Room 202A
Andre: (Opens eyes) W-where am I? What is this place?
Andre starts to look around, sees nothing but soundproof walls and a big metal door with a small window in the middle. He couldn’t really see much because the light density wasn’t high enough and he didn’t have his glasses with him. As he tries to look for more clues, he sees a bunch of flasks and a telescope on top of a cabinet with a bunch of medicine inside. Andre tries to sit up from the flat table he was laying on, but can’t because he is handcuffed to the edges.
Andre: Why the hell am I handcuffed? Hello??! Anybody out there?! It’s useless man, what the hell did I do—
Doctor James walks in the room.
Dr. James: Good morning buddy, you were out for a while. How are you feeling?
Andre: Who are you? Did you put me here?
Dr. James: Long story short, we’re using you to experiment our new Lonimal chemical to try and save human life. You haven’t gotten to see how the world looks out there, but it’s a complete mess.
Andre: What do you mean? I never gave permission for any one of you guys to lock me in this shit hole, IN HANDCUFFS, and do whatever you guys want with my unconscious body!
Dr. James: I’m sorry, but it is nothing bad, buddy. Trust me, with our new and improved technology, we are confident that we can restore mankind.
Andre: Restore mankind? You mean everybody is dead?
Dr. James: Well, something like that. A big virus spread and intoxicated a lot of people which made them very sick.
Dr. James walks towards Andre to get him out of the handcuffs. He sticks a needle into his forearm to get a blood sample from him.
Dr. James: I guess the chemical worked pretty well, you show no signs of side effects from it.
Andre: You got me really messed up, man. What in the world did you do to me?
Dr. James looks at the results shown in the computer, he looks back down at his clipboard and jots down “Possibility”
Dr. James: We injected with some of our Lonimal fluid into your body in order to fight off the virus that could have quickly spread throughout your body and have killed you in minutes just like everyone else.
Andre: Damn, if that’s the case, then I must’ve been out for a long time. How come I don’t remember any of this? What about my loved ones? They know you guys locked me up for God knows how long?
Dr. James: Oh don’t worry Andre, they are fine. Come with me.
Andre: Okay.
Dr. James and Andre exits the room.
Andre: Ahhh! Damn man, you guys can’t dim down the lights a little bit more or at least give a fella some blindfolds?
Both Dr. James and Andre keep on walking down the hall
Dr. James: I think that’s the least of your worries right now
Andre: What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Dr. James: Your family is alive
Andre: That’s great, can I see them?
Dr. James: Yeah you will see them… eventually. But there is some kind of, umm how would you say, a difficult situation that we are going through. But unfortunately, your family are not in great condition at the moment.
Andre: What do you mean they are not in great condition? You just told me that they were fine.
Dr. James: Well, they are infected.
Andre: How in the world are they infected? Are they being treated with any medicine so that they don’t fucking die?!
Dr. James: There is this vaccine we can give them…
Andre: Then just give them the damn vaccine.
Dr James: I wish it were that easy man.
Andre: If it was that easy? If what was easy?
Dr. James: Well you been out for a long time now what you think is normal is no longer normal. We just started developing the Lonimal fluid that we used on you, but since there is not many of us that can work on it, we are very short on supplies. We have just two families in this building, both wanting to be vaccinated, but we only have enough to vaccinate one.
Andre: So you are basically saying…
Dr. James: Yes, you are going to have to take it from the other family.
Andre: No problem that sounds easy enough.
Dr. James: Alright, if you really think so. Come meet with the family then.
Andre followed Dr. James to the room the family was located in. Andre and Dr. James go up to the window.
Dr. James: Here they are. These are the Johnson’s.
It was a family of five, a mother and a father, two boys and one girl that looked like they were the age of 6 and 10. They were all cuddled up together underneath one single blanket, shivering from the inner cold the infection gave them, waiting for them to be vaccinated.
Andre: Man, s-so are they all infected?
Dr. James: Yes they are, whenever you’re ready we can go inside and let you’ll them know they won’t be vaccinated.
Andre: Wait what? I have to tell them?
Dr. James: Yes, it is your family that you want to save, the choice is yours.
Andre: (Man, I don’t really know if I can do this) Okay, but you go inside, I can’t let them see who I am.
Dr. James enters the room and lets the family know that they won’t be vaccinated due to lack of supplies. Andre took a peek into the room through the small window in the center of the door, as James told the family the news Andre could see the kids and parents hope get pulled out of there bodies. he saw the look on the family’s face. The kids embraced their mother who was in the worst condition out of all of them. Andre saw how they were worried about their mother. The father demanded that James gave them the vaccine but James had walked out. Dr. James exits the room and Andre heard the father yell out, “How could you?!” as the door closed. Dr. James and Andre begin to walk further down the hall.
Andre: You know what? Forget it, let’s go back, they need it more.
Dr. James: Are you sure? What happened to saving your family?
Andre: I’m sure they’ll understand. I can’t do this to a family that is suffering like that. Those kids remind me of the one of my own, I don’t think they would like their father doing such a evil thing.
Dr. James stops and looks straight at Andre, and says:
Dr. James: Congratulations, Andre. You passed the test. See, you were in a simulation this entire time. People tend to be greedy and keep stuff for themselves, you saw the looks on their faces when I broke the news to them and you were able to fight off your greed to make a better outcome. Sometimes people fail to realize that everything is not always about themselves, when you help others in need or do something out of kindness, it creates for an amazing outcome. Now come with me.
Andre: Wait what? You mean all of this was just a test? I don’t know wether to be happy… forget that, where is my family?
Dr. Andre walks Andre over to Room 202A Dr. James opens the door and there they are, Andre’s family, his wife standing up carrying a big smile on her face, while his kids run over to hug his leg and scream out “Daddy!” They were all happy to know that Andre made the right choice. all healthy waiting for Andre to finish his simulation. All the family members had gone through their simulation that was tailored to their personality.
Reflection
This is another one of those pieces i had fun writing. Julio and I were stuck on what to make the story be about so i was like you know what, let me just freestyle it and you let me know if you like it. So i did just that, i wrote everything and anything that popped into my head, and then we just started fixing some things from the story as we went along.
Just like my fiction piece, i made sure that when i had the opportunity to make Andre funny, that i would do it. That’s why if anyone were to read this dialogue, they can relate to Andre in some sort of way just because of his character and the way he talks. Andre is more of a casual, but also demanding type of guy, which is why he’s relatable in some cases.
