The ninth deadliest disease was kept in a small vial in a small laboratory in a small town in a small country. The ninth deadliest disease felt kind of forgotten, as if it just wasn’t all that important or dangerous or even deadly at all. So it decided to break free.
It started with a teeny, tiny crack in the bottom of the vial. A drop of the ninth deadliest disease leaked out and onto an insect. The insect got sick, it fell into the coffee cup of one of the lab technicians and drowned. The technician felt fine, for a few days. On the day the technician started feeling less than fine it was already too late. The ninth deadliest disease had found it’s way out into the world again.
On the first day it became air borne again. How it had missed sailing along on the breeze! Floating on currents of air until it drifted down into the air passage of some unsuspecting mortal. In a week the ninth deadliest disease was infecting over half the people in the small town. But that wasn’t enough.
The small town exported coffee beans. It was no great challenge to contaminate the freshly roasted coffee beans and travel to North America and all the coffee drinkers there. The ninth deadliest disease really loved all that cream and sugar, the caffeine gave it quite the buzz too.
In a month the ninth deadliest disease was on the news. People were afraid to drink coffee from anywhere. It had spread around the world using tourists, business travelers and pigeons.
But, things began to change. Someone, some scientist in another laboratory came up with a drug to fight the ninth deadliest disease. Even though it had become stronger, mutated to become deadlier, the drug worked against it. It took time, a lot of time and though the ninth deadliest disease didn’t give up, the tide had begun to turn.
In a year, after a year of great travels, great adventures and greater challenges, the ninth deadliest disease wound down and was put into another vial on a dusty shelf, tagged for future study. The mayhem left in it’s wake was it’s only sign that anything had ever been any different.
On another shelf, the tenth deadliest disease was jealous! Tell that story.