Ah-chew! : Another Short Story

Ah-Chew!

Randy's face awoke with wonder. 'What a sneeze.'

Ah-chew! Ah-chew!

Ah-chew! Ah-chew! Ah-chew! Ah-chew!

"Wow." Randy's brain churned, his eyes narrowed. 'Odd' impressed upon his mind.

Tick  tock, tick  tock, tick  tock, tick  tock, his grandmother's coo-coo clock pinged off his skull. Set high on the wall Randy was always forced to look up to read it. It was where his grandmother wanted it.

A soft bubbly hiss rose off the essential oil diffuser.

A mutt, a German Shepherd-Lab mix, sighed slow and deep projecting a restful spirit, disrupting Randy's concentration.

A car rumbled harsh along the street in front of his house. The wheels ground out a squeak as they rolled.

Outside the trees lining his street rocked, leaves thrashing loudly together as the wind waxed and waned under a carpet of gray autumn sky.

Randy shot to his feet from a worn winged arm chair his mind trapped in a desperate pursuit.

The noises of the old house, left to him by his late grandmother; the only house he had ever lived in, the noises of the house settling with the wind, creeped, creaking and rattling in around him.

A draft freshened the musty air, thickened by a vapor of pine and oregano essential oils.

Randy looked at the dog, snoring softly, resting upon a yellowed sheet draping the fitted cover over a couch older than himself.

The dog had looked happier and more upbeat lately, Randy running the diffuser for him now near daily. The pine and oregano espoused as an anti-bacterial as well as an anti-viral: a holistic treatment for the dog's Lyme disease, or so he was told.

Anti-viral pierced Randy's thoughts. "Of Course." Randy began to dictate to himself, "The virus. I must be infected. And the essential oils..."

Now he understood. Randy could sense the virus, its' futile struggle for survival, for dominion over his body, controlling his sneezes in an attempt to expel the antidote with its final death throws.

'Control of our bodies... Beyond our own thoughts...' It all began to fit together.

Another sneeze began to rise behind his nostrils. Randy focused his will and took in a deep breath through his nose. The urge to sneeze subsided. He had won.

"How does the vaccine fit in?" Randy pondered out loud as he stepped to the sash windows of floated glass and gazed over the empty streets of his neighborhood.

Drive thru trash lined the curbs. Cars, new and expensive to dilapidated along with an old pickup piled with scrap lined the far side of the street, every house like the other but each different, each run down in varying degrees.

Dusk began to dim Randy's view when suddenly it hit him. 'The virus needs a receiver. A signal translator, an operating system to facilitate commands. The vaccine?.. Yes, the vaccine, it must be the vaccine.'

"5G" Randy hissed. 'The signal carrier, or is it HD signals' Randy always wondered why they kept changing the HD frequencies, why he always had to rescan the television.

'Were they monitoring changes in the crime rate? Consumer confidence with each adjustment?

'But I am free now,' Randy cheered in his imagination, 'thanks to dog.'

"HD or 5G?" slithered through his teeth. A toss of the dice as far as Randy could tell. 'Best to cover both.'

A shadow shrouded Randy's face. A sternness darkened his gaze. "My guns need cleaning." a small firm voice exhaled. He mulled over his collection in his mind and took a mental inventory of his munitions.

"A man is only as good as his tools" Randy's father would always say.

"Keep your tools clean." he would scold.

Randy's father lived in his mother's, Randy's grandmother's basement with his tools. Then he was dead.

"Keep your tool clean." Randy's father would laugh.

"I like my tools." Randy chanted through a blank stare and vacant smile.

Randy had work to do.

Hey! Radio signals and the like as control agents have always been part of science fiction in both books and movies. And it goes way back to the day when science fiction was based on science fact, not fantasy as it is today.

Just some things to think about. This story just came to me when I had my own sneezing fit. We were running the diffuser because our dog has Lyme disease...

Never mind.

So what will become of Randy? Perhaps if he had bought one of those new fancy condos that are all the rage among those young successful people these days, had made some friends, things would have brightened for him.

Certainly finding the Mother of Peace, watching the Rally of Hope, will turn his life around.

"Hope springs eternal."

Don't be a Randy.

Thank you for reading.

Comments and feedback of any type is greatly appreciated.