The Pox had come, and we were unprepared.
No sickness e’er had swept the world this fast,
And felled this many men in so few days.
Within an hour, exposure claimed the life
Of any so unlucky as to breathe
The virus-laden air, or touch the corpse
Of one the Pox had claimed in suffering.
I knew, somehow, that I could find the cure
When Jack fell ill beside me, an’ quickly died;
While I was breathing freely of his air
And never felt the onslaught of the rash,
The boils, nor the putrid sores that itch
And crack and bleed. O! How could I be safe?
O! Why should I deserve to keep my life
I’ th’ face of what had claimed so many others?
Doctor Ashline did the tests himself:
Looking at my blood beneath the scope,
And seeing it react or not react
T’ th’ presence of the virus in the dish.
“How very odd. Your platelets do not rupture,
Nor do your White Blood Cells zombify
As all the others have in my research.
Perhaps the antidote is in your blood?
Our lab has all we need to make the cure!
Distill the blood—“ he stumbled to his knees,
A spreading rash had blossomed ‘cross his chest.
The pain was in his eyes, I saw it there;
Yet, nonetheless, he staggered to this feet.
“Already all my strength is sapped from me,
My limbs will not obey my mind’s commands
E’en as they did just thirty seconds hence.
Your arm, my friend, I need it for support.
Together we must brew the antidote,
For I have not the strength to do ’t myself.”
And, for the better part of half an hour,
We labored in his lab to make the cure:
Powdered zinc and rosemary combined
With blood dripped freshly from my veins,
Distilled within an oddly shaped machine -
The likes of which I’d never seen before.
“Lucky, very lucky, this was here.
I have ‘t on loan for just another week.
The distillation’ll take another hour,
Maybe two if still it’s looking thin.
I pray to God it works on this first try,
For I’ll be dead before this batch is brewed.
Do you remember all the steps we took?
The measurements, proportions that we used?
It’s up to you to to test the cure, my friend;
And save as many—“ Boils, red and mean,
Blossomed ‘cross his throat and stole his breath.
Suffice to say, the antidote we’d made
Effectively combatted the disease,
And all who took a sip were cured at once.
For weeks the doctors bled me dry to make
As many vials of the magic-cure
As could be made, to save the lives of all.
Exhausted from the absence of my life-blood,
I became the only sickly man.
And when the Pox was banished from the Earth,
My life became the last it e’er would claim.
