There are statistical projections, entire data models, that say the sick will soon outnumber the healthy. From a levee, I watch the storm waters rise. By midweek, when the hospitals become overrun, they begin bussing the sick away from the denser population centres. The government establish quarantine zones. They refer to the sites as ‘staging areas’ in an attempt to suggest a transitory effort, but the media are quick to label the locations ghettos.

I see shaky footage of a transport bus as it strikes a lamppost and veers into oncoming traffic. The driver is killed instantly and a fire is started which quickly spreads. The sick remain motionless as the flames rise up and begin to swallow them. Before they are engulfed entirely they turn to face the spectators in the street. Through the grainy film it almost looks like they are smiling.

I watch the news late into the night and wake earlier each morning, tired as if my body is living a double life. I turn the lights low and wrap myself in a blanket in front of the television. When barren winter branches tap at the upstairs windowpanes I hold my breath, mistaking them for knocks at the front door.

I think often about the nameless weeping doctor, that poor unattributed soul. She is roughly the same age Simone had been when we first met. They share a similar complexion. I imagine that in another life they could be sisters, and in a moment of weakness I cut her photograph out of the paper and hide it between the pages of a book. When the house is quiet I sit and study it. With each viewing new details seem to emerge. I notice that she wears a heavy necklace, a black teardrop of stone that sits against her breastbone, and I imagine holding it in my hand.

When the military take control of hospitals throughout the state I search for her face in the swarming crowds. I scour the papers in hopes that she will appear in the background of a photograph. But as the press pull back, as members of the local government gradually succumb to the illness, I feel my hope begin to wane.

In San Francisco a cruise ship en route from Kauai ignores hails and crashes into a dock. It has been at sea for only a few days. When authorities board the vessel they find it empty. Though the eight hundred souls onboard are officially reported missing, lost at sea, authorities note that not a single lifeboat has been used. The coastguard conducts a thorough search and rescue mission but there are no signs of survivors. They leave the ship in port, the hole in its hull yawning like a mouth, the vessel taking on water until eventually it keels over in the shallow water.

Within hours there are reports out of Oregon that the sick have begun to disappear. From the same dimly lit hotel room the press once again interview the nurse with no face. She says that existing medical staff have all been relieved of duty.