Allergy

A flash fiction story by Brian Robinson.

“Good morning Mr Pool. Please take a seat. Before we do any tests, would you like to tell me a bit about your symptoms.”

“Well, over the past few years I seem to have become more and more allergic. My nose pours; my eyes are gritty and weep; and I’m continually clearing stuff from my throat.”

“Now those all sound like fairly common allergic reactions. If you’d just like to bear one arm for me we’ll get some tests done. I’m just going to place a range of substances on your forearm and we’ll see what happens.

While we’re waiting for that, can I have your other arm so I can take some blood samples. I’ll get those off to the lab straight away and we should hear back pretty soon.

Goodness! We are getting a reaction on that arm aren’t we. Let’s see, you seem to be allergic to: milk, pollen, gluten, eggs, meat, fish, insects, pets, and, well, everything else we’ve tested for. That’s most unusual.

Let’s just try a few other things on your other arm. It may be that you are allergic to certain elements. There we go. We’ll just give that a few seconds.

Oh Blimey! You’re allergic to oxygen, water, carbon and most of the benign elements.

Okay, here’s your blood report. Let me see. Hmmm.”

“What does it say.”

“Your blood seems to be reacting in a surprising way. The lab technicians have never seen this before. They’re saying there must be some mistake. Your blood must be contaminated.”

“So what’s the diagnosis Doctor?”

“In a nutshell Mr Pool, it looks like you’re allergic to life and the world.”

“Is there a treatment for that? Is there a pill I can take?”

“The only sure-fire treatment I know for that is death. And that’s a pill we’ll all have to swallow.”