“The solution to pollution is dilution.”- A surgeon’s mantra.
My name is Dr. Sampson Galena. You have probably heard of me. I’ve become quite popular these days. Some say I am crazy. Others are more polite and call me controversial but that is exactly what they said about Einstein, Picasso, Jobs, and many other revolutionary thinkers. I have dyslexia and all these people were allegedly dyslexic too so I think I am in good company.
Reading is considered a basic human right. Unfortunately people with dyslexia have difficulty reading, their brains have problems with manipulating words and language, but creativity and problem solving are their super powers. Hence I used my superpowers to overcome my reading difficulty, how I managed that, is a story for another time. Let’s focus on today’s story.
All the misfortunes that befell me that day were caused by covid-19 and face masks.
The day happened to be one of the rare days in my life. I was off duty. I woke up at 7am to make preparations for the day’s salient agenda. The groundwork was complete by 9:19am. I had great plans . Actually, I was supposed to attend a covid-19 workshop which was CPD (Continuous Professional Development)points accredited but a lady had crossed my path the previous afternoon at the morgue and derailed that arrangement completely. Hence I jumped into a taxi to pursue more profitable endeavors instead of attending the boring and ‘useless’ workshop.
The taxi I boarded was headed towards ‘Pawpaw Peels Plaza’ at break neck speed. That was our rendezvous point. Who cares about covid-19 when more pressing matters are on the table.The driver was playing ‘Memories’ by maroon 5 and I was happily tapping my fingers to it. No wonder the day ended up filled with unforgettable memories.
Twenty minutes into the journey the taxi driver suddenly made a right turn onto an untarred road that I knew led to an abandoned soap factory. He told me that there was a short cut that could take us to our destination in the next ten minutes. I suspected foul play and made an attempt to open the car door and jump out but he was faster, he quickly pressed on the door lock button and rendered my efforts vain. My next move was to attack him and force him to crash or stop the car but before I could grab his neck from behind he came to an abrupt stop and a young man in his twenties wearing a black hoodie and ripped blue jeans jumped into the back seat with me. He shoved a locally manufactured pistol into my flank and ordered me to stop struggling or get blown to smitherens. I obliged.
“ Dr. Sampson Galena, I told you I will get you.”, he sneered.
The driver drove into the abandoned factory. The young man pushed me towards the door and ordered me to get out. He kicked me hard in the back as I scrambled out of the car. He jumped out with the gun still pointed at me, he pulled off his hoodie and took off his facemask and threw it into a nearby gutter .”I am sure you’ve remembered now!” .“No.”, I replied but that was a lie. I remembered him very well, Mr. Henry Chopel. He had brought his six year old daughter with a left jaw swelling to the emergency department about a month ago. After countless lab tests and consultations, the pediatricians had diagnosed her of burkitt lymphoma and were ready to commence treatment but a man wearing an oversized suit with mismatched tie and multicolored shoes had shown up at the emergency out of thin air claiming to be the spiritual guide of the girl’s dad.
He and Mr. Chopel had a brief discussion after which Mr. Chopel decided to send his daughter home instead of continuing with the ‘hospital treatment’. Some sympathetic nurses and house officers had tried to stop them but to no avail. There had been a brief struggle between one of the house officers and the spiritual guide. The house officer backed down after I signaled to him to allow them to go. That was not the end.
Fifteen minutes later, a taxi drove into the emergency car park with horns blaring. Mr. Chopel and the driver carried a man with extremely swollen face and noisy breathing. His left forearm had a swollen area that looked like a wheal, only you could not see the redness because he was black. It was the spiritual leader, hardly recognizable except for his fancy dressing. The emergency team rushed to his side and quickly secured his airway to prevent him from suffocating. A few of the nurses started talking about the strange occurrence and one carelessly mention that she suspected I had pulled one of my usual tricks to save a child. I had not. The pediatricians quickly took advantage of the commotion and grabbed Mr. Chopel’s daughter. They admitted her to the children’s ward and commenced their management.
At the end of the day I found out that the spiritual leader had a severe form of latex allergy and he had been touched with a gloved hand briefly during the scuffle to get Mr. Chopel’s daughter out of the hospital. Mr. Chopel heard what the nurse had said about me pulling one of my usual tricks and that was the reason why I had a gun pointed at my head that morning at an abandoned soap factory. Apparently the spiritual leader had died few days after he was discharged from the hospital and Mr. Chopel blamed me. I did not remember him telling me he will get me though.
After some deliberations with the taxi driver, Mr. Chopel decided that shooting me would make it easier for the police to track him down. He was going to let someone else do the dirty work, something else to be more specific.
He ordered me to enter the factory, all the time staying behind me with the gun firmly pressed into my back. I was scared he might pull the trigger by mistake and end my life even before the intended time. The taxi driver moved ahead of me and opened a huge rusted iron door that creaked on its hinges. There was a big rectangular machine that looked like the large hadron collider at CERN(Center for European Nuclear Research ) inside a large room. The length of the machine was almost fifty meters and it occupied the whole room leaving very little space for movement.There was a control panel on the wall where the machine was operated, together with the power switch. It also had a wide square opening which was probably how substances were placed inside the machine.
Mr. Chopel looked at me gleefully and cackled ,”Dr. Galena, you are a man of science so I am going to get rid of you scientifically. This machine will atomise you and no one will ever know what happened. The owners of this factory bought it a few years ago to make gaseous soap but due to unknown reasons, it was never used. One crazy employee was once heard mumbling something about being transported to the ladies restroom when he turned on the machine. He was just a peeping Tom telling stories to exonerate himself when he was caught red handed spying on his female colleagues in the bathroom.”
The taxi driver punched me in the abdomen and before I could recover from the pain and shock he carried me and threw me into the opened jaws of the machine and Mr. Chopel turned on the
power switch. There was a loud whooshing sound, a blur of colors and suddenly dead silence coupled with darkness.
To be continued….
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