The Bursting

Something is wrong with the rats. The New York City streets are reeking with the stench of the dead rats that pile up on the sidewalk.

Nobody notices when the first one appears, foam lining its mouth and blood running from its eyes. New Yorkers step over it and the most attention it receives is from a dog sniffing its corpse to see if it makes a good chew toy.

It doesn't. The rat's bones have long since dissolved and it looks more like a balloon inflated with pus and blood and organs. The moment the dog's teeth sink in, the balloon pops and it is a mess on the sidewalk. The New Yorker scolds the dog and quickly flees the scene. After all, there are far stranger things in New York City than a dead rat.

Like ten rats, or fifty, found on different avenues and in different Burroughs. The rats are everywhere. Some praise the mystery cause for cleansing the city, others worry about what it means for the people.

The local news picks up the story. It speculates a mystery illness, harmless to humans, but fatal to rats and small animals. Keep your pets inside, they say. Don't take unnecessary risks.

Now there are a hundred rats, stomachs bursting red into the pavement, their insides like strawberry jam. It's an epidemic, cleansing the city of its abhorred vermin-- and also a cat.

When the cat gets sick, everyone knows about it. The story runs rampant on social media and fear grips the city. The cat's transformation into a balloon is slow— agonizing. It is the first time anyone has seen the horror of the disease in real time and now everyone is seeing it. They're afraid. The cat is put down before its bones dissolve completely, but when the needle pierces the cat's bloated form, gelled blood dribbles out onto the veterinary table.

There are thousands of dead rats, piled on the streets. They explode like land mines when the taxis drive over them. The government sends city cleaners to try and manage the problem, but it doesn't matter. The next day, more rats take their place.

When the first child bursts on the playground, all hell breaks loose. It's like the impossibly tense wire that's been stretched to hell above New York has finally snapped. Everyone hoped it would stay small, but now nobody is safe. The government releases a shelter-in-place order but New Yorkers who are able pack up and leave, running anywhere to escape the evolving illness.

More children turn up dead, more pets are euthanized, and there are endless, endless rats.

The migration of New Yorkers has spread the illness at an alarming rate, throughout the nation and to major areas around the world. It starts with the rats, it finishes with people.

The WHO releases statement after statement, borders close, fingers point around the world for who to blame. Scientists are working on a vaccine but it's so distinct from anything encountered in the past that they don't know where to start.

Bodies in the street become commonplace-- they try to walk to their car or a clinic but their legs are already jelly, collapsing inward in an explosion of blood and pus that sticks them to the street. They call out, heart-wrenchingly, but nobody helps. They are too far gone, anyway.

Another child has gotten sick. The only one that matters.

You haven't stopped crying since your fingers looked like over-inflated balloons. I'm scared to touch you for fear that you might burst apart. You have a fever— 109— higher than I've ever seen. You want water but I'm afraid to put the cup to your lips because I've heard of people that have been set off by less. You're only five. Too young to understand why you're in pain, but old enough to know that I'm supposed to be the one who helps. I can't help.

"Ouch, Dada," you cry out because you haven't had the energy to scream in hours.

I know it hurts, but there's nothing I can do but ponder if it is better to let you stay in the minuscule comfort of your toddler bed or try and move you to the clinic down the street. So they can't administer the injection.

I decide to run and get the injection, so you don't have to risk moving.

"Dada, don't leave," your voice sounds like you are gargling something, or maybe your tongue is mushing already. The illness moves faster these days, but I don't know if that's a curse or a mercy.

I tell you I'll be right back.

I put on my rubber boots and sprint out the front door and down to the clinic. I try not to think about the sloshing sound under my boots. I tell myself it's just the snowy slush, but it's June and hotter than hell. I try not to think about the people they were. I accidentally step on someone's arm and it bursts like a jelly donut.

The inside of the clinic doesn't look much better than the streets. I don't even have to ask for the injection, they have them sitting on the counter in a refrigerator box. I take one and start running back.

When I get through the door the house smells like the street and I know something has happened. I rush to your room, screaming your name. The room is red, the bed is soaked with shreds of skin and clots of organs-past. Your water glass is knocked to the floor, empty, rolling left and right on the uneven floor.

You were just here. I was gone for five minutes. I vomit on the floor because of the sight, the smell, or the thoughts that are running through my head at light speed. I sob and run out into the kitchen not knowing where to go or what to do.

My only job was to be your father and I've failed. I collapse to the floor and sob into my hands. How did this happen? How did I let it?

Three days ago you looked up at me with your perfect green eyes and I knew I was your world.

"You okay, Dada?" I wasn't but I lied to you. You are too little to know why we had to stop going to the park and why we couldn't go see Grandma anymore. I was afraid because I knew it was only a matter of time for us.

It is only a matter of time.

I suddenly remember the injection that I've been clutching in my hand like a lifeline. The contents look harmless: clear liquid filled only up to the second line.

A prick. That's all it would take for me. It's unfair that you had agony and I have an easy way out right here in my hands, but life is never fair.

The blood in the other room is proof of that.

I lift the syringe to my arm, shaking and sobbing. I don't want a world without you in it.

A prick. A push of the plunger and the syringe is empty, discarded next to me. I can't leave you alone again.

I stand and go to the red room— your room. I feel dizzy, the edges of my vision pulse and it's an effort to move. I stumble, slipping on your blood down to the floor.

I'm so tired now. The injection is doing its work. There's no cure for the bursting, no vaccine. There's only the hope of a quick death like mine. Like the one you didn't get.

My tongue is heavy. It's an effort to speak but I say I love you as many times as I can even though I know you'll never hear it. "I love you, I love you, I lo—"