Wherever you go, chances are, the Downer’s Contagion is already there. No matter how much you clean, it’s still inside your home. The plague is found in your kitchen. No amount of disinfectant will cleanse the table of it. Meals have now become the battleground for the Contagion. Downer’s can easily spread into the living room and down hallways to infect bathrooms.
Though the extent of the spread into bedrooms of teenagers is truly alarming, Downer’s is a non-discerning contagion also seeping into the bedrooms of adult populations and has proven deadly to relationships.
In just a few short years, in homes across this nation, the numbers who have been infected by Downer’s Contagion have risen to true epidemic proportions.
Protecting yourself at work or trying to isolate yourself from it has proven a futile task. As of now, there is no known vaccine. A growing health risk, medical specialists have open practices to treat the hopelessly long term infected. Downer’s Contagion attack the neck, shoulder, back, wrist, hand, eyes, and the mind. In the most severe cases, surgery is the only option to relieve a victim’s pain. But even surgery isn’t a long-term cure.
Walk the aisles of any grocery store and you can see the infected. Wandering aimlessly with no real direction, they bump into you and then mumble incoherently. It isn’t their fault. It really isn’t them. The disease has progressed too far, and reversal back to normal may not be possible.
Even with many precautions already in place, along with the strict regulations all must adhere to before entering, even schools and churches haven’t been able to prevent or even ebb the spread in any meaningful way. Though it has risen to epidemic proportions among the young, even the older generations are not immune. They too fall prey.
Driving while infected with Downer’s Contagion is considered an IDLH event (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health). The contagion has reached such high proportions local officials have enacted new warnings and laws to help stifle the infection. Sadly a contagion can’t read and, as of yet, can’t be regulated.
Operating a vehicle, or being in one that is operated by someone actively infected with Downer’s Contagion, is to take unnecessary risk and one’s life in one’s hands. If you find yourself with a driver who has active Downer’s Contagion, have them pull over and let you out. It may be the only way you can survive.
Without warning, infected drivers can lose control of their vehicles, swerve into oncoming traffic or veer off the side of the road crashing into trees, embankments, or even careen down steep ravines, causing harm to all occupants of vehicles and, in extreme situations, even death. The Downer’s Contagion, unknown just five short years ago, is now everywhere and quickly becoming a pandemic.
Humanity is at a tipping point. But as dire as it may seem, there is still hope. For all those infected by Downer’s Contagion, there is a cure. No doctor visit, no operation, and no prescription are needed. The cure is unique and simple.
Just look up. Put down that cell phone. Cut off the tablet. Look up. There’s a big wonderful world out there just waiting for you to discover it. Engage once again with your family and friends and “Like” them in person.
Don’t be such a Downer.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
