Free The Viral Epiphany by Richard McSheehy Page A

they didn’t usually stay and neither Sam nor Stephen paid any attention to those that did fly in.   Mosquitoes are not very common at the Tokyo Zoo and neither Stephen nor Sam noticed the small Aedes mosquito that had flown in and was now circling the head of the baby mammoth.   Perhaps it was something in the scent of the mammoth or maybe it was the baby’s skin temperature that was the attraction.   Maybe both.   The mosquito soon landed on the baby’s head, amidst the jungle of mammoth hair. It was, however, not a good location and it immediately took to the air again.   It then landed beside the mammoth’s eyelid. Here there was soft tissue, moist with fluid from the baby’s eye.   The mosquito inserted its needle sharp proboscis and released a flood of anticoagulants into the mammoth and blood began to flow into the mosquito.   But only for a moment.
    The mammoth’s eyelid came crashing down in response to the itch of the anticoagulant material and the mosquito flew away, barely escaping death.   It flew far from the animal and then began circling back, still in need of nourishment. This time it landed on a more familiar type of host. It landed on Sam’s neck. A moment later – Slap! Sam took his hand away from his neck and looked at his palm.   He saw the splattered remains of the dead mosquito and a smear of blood.   He didn’t know it was a mixture.   It was not only his blood that he saw but also the blood of the mammoth.   He never gave it a moment’s thought.   It was just part of life and nothing more, not even worth a shrug.   He picked up the brush and continued washing the mammoth.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Ten
            It can be a cold universe when one is autistic, even if only mildly so.   Sam Tanigawa’s autism would have been diagnosed as mild.   Perhaps one of his schoolteachers might have said something; maybe his parents should have noticed his preoccupation with animals to the exclusion of human friends and had him checked by a doctor.   Maybe his employers at the zoo should have done something.   But no one ever did.   Nor did anyone ever realize that Sam’s private world was also a world of muted sepia tones.   He was profoundly colorblind.
    The people around him had always been a sort of distant galaxy of bright lights and annoying sounds, but animal friends were different. They were quiet and intuitive; they didn’t say unintelligible words or write incomprehensible squiggles on paper.   They were patient and kind to him and he, in turn, was patient and kind to them.   Nevertheless, he knew there was something missing from his life, something important, and now he would get it.   He hadn’t told anyone he was going, not even Doctor Itagaki - after all, why should he?   Besides, he would be back to work on Monday.
                It was Saturday night, only four days after Sam began taking care of the baby mammoth, but it was also his twenty-first birthday.   He had never been very excited about birthdays; they were, after all, just another day.   His parents had never celebrated his birthday either, but it really didn’t matter to him.   However, he was very aware that this birthday, becoming twenty-one years old, signified something very important. It was a threshold of some sort, a passage to adulthood.   He had spent untold hours contemplating what he should do to mark the occasion, because, he knew, marking events was very important.   Significant things always had to be marked.
    Six months ago Sam had decided that he would give himself a present in order to remember his most special birthday – a weekend in Bangkok, the sex capital of Southeast Asia.   This would be the perfect way to mark the crossing of the greatest threshold in life, but it would also do more than that.   He had never had a girlfriend.   He had never gone on a date. He had virtually no social life, and he