Blue

4. Caerula

RYLEE

***

Drug Administration Department approves first ever cure for BLUE: Caerula

My eyes fell on the day's headlines and words left me.

Despite the piercing cold morning, I could feel the warmth of my blood beneath every inch of my skin, racing due to extreme thrill and amazement.

I was up early today and on my way to the kitchen, I decided to fetch the newspaper. I remember the sounds of scraping and clicking as I sleepishly unlocked the front door. I picked up the half folded newspaper and gave it a perfunctory look- the next thing I know, I was sitting cross legged in my night jumpers on the bench in our backyard, my eyes hungrily devouring every word of the article.

Blue- the deadly viral disease which was literally equal to death. It was something oddly terrifying as well as ordinary, something that almost everyone was accustomed to.

People didn't mind wearing thick hefty gloves and boots and a heavy metallic shielding mask along with an oxygen tank that would help them breathe, every time they stepped out in the contaminated air. Poets no longer penned down exquisite verses lamenting about being born in the wrong era of human civilisation. International debates were no longer centred around the possibility of reversing the pandemic.

It was like the whole of mankind had attained a state of truce. There was zero internal conflict left within the people. They had finally accepted what they were born into. 

They had even made peace with the fact that on catching the disease, the infected people will be isolated and concentrated at the dozaks- specialised institutions run by the System, where they will be ultimately poisoned to death in a gas chamber, to prevent further spread of infection.

Blue was a vehemo-virus, a kind of virus whose effect was more intense when it spread to someone through an already infected person.

No matter how unethical this killing ritual was, every year lakhs of people turned up at the dozaks where they breathed their last. This was the only practical solution to save the ones who weren't infected.

But now, It was a highly highly highly taxing task to believe that there's finally a way out of this ordeal. Like a loophole being discovered after ages of suffering. Like a plan- so meticulously chalked to escape death.

I heard a beep from my oxygen tank. It indicated that a refill is required within the next 30 minutes.
I decided to get back into the house, but only after I was done reading the whole thing.

The article read that the floral extracts of a particular plant- caerula has shown to cure the disease in an infected person. Caerula is a flowering plant species belonging to a rare family of medicinal herbs. The large, blue, trumpet shaped flowers hold the magic cure in their vibrant, broad petals.

The only stumbling block in this miracle was that the flowers of caerula bloom only once in a decade.

The flowering season lasts for a few weeks, before it's all gone for a very long time. According to the article, the plant last bloomed in the fall of the year 174/HM, that is, the previous year.

Just then, a sudden crashing thud broke my chain of thoughts. I got up from the bench and kept the newspaper on it, behind me.

The noise came from the other side of our backyard wall. I trod lightly towards the pastel pink fence door of our backyard.
It was around 6 in the morning, what could have led to that sound when almost the whole of neighborhood was asleep?