The Droplet

”Look Funky Folks can you see that dripping faucet over there? Someone and I don’t know who must fix it. Tell you what I’ll give Mrs. Urgent a call”

*****

Droplet sat poised on the lip of Faucet’s outlet, waiting. Gravity tugged at her growing belly. The once spherical shape had dropped leaving Droplet looking like a pendant, broad on top with a tapered tail. Surface-Tension hung onto her but was inevitably overwhelmed by Gravity and the Droplets lining up behind her pushed in a constant rhythm. Her thinning cord, cut by Faucet’s edge, sent her flying.

Below her lay a volume of congregated Droplets. Bound by hydrophobic forces they were known as Water. Her entry into Water was not elegant, more like a belly flop causing a deep wound in Water’s surface. In her approach her once spherical shape had returned. This parting of the Waters closed almost instantly with the hydrophobic mechanism. This was not without consequences.

The crash sent Droplet back up into the air because one action causes another. Gravity pulled her back onto unsettled Waters. In it’s agitation Waters sent out tiny Ripples that spread in ever widening circles as Ripples do. Ripples carried news of Droplet’s arrival. There was no end to Ripples reaching every nook and cranny. Leaky kept showing up everywhere like a clown blowing raspberries.

No one could have known that Droplet carried Virus along with her. Even Droplet had no idea. It was a con. Virus was agent COVID-19, the lethal weapon passed on by agent SARS who is in the RIP file in Geneva.

Symptoms incubated inside Droplet. Then when she was far out on her Ripple she sneezed a gust of a sneeze with force enough to throw her over the top, somersaulting down in mass of drips filling Leaky to the brim.

******

Mrs. Icat Chu had gone to her favorite grocery store. Several hours later she reached the checkout. It was bedlam. She couldn’t move in the aisles without bumping into other laden carts.

Back home and later that evening she told Mr. Icat Chu of her experience, “The shelves were half empty. Couldn’t get toilet paper nor sanitizer and those rubbers you wanted. The stationery section also had no note books or pens either and the fellow in front of me in the weaving lineup kept sneezing and spewing droplets all over the place. The poor cashier.”

A fortnight later Mr. Icat Chu told his boss between coughs, “Hey Mr. Chief I feel awful. Must be the flu. I’m going to work at home. Don’t want to infect our coworkers”.

The following week Mr. Chief had to shut shop. He felt he was on his last legs. From the ICU he told his staff to work at home.

*****

“Hello Funky Folks this is Mrs. Urgent calling back, “We don’t be drips now do we?” She had a funny way of communicating because of her rushing, like a waterfall.

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