going for? I did find it a little odd that your nine year old heroine was precocious and brave enough to try to escape but had apparently never seen the words “Population Control Sterilization Initiative” – she might not know what the phrase means, but by that age surely she’d know at least population and sterilization? Describing them as “long words” just seemed a little too juvenile for age and apparent abilities.
Anyway, that aside, I enjoyed this story. I was almost expecting it to have been an actual epidemic that she was now spreading to the general population, with her just completely misreading the situation, but your ending was better, I think. 4 stars.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:39 am
Delightful. Found myself suspending reality easily in the story.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:05 am
As Cat (#2) the concept had potential but the execution was lacking. Almost all of the exchange between the nurse and the doctor was unnecessary for the purpose of this story. The reader “got it” based on what young Erica was seeing. It only undercut the story with awkward dialog and served up a worn stereotype about doctors and nurses.
Finally, in this future setting much is left to the imagination, and little is known about Erica (which could be rectified by axing the nurse/doctor scene and focusing on the protag), but “Population Control Sterilization Initiative” doesn’t seem like such a tough thing for a nine year old parse. The end fell flat, but by then there wasn’t much left of this souffle anyway.
–John
December 1st, 2009 at 7:07 am
Gotta say, Erica must really, really hate vaccinations if she’s willing to go James Bond just to avoid one! I agree with Cat, though – a kid who’s that resourceful is probably also smart enough to be able to figure out what “sterilize” means.
A little difficulty with point of view. Erica is the POV character, but would she really think Priscilla had responded “impishly” to Dr. Smith? I think there’s a little swapping of third-person and omniscient.
And, the characters don’t do a whole lot of talking to each other. They answer, confirm, chastise, chuckle, agree and exclaim. That’s a lot of not-saying in such a short piece.
All that said, I liked this piece. Another edit, and I’d like it even more!
December 1st, 2009 at 8:07 am
As others say, the story might have been enriched by knowing more about Erica (who I saw as perhaps an 11-year-old). Would it help to know she was from a high-fertility culture (Muslims in Gaza have an average of five children)?
Still, because you maintained the tension (excepting the doctor-nurse interchange), I gave it a *4*.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:41 am
I loved the choice of topic, but as others’ have said, it does have a few kinks to work out of it before it deserves a 5 star rating.If you decide to rework this, I would love to read the finished result, because I do think it has great potential.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:57 am
To Walt – while I agree that having more depth for the main character would be a good thing, to be fair, it does say that she’s nine in the first paragraph.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:44 am
Great premise. I was thinking that maybe the H1N1 twist was coming at the end – the government using it as an excuse to ‘vaccinate’ the population against reproduction.
The writing, as described above already, could be tightened up. Have some fun with it Timothy, it’s got some great potential. 4 shots.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:04 am
I didn’t care for this, I’m sorry. I jut thought that this paticular plot has been over done and that sterilization vaccine wasn’t enough of a twist at end.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:06 am
I’d agree with most with #9.
The writing could have been a little better, but it’s not bad, and I thought it flowed well. But for such a hard worn ‘twist’ and concept there’s just no fun in the approach or the writing, and nothing new either.
I enjoyed the writing for the most part, but found myself letting out despondent little sighs all the way through. Sorry.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:16 am
I like it.
The whole premise of population control is not that far fetched in my opinion.
How the kid got “UP” into the air duct ??????Hmmmm
Neat twist to medical cover-ups I thought.
I have written similar stuff…It’s fun to just let
it come as your mind rambles through an unreal reality.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Typo corrected — “flaunt” is now “flout”, and I’m very sorry not to have noticed that before. Thanks to everyone who did.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Rework this and it’ll be worth 5 syringes.
December 1st, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Really liked this. I could see that SOMETHING was coming, but it wasn’t obvious until the end.
I think it rather ironic that at the top of the page was an “Ad by Google” (at least as it was displayed to me, I don’t know if everyone gets the same ads) headlined “Get Vaccinated Today”!!!!
December 1st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Lol, seriously? Those google ads are so funny!
December 1st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I like the idea of this very much.
December 1st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I found the dialog tags distracted me. Apart from the normal “said”, used about half a dozen times, I noted the following: answered, confirmed, hypothesised, admitted, chastised, chuckled, accused and agreed.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:29 pm
I’m not usually much of a science fiction reader, but I liked this story. It works as a complete story for flash fiction, but it also feels like it could be setting up a longer work. Not sure about the ending . . . I wonder if there would be a way to convey what the writing said without being so direct? The piece is timely, too, because of the H1N1 vaccine debate. Thumbs up.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Creepy little story. Nice use of tension, good pacing except for the dialog, which is mostly “as you know, Bob,” and could have been skipped.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Wouldn’t it be great if we really could sterilize girls with one shot? I’d be totally behind that program.
However, it’s hard to imagine all the parents going along with it — and it would be impossible to keep such a program a secret. Maybe it just needs a longer story to make it work.
December 29th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I like the way her intuition motivates her to escape; intuition is an under-rated survival mechanism. As for the premise – I have actually followed the suppressed research on the social, psychological, and economic costs of lack of access to family planning. My sympathies are with the heroine because the procedure as presented is 1) sexist, 2) there’s no indication of reversibility. As for the ethical matter of involuntary and uninformed, well, I might be a little more concerned about that if thousands of other species weren’t extinct now because we haven’t got the reproductive conscience that God gave to rats.