The Empathy Bug was on everyone’s lips, both literally and figuratively. It was all anybody was talking about, and it was airborne and so tiny it was able to travel on the moisture leaving the mouth when a person spoke, spat, kissed, or breathed. It was even contractible via a person’s sweat. Before long it was everywhere, and everyone was suffering from it.
The bug came with knowledge hardwired into it, which it passed on to the carrier the second they were infected. Somewhere on the planet, somebody else had caught the bug along with you; somebody who from that moment on would be connected to you on a quantum-empathic level.
There were no symptoms; you just knew you had it; in the same way, you were also aware if the bug left your system, and that could only happen if the sufferer you were linked to died of natural causes.
There was only one consequence when you contracted the bug and became connected. If either of you died an unnatural death, the other would die too; regardless of where you both were on the planet. If your fellow sufferer was murdered, you too would die along with them, instantaneously, for no apparent reason.
Because everyone knew this, the armed forces throughout the world fell apart within days. The bug didn’t discriminate, and the connection was always random. If a soldier were to shoot an enemy soldier dead, then that soldier would be ending two lives, and they would have no idea who the second victim was. It could be a stranger on another continent, or it could be their sister, their lover, a doctor in the middle of a lifesaving operation, or the pilot of a plane; in which case, how many would die from one bullet? Nobody knew. The violence of war was at an end.
Nobody knew where the bug had come from either. There was one school of thought that suggested it was a Top Secret experiment gone global. All the churches suggested it was the hand of their god. A few warned that it was the Devil playing a trick on us all; taking away our free will.
Some people denied the existence of the bug, and those who did were soon deemed to be lacking in humanity; the bug having become a part of who we were as a species. We knew there was no cure, because the bug had told us so when it had infected us.
Some of these deniers went on rampages, killing as many people as they could; claiming that if the empathy bug existed, it would make the human race nothing more than serial killers by proxy for a germ. The bug would be the bullet, and we would be the finger on the trigger. To a denier, this was not acceptable. They would announce or record beforehand that their massacre was for the sake of mankind’s inherent right to kill because he wanted to.
Everybody agreed that these voices of dissent needed silencing, even the harmless ones who were too afraid to act on their belief, but no one was prepared to shut them up permanently. It wasn’t long before the prisons started to see a reduction in murderers being sentenced, and an increase in deniers; just in case they went too far.
The death sentence was abolished in every country on the planet, only to be replaced by punishments even more inhumane in some places.
The right to bear arms in the States was finally revoked, although many still carried a firearm; claiming self-defence excused killing two people, even if one was an innocent child. They argued that if they were killed in a hold-up, then so would the person they were linked to. It was six of one, and half a dozen of the other, they insisted.
The bug didn’t differentiate between premeditated and accidental death either. If you hit a pedestrian because you were driving carelessly and killed them, you were killing two people. If you mopped a floor, left it wet, and someone slipped on it, knocked themselves out, and died of a trauma to the brain, someone else would also pay the ultimate price for your shoddy work. Trust me; I know how it works when that kind of thing happens. I paid the price.
There were those who couldn’t live with the uncertainty of death hanging over them twice. They could do everything possible to stay safe, stay healthy, avoid all risks, but it was futile if you could drop dead in an instant, because someone in another country had accidently dropped a brick from some scaffolding, and hit someone else on the head as they walked by, killing them and you outright. Their only way out of this uncertainty was to end it all themselves, but they knew if they did, then someone somewhere would pay the price with them. To commit suicide, an unnatural death, you would have to become a murderer too.
The population of the planet started to shrink; with every unnatural death taking someone else with it. The rich discovered that money couldn’t protect them from the bug, and the poor started to realise that they were now of some worth, to at least one person they would probably never know.
Time became more important than ever, because everybody knew they had twice as much chance of dying. People quit their jobs; some even quit their families, and set off into the world, so as not to miss out. The population of the planet was living a potential half-life.
Me? I took it all in my stride; now that I had something to focus on. Who would have thought it would take a global pandemic to kick me out of bed on a morning; especially when you consider I was a road sweeper before the bug hit us. Not that I’m belittling the work I did. Nobody wants to live in a litter strewn town, even if they can’t be bothered to carry an empty packet or can around with them until they reach a bin to put it in.
I quit that job when I caught the bug. The fact that I was now linked to someone else on the planet meant I wanted my life to finally mean something. And so I became a superhero. I didn’t acquire super powers, and I certainly wouldn’t be seen dead wearing tights in public, but nevertheless, I left the house one morning, wearing a mask, and sporting a t-shirt with the words “Health & Safety Man” emblazoned on the front of it in bright red letters.
The neighbours laughed at me every day, until one morning, when I stopped young Joe Sanders from stepping out into the road, as a motorcyclist came tearing round the corner of our street and nearly hit him. A petition was started almost immediately, by Mr and Mrs Sanders, to have the street pedestrianised. It came to nothing in the end, but I was still declared a hero.
I would wander the town, keeping a look out for careless pedestrians, and safety hazards. If I spotted a potential risk, I would notify whoever was responsible for it, and warn them that if they didn’t rectify the problem, then there would be “consequences”. I would never clarify what those consequences might be, but my fame had spread throughout the town. It turned out that “Health & Safety Man” was a force to be reckoned with.
I started to receive requests from people, pleading to be my “sidekick”; my mask failing to hide my identity, because I walked from my house on a morning when I put it on and went on my patrols, and would still be wearing it when I returned home at the end of a shift.
Some of these applicants went as far as sending me photographs of them dressed as superheroes. I had to hide a lot of these from my wife, because the costumes were far too revealing; and not in the least bit practical. I dismissed such applications without further consideration; others I took more seriously.
Pretty soon there was an army of “Health & Safety heroes” roaming the town; each officially affiliated to me. I started to compile a register, kept it updated, and made it available online. People could hire one of us to follow them around, and we would ensure that any potential hazards around them were dealt with safely and swiftly. It wasn’t so much the fact that we were protecting our clients from harm; more that we were ensuring they didn’t inadvertently kill other people if a fatal accident occurred.
It was a lucrative business, to begin with, until it got out of hand; until someone had the not-so-bright idea of planting hazards before starting their shift.
You see, each “hero” received a print out of their client’s plans for the day, in advance; so that they could pre-screen any environments they were likely to enter, and pre-empt any accidents.
But this particular hero wanted more. They wanted the glory of a job well done, and so they set up a situation while they were scouting a particular client’s office. They hired a friend to come crashing in to the office around midday, brandishing a gun, and start shouting denier propaganda at the client.
The hero would immediately step in, and deal with this “unexpected risk”, by wrestling their friend to the floor and disarming them; thus saving the client’s life, the person they were linked to, and capture a dangerous denier in the process. It was a near perfect plan.
The problem arose when the hero’s friend barged into the office, yelling “Free will for mankind!” and waving a gun in the air”. The hero hadn’t planned for the intervention of the client’s P.A., a usually timid woman in her sixties who, rather than run and hide from the danger, decided to tackle the denier herself.
At the same time that the hero lunged for their friend, the client’s P.A. stumbled into the office and accidently hit the hero on the head with her walking stick. The hero fell onto his friend, who toppled over and banged their head on the corner of the client’s desk. The P.A. tripped over the intruder and fell to the floor, breaking her fragile neck as she hit the ground, which killed her outright.
The hero and the intruder were rushed to the hospital with head wounds. The hero died on route, their accomplice passed away the next day; having never regained consciousness. The client was so distraught about what had happened that a week later they jumped off the roof of the office block they worked in; hitting a mother passing by with a baby in a buggy, and killing both on impact.
The press dug their heels in and rummaged around in bins until a link was found between the hero and the intruder. Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together, and the whole sorry story made the news internationally.
All in all, at least twelve people were dead, and although I myself wasn’t personally responsible for any of the deaths directly, the blame was pinned securely on me. I had hired the wrong person, and having been paid for the job, had also profited from the tragedy. Business fell and eventually dried up altogether. I was put on trial, and I was found guilty of administrational negligence, and sentenced to five years in prison.
I know that because I’m here in a cell, it is safer for at least one other person out there; whoever I am linked with by the bug. I know I will never know who you are, whether we have ever met, or ever will. I do wonder about you sometimes though.
Are you getting on with your life? Do you worry about what I am up to? Are you concerned that I’m putting myself at risk of an unnatural death? Do you take more care yourself, in order to keep me safe? Maybe you’re one of the jailers in here; keeping me locked up in this cell, keeping the world safe from me.
I think it’s sad that it took a sickness to make me think about you, and I’m sorry I never acknowledged your existence before the bug came along. I wonder if we’d ever get along; if I knew who you were, and you knew who I was. Would we have anything in common, other than the connection thrust upon us by the bug, if we met and tried to engage with one another?
The question should be “Does it matter anyway?” I wish it didn’t, but I’m pretty sure it does. It’s how we’re made. We’re programmed to look after ourselves first, to survive. We have to be selfish, in order to protect those we love. That’s how we justify our inherent need to concentrate on how we are, before we consider those around us.
Whether the empathy bug has succeeded in showing us another way to live remains to be seen; the jury is out and the debate continues to this day. Do we genuinely care about the welfare of whoever we are now connected to by the bug, or are we still looking out for number one?
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