Premium Essay

The Virus: A Narrative Fiction

Submitted By
Words 746
Pages 3
Madison Browne, September 7th, 1954, USA

I leaned over my purple bed sheets, here it comes once again. I threw up bile into my usual bucket that was placed next to my bed. I knew it was going to be one of those nights again. I touched the back of my ice-cold hand to my sweating forehead. I forced my sore body to move to empty out the yellow vomit out of the bucket. I’m hoping this will be the last time I’ll ever have to do this.
“Honey, today is the day.” My mother replied. I know she’s only saying this to make me feel better. I stick my fork into my over-cooked eggs. “I know that they have been telling you for weeks that they are going to bring the vaccine in, but I really think that today is the day.” She exclaimed. I throw my fork down …show more content…
//

I walk down the streets. I missed my bus, surprise surprise. My school was only four blocks away. I walk down the filthy streets of my neighbourhood and wonder how I got this virus. I’ve heard on the news it was from faeces, but it’s also contagious, so maybe I got it from my friends. Whatever it is from, I sure have it, and I know I have it badly. I scratch the back of my arm, noticing a blistering red rash. This is weird, I haven’t heard of anyone having a rash on themselves. Maybe if I just wait it out, it will disappear.

//

I arrive at my school. Children are pushing each other to get to the gym. “I heard today is the day.” My friend whispered to me. There was a peculiar smell in the air; maybe rubbing alcohol. I feel weak. We were assigned by classes to be organized into groups. One by one, we were being placed into the chair. I looked up to this nice looking lady wearing a red-cross uniform. She opens up a case that held the vaccine and the 4 inch needle. The lady pulls my sleeve up to find the steaming rash. She looks confused. The lady takes a step back. I’m shaking with fear. She pulls another nurse over to look at my rash. “What do you think it is?” She whispered to the other nurse. The nurse takes a step back. She waves her arms in fear and walks …show more content…
I am not treating any child that already has the virus! I was told that these children just needed the vaccine!”. The nurse was acting frantic. I could read every word that they were saying across the room. I just sit here in the chair. The first nurse walks back over with a new face mask and a new thicker uniform. “Hi there, Madison? Is it?” She asks. I shake my head. “We weren’t completely aware of your, um, situation. But we are going to find the best solution as quick as we can.” I knew it was too late, I thought to myself. “Until we figure out what we are going to do, I need you to stay at home away from others. This virus spreads rapidly, and we don’t need anyone else to be infected with it. Do you understand that?” I can feel my heart racing. They will never be able to fix me at the point where I am now. I can feel my bones deteriorating. I get up from the chair and begin to walk

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Cammie's Virus: A Narrative Fiction

...*Cammie's POV* We walked into my mom's office confused. When we got there she called us in. I was shocked to see mom on Joe's lap, so I backed away slowly, like you would do if you found a wild animal, then turned and ran to my dorm. When my friends came back, my mom and Joe were with them. I opened the door, pulled my friends and my mom in, and slamed my door in Joe's face! Ha, that shows you to mess with your god-daughter's mom! Joe was trying to open the door, but I turned on the alarm system. He tried once, twice, and three times, and wait for it... BOOM! As the explosion settled glue and confetti rained down on him! I turned on the 1 way door so we could see his face, he was FURIOUS! My friends and I were in hysterics! Mom was laughing...

Words: 348 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Film Evaluation

...Film evaluation 12 monkeys is a sci-fi (science fiction) classic movie directed by Terry Gilliam. what is the central point of the film? The storyline of the film, “12 Monkeys” is both an explicit plot as well as a hidden plot. This is because the ending of the movie is somewhat inconclusive leaving the audience guessing. The central point of the movie, however, is more explicit than it is hidden. The story is primarily about a convicted criminal, James Cole, who is sent on a mission to find useful information for a devastating virus that killed 99% of the whole of human population in the year 1996. The scientists of the year 2035 seem do have a hidden agenda throughout the film as it is unclear why they believe and insist that the deadly virus cannot be stopped but can only be cured. Such sentiments bring out the hidden plot, which unfolds in the nail-biting finale of the movie. At the end of the movie, Cole meets his death in the arms of his lover Dr. Railly. In the last scene, it seems as though the scientists from Cole’s time had set him up to his death. This raises question over the real reason why the scientists sent Cole back to the past. The scientists confess to developing the virus 30 years ago to Cole as well as implicating Mr. Goines, who is Cole’s friend from the past. When Cole closes in on the truth he meets his demise. After Cole’s death, Dr. Peters meets with a scientist from the past in the plane. Railly then poses a question to Peters of whether humanity...

Words: 918 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Hot Zone

...John Doe English 112P 4 November 2009 Historical Perspective on The Hot Zone The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a nonfiction book with aspects of a novel. Sometimes called a bio-thriller, it is about the Ebola virus in America. It was written to address a time of fear about viruses in the United States in a time of increased international interaction. Although its impact is negligible, it reflects the nervous attitude of the time. Richard Preston writes narrative nonfiction. Narrative nonfiction is a hybrid style of writing that utilizes the framework of nonfiction with aspects of a novel, dialogue, for instance. Preston favors this style and wrote his dissertation on it during his graduate studies in Princeton. Previously, Preston wrote non-fiction on science such as Astronomy and on History; later his focus shifts to the science of Microbiology. In 1992 Richard Preston wrote an article in The New Yorker, entitled “Crisis in the Hot Zone.” Two years later, this article became the foundation for his non-fiction book, The Hot Zone, which documents the appearance of Ebola in the United States during the late eighties. At the time The Hot Zone was conceived, free trade policies during President George H. W. Bush’s administration were still making an impact worldwide. Bush set forth global objectives, renewing an interest in globalization under the belief that a global market will alleviate America’s growing deficit. Furthermore, he spearheaded the construction of North...

Words: 1038 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Mythology

...the government as a legendary computer hacker and a terrorist. Morpheus meets up with Mr. Anderson and offers him a choice of a blue pill or a red pill. The choice that is offered will afford Mr. Anderson to either wake up in a world beyond his imagination or to continue to exist in his current state existence. The “real world” * 2. Analysis of The conversation between Morpheus and Smith, The Battle between the humans and the machines. “Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet Cross cutting with Neo and Trinity trying to save Morpheus, testing Neo‟s powers and the length he will go to save Morpheus. * 3. Semiotic Analysis * 4. Semiotics and Structuralism• The war between man and machines.• Humans compared to a virus.• The five...

Words: 2560 - Pages: 11

Free Essay

Spillover Summary

...Hanan Rakine Melissa Renko AP Biology 25 May 2015 Spillover Summary Spillover has woven a story of incredible complexity; a detective story with a difference, with a host of murderers – all of them real. They are viruses, bacteria and single-celled organisms which infect other animals, but every now and then make the jump – spill over – to our own species. Each chapter follows the quest to track down a new villain. An international team of detectives works on the cases, and Quammen follows them as they uncover the traces which will lead them to the killers. The book opens with a horrific virus which lays low horses and humans, the Ebola virus emerges through a dark tale, with piles of dead gorillas in the forest, consumption of rotting bushmeat, sorcery and Rosicrucianism. The story is grim enough without the usually exaggerated descriptions of Ebola: sufferers crying blood and melting from the inside out. Quammen doesn't sensationalise his material (you could argue he doesn't need to – it's quite dreadful enough). He's much more interested in demystifying these outbreaks, finding out what we know about them and how this might help us to anticipate future emergent diseases and limit their impact. He promises to tell us the "complicated story", not the dramatic one. But this is such a consummate piece of science writing that you're likely to imbibe some extremely complex concepts without realising it. There's no "here's the science bit"; lessons in virology...

Words: 1123 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Cririque on Surrogates

...Critique on Surrogates Robert Piccioli English 225 Brian Davis September 12, 2011 Critique on Surrogates The film Surrogates (2009), directed by Jonathon Mostow, was an excellent film with a powerful message for society. The message was delivered well through each aspect of the film and its elements. The film's main concept centers around the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase remote controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society. These fit, good-looking, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Online, you can hide behind an avatar and a lie of a profile and have complete anonymity.  Expand that to real life, with a realistic looking robotic body, made in your own image, or not, and you have the world of "Surrogates."  Most crime being a thing of the past, no more spreading diseases, racism and sexism gone and few, if any , consequences for your actions, (destroying a surrogate seems to be considered vandalism) all seem to take our own self centered, hedonistic, world of instant gratification to a whole new level.  Throw in those who don't choose to keep them selves 'safe' by using robotic bodies living on reservations, seemingly shunning technology and being the subject of new racism, and you might think that you have a...

Words: 1771 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Richard Matheson's 'I Am Legend'

...Wei Lin Writing 39B Professor Greg McClure February 7, 2017 Rhetorical Analysis Inner Fear In Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, as the only survivor of the calamity that has wiped out the entire civilization, Robert Neville is the only hope of human civilization and human species. For some reason, the virus that has mutated every human being doesn’t have any effect on Neville which is a bit ironic. Before the plague, he is just a normal person who lives a normal life. All of sudden, he becomes the chosen one. I Am Legend demonstrate his mental condition breaking down along with his human sanity fading away. After finish reading the book, my direct feeling is fear. The fear is not...

Words: 1122 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Factors Affecting Students in Terms of Comprehension and Literature

...Existential counselling is a philosophical form of counselling which addresses the situation of a person's life and situates the person firmly within the predictable challenges of the human condition. Existential counselling considers human living to take place within four dimensions: physical, social, psychological and spiritual. It shows each of these dimensions to be constituted like a force field, within which predictable paradoxes, tensions and dilemmas play out. Human beings can learn to deal with these tensions and conflicts more effectively by facing up to the negatives as well as the positives of their lives, including the tensions of life and death, love and hate, strength and weakness and meaning and absurdity. Best known authors on existential counselling are Irvin Yalom in the USA through his book Existential Psychotherapy (1981) New York: Basic Books and Emmy van Deurzen, who created the British School and who published her bookExistential Counselling and Psychotherapy in 1988 (London: Sage Publications; second edition 2002, third edition 2011). Existential therapy essentially helps deal with the problems of everyday living, such as relationship difficulties (both with Individuals & in Couple Therapy), anxiety/fear, food/body-image issues, addictions, mood disorders, social anxiety, panic, trauma, low self-esteem, unresolved childhood issues, sexual issues and others. It is a clear, direct and honest approach helping clients work on their particular, unique...

Words: 1485 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Hari Kunzru's Works!

...Hari Kunzru Literature Resource Center | Ratcliffe, Sophie. "Hari Kunzru." British Writers: Supplement 14. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.Document URL http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1483000135&v=2.1&u=monroecc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w | Title: Hari Kunzru  British Writer ( 1969 - )Author(s): Sophie RatcliffeSource: British Writers: Supplement 14. Ed. Jay Parini. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009. From Scribner Writers Series.Document Type: Biography, Critical essay[Image Omitted: ]Table of Contents:Biographical EssayFurther ReadingsWorks  In 2007, visitors encountering Hari Kunzru's website for the first time might have been a little surprised. Those searching for more information about this British author would have come across an old school photograph of a small boy aged perhaps five or six years old. A few lines of curt white typeface gave a few brief details: his current age, the fact that he was born in London in 1969, and, perhaps surprisingly, his blood group (HbAD) and a hyperlink to his genotype (human). Kunzru is joking, here, about the contemporary thirst for biographical details about writers. As he puts it, nowadays, "British journalists seem more interested in your biography or your publishing deal--the British press is interested in writers, but it isn't interested in writing" (Litt, 2004). The starkly playful nature of Kunzru's 2007 website poked fun both...

Words: 9462 - Pages: 38

Free Essay

Irvine Welsh

... a collection of short stories, was published in 1994 and was followed by Welsh's second novel, Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995), a harrowing stream-of-consciousness narrated by football hooligan Roy Strang. Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance, a collection of three novellas, was published in 1996, and a third novel, Filth, a vivid account of the violent adventures of a bigoted, racist and corrupt Scottish policeman, was published in 1998. Glue (2001), is the story of four boys growing up in an Edinburgh housing estate. Porno, a sequel to Trainspotting, was published in 2002. Welsh is also the author of two plays, Headstate (1994) and You'll Have Had Your Hole (1998). 4 Play, an omnibus edition of four stage adaptations of Welsh's fiction by Harry Gibson and Keith Wyatt, was published in 2001. His screenplay of The Acid House was directed for Channel 4 Films by Paul McGuigan (1998). His journalism includes a column for Loaded magazine and occasional articles for The Guardian. He is also a DJ and has recorded a single with rock group Primal Scream. In February 2003 Irvine Welsh began writing a Monday column for the Daily Telegraph. “His Language”: “When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music. I was getting interested in house music at that time,...

Words: 7407 - Pages: 30

Free Essay

Inter-Cultural Translatability of the Japanese Horror Movie Ring

...Inter-Cultural Translatability Of Ring Ashimova Aitolkyn East Asian Cinema, Fall 2015 December 18, 2015 Introduction The effect of 1998's Japanese film Ring can be compared to a big tsunami wave that not only became highest grossing horror film in the country, but also shuddered Taiwanese, Korean, Hong Kong film markets. Following years many publications included it to the numerous symbolic "top 10 most scary films" lists. And when Steven Spielberg bought the rights to make the Hollywood remake it was seen as official evidence that Japanese horror cinema became new trendsetter in this genre and gained cult status in the West. Nowadays with numerous follow-ups within the Ring franchise and triggered a trend of Western remakes "Ring" is viewed as exemplary illustrative Asian horror movie. I will argue that the wide success of the movie is caused not by its deep cultural ties with Japanese cinema and Japanese horror movies in particular, but because on the contrary "Ring" has little to do with its traditional background. Hideo Nakata deliberately cut off all the cultural traces in order to make cinematic language of the movie universal and cosmopolitan thus giving a way for its intercultural translation and to be easily replicated. In order to do it first I will analyze different Japanese merchandizing strategies and study the film as a media product. Second, I will briefly overlook history and main stylistic traits of Japanese horror movie genre. In my general overlook...

Words: 5256 - Pages: 22

Premium Essay

Consumption and the Beat Generation

...[pic][pic] [pic]Copyright © 2005 West Chester University. All rights reserved. College Literature 32.2 (2005) 103-126 [pic] |  |[pic][pic][pic] |  | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | |[pic] | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Access provided by Northwestern University Library ...

Words: 36700 - Pages: 147

Free Essay

Gmat Verbal

...Practice Test #1 Sentence Correction 1. To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets. 2. Organized in 1966 by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Breeding Bird Survey uses annual roadside counts along established routes to monitor changes in the populations of more than 250 bird species, including 180 songbirds. 3. Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas. 4. Excited about the prospects of harnessing Niagara Falls to produce electric power, Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, predicted in the mid-1890's that electricity generated at Niagara would one day power the streetcars of London and the streetlights of Paris. 5. The airline company, following through on recent warnings that it might start reducing service, announced that it was eliminating jet service to nine cities, closing some unneeded operations, and grounding twenty-two planes. 6. The list of animals that exhibit a preference for using either the right or the left hand (i.e., claw, paw, or foot) has been expanded to include the lower vertebrates. 7. Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect its already-tattered...

Words: 9754 - Pages: 40

Free Essay

Kiki

...THE B L A C K SWAN The HIGHLY I mpact IM of the PROBABLE Nassim Nicholas Taleb U.S.A. $26.95 Canada $34.95 is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpre­ dictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9 / 1 1 . For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. A BLACK SWAN Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate oppor­ tunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the "impossible." For years, Taleb has studied how we fool our­ selves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this reve­ latory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers...

Words: 158140 - Pages: 633

Free Essay

Getting

...International Relations Theory The new edition of International Relations Theory: A critical introduction introduces students to the main theories in international relations. It explains and analyzes each theory, allowing students to understand and critically engage with the myths and assumptions behind each theory. Key features of this textbook include: • discussion of all of the main theories: realism and (neo)realism, idealism and (neo)idealism, liberalism, constructivism, postmodernism, gender, and globalization two new chapters on the “clash of civilizations” and Hardt and Negri’s Empire innovative use of narratives from films that students will be familiar with: Lord of the Flies, Independence Day, Wag the Dog, Fatal Attraction, The Truman Show, East is East, and Memento an accessible and exciting writing style which is well-illustrated with boxed key concepts and guides to further reading. • • • This breakthrough textbook has been designed to unravel the complexities of international relations theory in a way that allows students a clearer idea of how the theories work and the myths that are associated with them. Cynthia Weber is Professor of International Studies at the University of Lancaster. She is the author of several books and numerous articles in the field of international relations. International Relations Theory A critical introduction Second edition Cynthia Weber First published 2001 by Routledge Second edition published 2005 by Routledge...

Words: 74303 - Pages: 298