She used to joke about her “teacher’s immune system”. After the first couple years of teaching, she just didn’t get sick anymore. She didn’t take anything, save some glasses of orange juice, but she really did have impressive natural defenses. When everyone else was out with the flu or some cold, she’d be walking the halls with a 32 ounce bottle of Simply Orange juice. Never missed a day.
She never expected there to be a day she’d hate that gift. She bragged about it, and laughed with the other teachers about it. She joked with the kids about how unfair it was that teachers didn’t get rewarded for perfect attendance. Everyone always told her how lucky she was.
She did not feel lucky now.
They called it the Obsidian Plague, because it was worse than the Black Plague of the 1300s. It started in some airport in a big city; Chicago was what the papers said. Then it spread, fast. Everyone in the airport that day was infected, and they took it home with them. They infected their families, who took it to work and school with them the next day. It was the most horrible epidemic outbreak in living history. 30% of the American population died that first month, most people barely making it a week once symptoms showed.
She knew she’d been exposed to it, her kids dropped out of classes by the dozens. After the first several funerals, she just couldn’t do anymore. She stopped going out. After that first month, schools were closed anyway in an attempt to save the lives of those who hadn’t yet contracted the plague.
Logically, she, as the school teacher, should have contracted it. She should have been the one to get weak and die. But it was her husband who left work early one day because he felt shaky and fatigued. It was her husband who went to sleep one night, and never got out of bed again. It was her husband who grew boils like moss and shook from cold under all the blankets in the house. It was her husband who eventually died in their bed.
Her immune system had saved her from contracting the Obsidian Plague, but she had brought the sickness home from school. She had killed her husband.
And she never even got a headache.
This story came from an online writing group that would give out weekly prompts. The prompt was “write what scares you most”. This terrifies me. It is known that I don’t get sick, my immune system is BOSS! But when I was a teacher, I carried all the kid’s germs home with me, and my poor husband would get sick with it. Thank God they were only colds and flus… but what if something worse came around?
