The Killing Pharm

Gateways

"Did you kiss papa today?" my little brother asked. I looked out the shuttle window to avoid lying to his face. "No, I forgot."

"You can't forget again, Allevia...promise?"

I turned to face him and gave him a little smile. "Ok, Tylen." I said, hoping I wouldn't have to lie again tomorrow morning. Truth was our father was dying more and more everyday and I failed to greet him some mornings. Hell, most days I couldn't even make it to his room door without my hand shaking, afraid of finding him already gone. He tried to hide it from us.  He ate dinner in his room so we wouldn't notice the blood from his mouth fog into his water glass. He wore long sleeves to cover the thin, dark veins that traced the length of his arms. He laughed his way through coughing fits. Attempting to make every bit of pain he suffered a joke. He told us everything would be fine as long as he had his two beautiful children to wake him up with a kiss on the cheek every morning. Tylen took that  religiously. So every morning, he was up with the sun to wake our father up with a good morning kiss. I distracted myself with finding old work scrubs for Tylen to wear to school. They were baggy but they were always neatly ironed and bleached so that was enough. It would have to be enough.

I made a conscious effort to never let my brother know we were struggling. The one time I had developed a bad cough, he had come back from school with codeine tablets hidden in the lining of his pocket. How he got hold of them I'll never know. Terrified of what would ever happen if authorities caught my brother with meds I flushed them quickly. That was the day I had to sit Tylen down and explain the reality of our situation. Any form of modern day medicine found in our possession was a complete violation of the Despaired Act of 2050. We lived in containment, small quarters outside the boundaries of the city. Becoming ill, meant giving up your job, your wages and what little life you had outside of your own home. My dad would sit at home excitedly waiting for us to come home and talk about our day. But how was I supposed to talk about my day at work?

I went to the gates every morning after dropping my brother off to have a disgruntled guard check my temperature, prick and scan my finger to check my blood for any ailments. Anything slightly higher than 98 degrees would have me dragged outside by a few men in black scrubs. Back to the containment shuttle. I'd watched before as men, women and children that made the slightest cough, or didn't meet medical requirements were tackled down. Begging and pleading with them as they removed them from the building.

Once I passed the gates I'd be assigned a home where the family inside called me things like Tuesday's girl, Sunday's help or most plainly day shift crew. In the city, there was a pill for everything and everything had a pill. I fixed cocktails with sedatives, meals with dietary supplements. I rarely made it through the day without a television flashing advertisement for some brand new injection or implant. Within the last month quirks had gotten popular. A celebrity would confess to having anxiety or ADHD and suddenly the household was in a frenzy on where they could find the brand of meds they used. The day would follow with weird requests like "Darling, could you turn the lights down. That's triggering." or "I'm so OCD about this table. Please reset the placement." I followed through with every annoying task until lunch time. The most exciting part of my day.

We sat in large crowds below the luxury housing eating fruits and oatmeal as we complained about our assigned quarters. We shared home remedies, herb qualities and other things that would help our loved ones. Some days people sat with me while other days I sat to listen.

"Hey, aren't you Herb's daughter?" this lanky guy with brown eyes asked. I looked up at him skeptically. Not sure if I wanted to be honest or not. When someone you knew was sick, people had a tendency to speak as if you'd lost a loved one. I wasn't ready for that yet. "Sure," I said.