Boosted

     

     

     Three days ago, Francis saw an Instagram post of a former colleague about how she had been given her fist vaccine booster shot. And it reminded him that he hadn’t gotten his first booster shot. So this morning, since he’d also been thinking of buying something, he went to a mall, and at around eleven in the morning, he was inoculated.

     And while still strolling inside the mall, he stopped outside the window of an appliance store, and one of the TVs was on a news program, and the news being aired was about the politicians of his country finally admitting their corruption and promising to return the wealth they had stolen from the nation's coffer.  Some politicians appeared so guilty  that that they were weeping, declaring they were ready to go to jail, some even thinking of committing suicide. And as Francis went out of the mall, he saw a politician jumping from the top floor of the mall, and waving repeatedly with tears in his eyes at Francis before hitting the ground, his brain splattering, the crowd cheering.

    Francis blinked and saw a male nurse in front of him waving his hand at him repeatedly.

    “H-Hey, what?” Francis said, startled.

    “You're spacing out. It's finished. But don’t leave yet, just sit there," he said while pointing to a vacant chair inside the movie house, "stay for at least fifteen minutes, to see if there’d be side effects."

    “What are the usual side effects?”

    “Common side effects are fever, headache, fatigue, nausea, and sometimes, hallucinations.”

     "Hallucinations?"

     "Yes."

     He went home when he felt okay, hoping that his colleague was okay, too, and wasn't feeling any side effects.