THE FATAL FACE MASK FIASCO , FINAL PART

 “What?! “ I screamed.

“Yes. The world already had a plastics problem. When the pandemic hit, corporations went into mass production of  facemasks. They used more plastics in manufacturing instead of other biodegradable options. Human attitude was the last straw. Used facemasks were disposed off anywhere, into gutters, bushes, the streets, the ocean and other water bodies. People just threw face masks anywhere and anyhow. Three years into the pandemic 90% of the ocean life died as a result of the surge in face masks pollution. The governments of the world were frustrated and came up with a desperate plan, to collect all the plastic wastes together and dump them onto the sun so that they will all be incinerated instantly, far away from us to prevent any harmful effects. Unfortunately, most humans including fetuses already had micro plastics in their bloodstream, as well as the chemicals used to process plastics such as BPA and Phthalates. 

It turned out that dumping plastics onto the sun was a huge mistake, just as dumping plastic waste into the oceans. The solution to pollution is not dilution nor incineration. It caused the sun to produce more ultraviolet rays which interacted with the micro plastics and chemicals already in our body, damaging our DNA. Decades later the number of  babies  born with no mouth, no nose and faces that looked like they were wearing facemasks started going up until normal faces disappeared all together. Those features were named ‘face mask facies’. The whole event came to be known as the fatal facemask fiasco, hence the name of the disease.”

“But….what about those who had normal faces before…?”, I asked. “They were the first to lose their normal faces before it even started showing in newborn babies.” Ethel Lyne replied wearily.

I bowed my head and stroked the short goatee I had been nurturing. My thoughts were in turmoil. The ‘time’ I came from people were just using and dumping facemasks like toilet paper, not to talk of other plastics. No one was aware or even cared about the possible future catastrophic effects of their actions. Seeing facemask being blown around by the wind was now common place. The number of facemasks that wash up onto our beaches was on the ascendancy and by some strange occurrence I had just been made aware of the future effects, let say ahead of time.

I lifted up my head and addressed Ethel Lyne.”So what happened to all those measures to curb plastic pollution that we heard about ? Reduce, reuse, recycle. Plastic eating bacteria, biodegradable plastics, bans on plastic use in countries, legislations, policies….” Ethel Lyne raised her hand to cut me short.” You and I know that governments and corporations never take any of these things serious unless it is pregnant with huge profits.Those solutions were proposed, some were even put into action but not in time or on a scale large enough to have prevented the current fiasco. Some well meaning people  took it upon themselves to implement some of the solutions but compared to the rest of the world’s population who were pulling the ship down on the other hand they were bound to fail.” 

Ethel Lyne’s last statement about  the efforts of well meaning people being pulled down by the remaining nonchalant bunch was on point. It was the very situation that I dealt with daily at the hospital. There was nothing more for me to ask after her speech. She reiterated their request that I help them with finding a cure to the fiasco but I had more pressing concerns. I had to get back to my time and warn somebody and I had  a wild idea about how to get back. “Do you guys still use MRI machines?” I asked. “Dr Paul E. Vinil-Clawride should know.” Ethel responded. One of her colleagues who was apparently the one came forward. He pulled a hand held device that looked like an ultrasound probe out of his pocket pressed it to my forehead and pressed a button on it a few times. A  highly detailed and lifelike 3D hologram of the human brain appeared out of thin air. “Your brain looks fine to me.” I wanted to shout out in amazement. Their Medical technology was far advanced. “I meant  the bigger and older version, please” The machine at the soap factory surely had some huge magnets, the same things that ‘powered’ MRI machines. Paul  E. Vinil-Clawride  laughed and said they had an old one in the hospital basement that was just gathering dust and he would be more than glad to give me a tour. 

I quickly got up to leave with him for the tour but  Ethel  Lyne  blocked my path. She seemed to have figured out that I wouldn’t come back from the ‘tour’. I was prepared to knock her down again and flee but she had learned her lesson. She quickly pressed a shiny button on her breast that  squirted some yellowish aerosol into my face. I lost power in all my limbs and collapsed heavily onto the floor, I could not move but I was conscious. “We have to put him in a cryo-chamber and run tests till we find a cure.” I was trapped, I was their guinea pig, a lab rat and I couldn’t run. 

Dr Ethel Lyne and Dr Paul E. Vinil-Clawride  transported me to the cryo department of the hospital. Whatever was in the yellow vapor must have paralyzed  my skeletal muscles  but spared my diaphragm. I could still breath normally. “Let’s get this over with before the drug wears off. Its effects usually last for 20 minutes but this was a wide shot so I don’t know how much got into his system.” “I will be done with prepping the chamber in just 15minutes, we have 5 minutes to spare.” Dr Vinil-Clawride replied. 

Normally i am the hard guy, the type that never gives up till he finds a way. If there is no way I will just go ahead and make one, but logical analysis told me that I had no way of getting out of this one. I couldn’t move a muscle and regardless of any brilliant ideas my brain came up with my body was never going to have the power to carry them out. I was going to be a fossil in a cryo-chamber. Maybe they will find a cure using me as their savior, not nailed to a cross this time but stuck in a refrigerator.  I suddenly felt my fingers move. A memory had flashed through my mind when I thought about nails, I  was getting out of this one too, after all.

Years ago, in my childhood when the EPI (Expanded Program of Immunization) program was nonexistent in my country, I had contracted one of the six killer diseases. The physician who attended to me knew I was going to die, so he did the unthinkable. He pumped me full of curariform drugs to counter the tetanic contractions of my muscles. The  tetanus I contracted from stepping on a rusty nail while playing on a rubbish dump, failed to kill me as a result. During one of my reviews the doctor mentioned something about me developing tolerance and resistance to the drugs because my body was producing chemicals to counter their effects. He had had to double the doses. Dr Ethel Lyne and Dr Paul E. Vinil-Clawride did not have  20 minutes, they had only ten and they had used five already. 

It felt like eons but the five minutes passed eventually. I tried  moving my fingers and toes to confirm that the effect of the green vapor had worn off. I could move them easily. The only thing left was to wait for an opening, my chance to strike. I got it.  Dr Paul E. Vinil-Clawride left Ethel Lyne’s side to attend to more pressing issues from his bladder. In a moment of carelessness Ethel Lyne turned her back to me. She seemed to have been preparing a cocktail of drugs to inject me with in preparation for my ‘hibernation’. A sharp looking syringe containing a yellowish liquid which I guessed to be more of the paralyzing agent was on a stool close to where I was lying. With a motion as quick as the strike of a king cobra I picked up the syringe and jabbed it painfully into the left  buttock  of Ethel Lyne and pushed the plunger to empty all its contents into her. She screamed in pain and quickly spun around  only to see the unparalysed me right behind her. She had  a look of  shock and disbelief  all over her face but it was too late for her. She collapsed heavily onto the floor as the drug paralyzed her instantly.

I sprinted out of the cryo department to the nearest elevator and made my way straight to the hospital basement to look for the MRI machine.

I found the basement and the MRI in no time. The fear of dying had heightened my senses, including my sense of direction. I dashed to the MRI and started pressing buttons and turning knobs at random. The machine suddenly came to life with a loud whirring sound. The smaller  metallic objects in the basement started flying towards it. That was a bit of a problem but I didn’t care. My brain was swimming in adrenaline, making me ignore potential threats in favor of the goal at hand.

Vinil-Clawride suddenly broke into the basement with the hospital security in his wake. That was my cue. I made a run for the chamber in the machine amidst the flying metallic objects. Just behind me one of the security guards foolishly fired his weapon.  I took a dive at a run, headfirst into the chamber of the MRI. Vinyl-Clawride Shouted angrily at the man who fired but it was too late. There was a resounding explosion as the MRI got hit by the firearm. Then my world went silent.

Yes you guessed right, I did not die, I would not be here telling this story if I did. By sheer luck I escaped the explosion and ended up back in my own time, the present. I woke up days later in the hospital. I heard murmurs about finding me in an abandoned factory half dead and some strange rumors about how I ended up there. That was the least of my worries . If the events I had experienced were real or not I still had a big task at hand . The world needed a radical awakening concerning plastics pollution and consequently facemasks. I was ready to lead the charge.