It had been another difficult night. Dr. Landers woke and slapped at the whine of a mosquito in his ear. The pain in his left hip and difficulty in breathing without coughing hard reminded him how little sleep either symptom had allowed. He couldn't find a comfortable position as he tossed and turned under flannel sheets, far too heavy for the unexpected heat wave that broiled the city. He'd finally fallen into bed at 2 AM, dead on his feet after standing at his laboratory bench more than 48 hours, testing culture after culture for resistance to the disease. Some fool had paged him at 3 AM to plead for help, but the text message was too long and the sender's name and address had been truncated. It seemed hours before he slept again, but his clock showed only six in the morning. He rolled and hung his legs over the edge of the mattress he'd soiled in his sleep. He seemed to be losing control of every part of his body. His hands hurt. How could he write up his notes, he worried. Everything seemed to conspire against his attempts to defeat the plague that now afflicted him as well. He picked up a box of kleenex that had fallen to floor by the bed and kacked a yellow wad into a tissue. Automatically he pulled the soft paper open and scrutinized the phlegm. What was it? What caused it? What had attacked him? Survivors called it simply Terminal Sinusitis.

It had been another difficult night. Dr. Landers toyed with the idea of killing himself. Silly, he mused. Any decision to end it all must be gravely considered and rational. Not seriously, he imagined various methods. The fantasies passed some time between convulsive coughing fits and frantic grabs at tissue he used to catch a gelatinous exudence that blocked his breath. A deep breath was something he longed for. It raised a sense of fabulous liberty, arms outstretched, facing the savannah after bringing it down to scale with a marathon run that reduced its vasty emptiness to his scale. In his daydream he stood in the middle of an infinitely long, rutted dirt road, arms out, palms forward, head up, breathing, vacuuming in the sky, completely rejuvenated by the grand oxygen horizon, ready to repeat without special effort the conquest of another twenty miles like the stretch behind he'd just covered in forty minutes on foot. Then an unheard canvas covered truck barreling along the road ran him over. He shook off the daydream and remembered himself. The lab. Somehow he must get to the lab. He'd staggered home from his hours there searching for an antidote to the toxin that had somehow dispersed throughout the city and was killing democratically. He'd been so exhausted he'd entered his apartment and gone into the bedroom without closing his front door. He was reminded of that oversight when he shuffled into his tiny living room, still dressed only in shorts, and saw the pack of starving dogs eyeing him.

It had been another difficult night. What would be the outcome, Dr. Landers asked himself as he gave up trying to sleep, if contact couldn't be reestablished with the colony on the moon orbiting his home on Cratus III? The nuclear detonations near base camp he'd witnessed through his telescope had nearly cracked the natural satellite and seriously altered its orbit. Its perigee has shorted dramatically and continued to diminish until a collision was inevitable. Or was that the perigee? He never could remember. He'd have to look it up. First the threat of total annihilation and now this damned memory loss. He cursed his fate. If only the fading memory of advanced years hadn't forced him to carry a fat dictionary everywhere he went, he could've achieved something, he muttered. He was always hunched over from lugging the weight of it. His right thumb was raw from flipping its pages. And lately, a serious cold that clogged his nose and throat with goo and forced him into coughing fits had expelled enough yellow crud to glue large parts of his dictionary shut. He would have to look for an expert in book restoration. The thought pained him. It was almost impossible to buy another copy. The volume was expensive and the binding made specially durable. Publication had ceased and no one retained the expertise needed to restore such a treasure now that everyone was braced for the end of their world.

It had been another difficult night. Dr. Landers worried that his hands might not yet be steady enough to continue the secret operation he conducted on his own body. Lying on his back, he forced his chin down against his chest and tried to examine directly the incision. He'd sweated through the long, dark hours of night watching himself in the mirror he fixed to the ceiling. A tray of blood-spattered surgical tools lay next to him. He'd fallen asleep, exhausted, before he'd be able to completely close the wound extending from his sternum to the lower rim of his peritoneal cavity. His anesthetic had worked perfectly. It was his own invention, enhanced meditative stupefaction. It directed the mind's attention away from an area of the body more effectively than sleep, withdrawing consciousness selectively in one place while retaining it in others. His arms worked. His fingers were supersensitive. But his abdominal cavity was completely absent of sensation. A special cigarette and two hours of preparative concentration, complete relaxation, and an acquired ability to not think of something collaborated successfully. He could choose to ignore any part of his body. Ignoring was key. He could could continually not think of a part and mutilate it in any way he like. He would finally be able to perfect his revolutionary surgical technique without involving anyone. Now those skills and his miraculous anesthesia would save him. He had not thought of his stomach or the ghastly dissection throughout the operation and had continued alone to remove the bullet. His last experiment had been on his unwilling landlord who had broken free, run to his desk, pulled out a gun, and shot him before dying.

"That will teach him to come around for the rent a day early," Dr. Landers joked bitterly to himself.

As sunrise began to penetrate the dirty curtains, day sounds floated up from the train station through an open window. He heard a sidewalk vendor shouting to passersby. "Get 'em here, get 'em hot, get 'em fresh. Glazed donuts, chocolate donuts, fruit filled. Get 'em here! You'll love 'em. Taste 'em. Here lady, have a bite." Dr. Lander's hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours. The image of donuts reminded him of hunger. Suddenly he thought of his stomach.

It had been another difficult night. Not only was Dr. Landers much smaller than his calculations had predicted, but the pitch of his voice had risen. He would never again be able to command first position of the back and highest row in the chorus as lead bass. He would be one of those Castrati in the front, chirping and lilting, devoid of manly rhythms that carried the whole group in triumphant song. Now his fate was sealed. The drug continued to work. He felt himself diminishing. What could he do? There was no antidote and no time to create one. The unfortunate consequence of the medication had entered his predictions of possible side effects but nothing like this. He had only meant to create a cure for the common cold, something that would decongest and reduce the bulbous misrepresentation of a nose induced by the infection he'd contracted. Oh, why had he ever thought he could avoid catching a cold. If only he had stayed out of drafts, drunk more fluids, and listened to his mother. Too late. Everything he knew now, the talent and insights he'd employed to achieve academic stature, the exotic chemicals he synthesized that elaborated his existence and protected him, none of those could reverse the seriousness of the medication's effect. Not only had his nose shrunk, his entire body was diminishing at a rate that would reduce him to lead soprano. Music had always been such a comfort during the hard times in his scientific career. It was the one thing that brought him pleasure and reassurance he needed. Scientific laurels were nothing by comparison. His voice was his manhood. It had developed deeply. His resonant tones could vibrate concert hall windows. He became the chamber master of classical quartets that selected repertoire to feature his booming cadences. His voice linked him to joy. People celebrated his voice. But now, what would happen? His attempt to defeat the cold with a shrinkage drug had destroyed his future. He clambered on a chair and strained to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He realized that he was almost too small to view himself. It was evident the effect was graver than he feared. He would not even qualify for the soprano section.

It had been another difficult night. Mike Landers pushed against the driveshaft and slid himself from under the truck he had so far failed to fix. Work was twice as hard because he kept sneezing and blowing snot between his fingers. A bad cold swelled his face and interferred with vision. His tears felt like sand. He kept rubbing them away with his gloved hand and black grease smeared his face. If he couldn't fix the truck, he'd lose his job. That's what the crew chief had yelled at him before the swing shift ended. Come morning, he'd have a paycheck or a pink slip. It was his choice. He'd sweated all night. The engine still wouldn't keep running. Something jammed it. He kicked his feet and rolled up to a sitting position. One more time. He'd stick his head under the hood, short the starter, and that baby would fire up this time. He knew it. He'd gone over everything. He'd pawed through the filthy manuals on the bench. He'd called the factory. He'd rechecked the diagnostic computer readings on the engine. He'd inspected every inch of the drive train, every slip joint and gear. He adjusted and lubricated and replaced everything that looked cockeyed. Now it would run. It had to. He was one day away from eviction. He wife has long since left, bitching about nothing in the fridge, and his propensity to break everything he touched.

"There's not an unbroken glass left in this Goddamn house!" she yelled at him, packing her suitcase. "You can't touch a wall without punching a hole in it. And you call yourself Mr. Fixit. I'm fixing it. I'm outta here." She didn't even close the door behind her.

But he'd prove her wrong. He'd show his boss, and that sour crew. He wasn't a klutz. He could figure things out. Just because his nose was running and he had to keep wiping his eyes to see didn't mean anything. He knew what he was doing. He could fix things blindfolded, if he had to. And he'd look good doing it. He'd look like a professional doing it. That's why he always wore a tie, even when he had on greasy machinists' coveralls and that grimy, brimless hat. He wore a tie because it made him look like the man in charge. He stood and walked to the front of the truck. He leaned under the open hood and touched two bare copper leads together that hotwired the starter. The engine roared into action. He played with the carburetor linkage and rev'ed it. The four hundred horses reared up together when he gave it gas. The torque rocked the truck body. He grinned. He'd never have to worry again. He leaned forward to examine the timing mark on the fan belt. The blast of air from the radiator fan tugged at the end of his tie which fluttered loose. It caught in the whirring generator pulley.