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The Weekly Review - Edition 48
4 years ago
The Weekly Review – Edition 48
FEATURING
Notable News!
Featured Short Story: The Coronavirus!
Who’s Who: Bill_Ingersoll, ISentinelPenguinI, RobustSporadic, SindriV and JMGSkills!
NOTABLE NEWS
In Newbie Central BraveHermit, Desertfox, West_0912 and ImpiriTonggali join the site while Tonyflamingo has some sort of bizarre meltdown!
In the Lounge Mizal’s Outbreak Fever Thread is helping people through this tricky time!
In the Creative Corner Mizal’s inspired Corona Tag leads to a lot of great writing!
In the Writing Workshop Berka reports excellent progress on writing his newest story!
FEATURED SHORT STORY: THE CORONAVIRUS
Last week I wrote this short story for Mizal’s inspired Coronavirus Tag: it is about three pages long in Word and would take about 5 minutes to read:
The Coronavirus
“I am sorry, there is nothing that we can do.”
The doctor shook his head and picked up the syringe. It was filled with a clear liquid. The doctor tapped it lightly
to dislodge microscopic bubbles and then turned to smile at the patient bound to the bed.
“It is quite effective, do not worry. It is quick and it is painless. You will not feel a thing. It is just like going to sleep.”
“You can’t do this! I told you, just put me in isolation. That’s what you did with all the others who had the coronavirus wasn’t it? You just put them in quarantine for a few weeks and they recovered. I can do the same!”
The doctor sighed and pushed his spectacles up his nose.
“You are not the same as them. They followed the rules quietly and without a fuss. You have been criticizing the government of our country to every person you know and many people you have never even met. You have been bad-mouthing us on Twitter, Facebook, WeChat and you sent emails to every single person in your contact list claiming we are lying about the death toll. Did you not realize that we monitor all the technology in this country, that you only get the internet because of our satellites?”
“But you are lying about the death tolls! You are pretending things are better than they are.”
The doctor sighed.
“Of course, we are. Every country is. People are scared already, why add to the panic? You saw what happened to the stock market, to the tourism and hospitality industries. If we told the truth the panic would be worse. It is nice to be truthful in theory but in the real world we have to be practical.”
“But you can’t kill me for telling people the truth!”
The doctor looked mildly puzzled.
“Why on earth would you think that? You have the virus already. We just say your case was fatal. Actually, to tell you something that I should not, though I do not suppose that it matters, this virus has been a wonderful opportunity to silence most of our most vocal political and civilian critics in this country. Really, in the long run this is a great thing for us. Anyway, I would love to talk some more but I am afraid I have another six coronavirus cases to make fatal this morning so with no further ado…”
The doctor stepped towards the patient, raised the syringe and the patient closed his eyes.
*******************************************************************************************
Suddenly the patient’s arm broke free from its strap, his right hand grabbed the doctor’s crotch and twisted hard. With a silent gasp of pain the doctor dropped the syringe and doubled up clutching his groin as the patient’s second arm broke free from the straps. Moving quickly the patient jumped to the floor, snatched up the syringe, stuck it into the back of the doctor’s neck and emptied the contents into his blood system. The doctor was right: it killed instantly.
Moments later, breathing deeply, the patient stared down at the body at his feet and then quickly began pulling off the doctor’s jacket and trousers. Pulling them over his own clothes he hastily did up the buttons and helped himself to the doctor’s shoes as well. Checking himself in the mirror in the bathroom he splashed water on his face and smoothed back his head to try and bring himself calm. With a deep breath he pushed open the door and stepped into the corridor.
“Doctor?”
A nurse was calling him from a doorway across the corridor.
“Doctor, our own consultant has been stuck in an interrogation on Floor 3. Could you deal with our two patients for us?”
She held up a tray on which lay two syringes. The patient stared at her and glanced left to see two armed soldiers standing either side of an exit at the end of the corridor. They were guarding the door and watching him without emotion. Swallowing the “doctor” nodded and followed the nurse into her room. Two men lay on the beds before them. One was unconscious, his face covered in sweat and his breathing laboured. The other patient, an older man, was awake and watched him nervously.
Picking up a syringe the patient took a deep breath, stuck it into the first man’s arm and emptied the contents. A second later the man’s breathing stopped. Laying the empty syringe back on the nurse’s tray the patient slowly picked up the second syringe. Sweat trickled down his forehead. He approached the second man on the bed who stared back at him with fear in his eyes. The nurse came to stand next to him, her eyes alive with excitement.
“You don’t have to do this,” the man on the bed said.
Turning quickly the patient stuck the second syringe into the nurse’s arm and emptied the contents. He caught the woman as she fell and lay her gently on the floor. The man on the bed breathed a deep sigh of relief as the “doctor” straightened up and put a finger to his lips indicating silence. Heart thudding crazily the patient turned and walked back to the door, checking his reflection in a mirror on the way. With a final sigh he pushed it open.
He walked swiftly down the corridor towards the exit. The soldiers standing either side hadn’t moved, their rifles remained held diagonally across their chests. They watched him unemotionally as he approached, stretched out a hand and turned the handle. The door swung open and a blast of cold wind from the outside ruffled his clothes.
The patient stole a last glimpse at the soldiers out of the corner of his eyes but they stood as still as statues, as though they had always been standing there since the beginning of time.
The patient raised a foot to step outside but as he walked forward the exit seemed to shrink away from him. He walked quicker and then began to run but the door zoomed away from him and suddenly he was hurtling back down the corridor, back through the door into his room and back into his bed. The straps rebound themselves around his wrists and the doctor rose back up off the floor to stand over him, syringe held aloft and ready.
*******************************************************************************************
The patient opened his eyes.
He had never left the bed. He had never escaped the room. He had never reached the exit.
A mere second of imagination had passed.
The doctor jabbed the syringe into the patient’s arm, injected the contents into his blood stream, straightened up, checked the time and left the room to continue his rounds.
WHO’S WHO: BILL_INGERSOLL, ISENTINELPENGUINI, ROBUSTSPORADIC, SINDRIV AND JMGSKILLS!
36: Bill_Ingersoll
Joined: 2019
Last Active: Currently Active
Top Stories: Secret of the Grass Planet (Science Fiction) and Woban Island (Fan Fiction)
Notable For: One of the site’s newer members Bill is a gifted and prolific author and one of the few known site members whose writing talent has been used in the “real world”, having authored or co-authored thirteen published books. Needless to say, he knows all the ins and outs of writing and is a particularly effective reviewer, a lively forum presence and an excellent author, particularly of horror or science-fiction stories.
37: ISentinelPenguinI
Joined: 2013
Last Active: Currently Active
Top Stories: Various
Notable For: The Penguin is a site member that defies easy description. In the words of the Sorting Hat “There’s talent there” but his writing style is particularly unique (for a sample, see his profile page) and often hilarious. ISentinelPenguinI has been around for seven years, livening up the forums with his always-interesting posts, though oddly his writing talent has rarely expressed itself in cys form (perhaps the genre is too limiting?). Like End, a genuinely awesome character.
38: RobustSporadic
Joined: 2012
Last Active: 2018
Top Stories: Various
Notable For: Another of the gone-but-worth-mentioning site members who apparently was only really active for the first year after he joined. He put in quite a first year though, milking the daily point feature like a boss, rating all the stories on the site, writing an ok story game and putting in occasional forum appearances, all the while developing his English as a second language. Not bad contributions considering.
39: SindriV
Joined: 2011
Last Active: Currently Active
Top Stories: Homo Pefectus 7 (Science Fiction)
Notable For: SindriV is another of the site’s best, though perhaps not-so-well-known authors whose Homo Perfectus series is undoubtably the best series of cys stories on this site, particularly Homo Perfectus 8 which was, for a long time, the only 8/8 rated story on the site. A fairly quiet guy Sindri’s writing ability and his skill with using the variables and item features on this site have led to his host of trophies, points, commendations and position as number one Warden by quite a long way.
40: JMGSkills
Joined: 2011
Last Active: 2014
Top Stories:
Notable For: Another vanished site member in his three years on the site JMG published a nine-part Star Wars series and a four-part Blackwood series. All have been unpublished as he’s moved onto other things and he is one of the few members who basically took everything with them when they left the site (Seth and Kiel are two others). Still, he did a lot of writing and reviewing when he was here and deserves a mention.
CONCLUDING CREDITS
Notable News: BraveHermit, Desertfox, West_0912, ImpiriTonggali and Tonyflamingo.
Who’s Who: Bill_Ingersoll, ISentinelPenguinI, RobustSporadic, SindriV and JMGSkills.
