The Viral Epiphany by Richard McSheehy Page A

Stephen’s mind frantically leaped from possibility to possibility, Sam’s mind was calm and extremely focused.   The first girl, she said her name was Suchin, had been truly amazing.   Sam had never imagined such pleasure was possible and he was in awe of her.   Suchin, however, didn’t seem to think anything remarkable had happened.   He was looking at her with reverence, but she only giggled something to her friend and made hand gestures that he didn’t understand.   Then, her friend, Boon-mee, nonchalantly removed her clothes and walked towards him.   In a moment he forgot Suchin. His mind was filled with the sight of Boon-mee and her stunningly perfect body as she pushed him down and straddled him.   He was truly overwhelmed by the sight of Boon-mee, the physical pleasure he felt, the feminine laughter of Suchin somewhere in the distance. He looked upward at the ceiling and saw the speckled pattern of swirls of the plastered ceiling and he smiled a smile of exquisite pleasure.
                It was the swirls that drew him in.   The way they flowed always around and around and inward to the center.   Each one was almost perfect but then he would note a slight flaw but then there would be another one beside it and they were always flowing clockwise, always clockwise.   It was like the true motion of the universe he felt in his body now. Boon-mee felt different from Suchin, different but still so good just like the spirals.   He looked up to the right for more spirals but the right was becoming dark and cloudy, like the sky before it rains. He looked to the left and saw the same dimness in the room.   His central vision was clear, but why were the sides so cloudy?   And then even the center started to dim.   For a moment Sam thought something might be wrong, was it something about the air?   Yes, there wasn’t enough air to breath – and it was getting dark.   He opened his mouth to call out to Boon-mee. She needed to get off now! He couldn’t breathe!
                Boon-mee looked down and her eyes widened in horror as she screamed.   “Blood!…Blood!… Suchin!!”  
                Sam couldn’t understand.   She was screaming. He could see that, but he couldn’t hear her.   Air…he needed air!   His mouth was very wet and he could taste something salty.   Even his cheek felt wet.   Was the bed wet beneath him?   Why was it getting cold?   Why couldn’t he hear her anymore?
                Suchin looked at the two of them and screamed along with Boon-mee.   The bed was rapidly becoming covered in Sam’s blood.   He was bleeding from his mouth and nose.   There was blood underneath him seeping into the bed linens.   It even looked like there might be blood coming from one of his eyes.   He was staring at the ceiling now, staring but not moving.
                Boon-mee rolled off the bed and fell to the floor in horror.   “Suchin!   Help me!”
                Suchin couldn’t move, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.   “This must be a dream.” She heard herself mutter, “A dream.”   From somewhere a voice called her. It seemed to come from a thousand miles away, “Suchin!! Help me!!”
                Meanwhile, as midnight softly approached in Tokyo, and the crescent of a new moon cast a thin light upon the elephant hut at the zoo, Stephen Itagaki stood gaping, unable to speak.   The baby mammoth, the embodied spirit of a long extinguished life that he had so brilliantly rekindled, had died only moments ago in a pool of darkening red blood.
               
               
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Eleven
                “Tommy” Lim Pai Seng was a genius.   Everyone knew it; which was why he was alone at his desk today.   Everyone else from the Thai Department of Disease Control was at the international bird flu conference at the Sheraton Bangkok.   Tommy had