That Rabies Incident by Michael Castle (summer books .TXT) 📕

Rabies
We stood at the top of the mountain and surveyed our surroundings. You could see all of Pushkar with the buildings surrounding the lake. In the distance was a camel fair, filled with wagons and camels.

On the way back down Hannah began to get comfortable in the delegating of nuts to my little monkey followers. She stopped dropping then on the group and running away and let them take the nuts from her hand.
“Hey Mika do you think this big male I am feeding is a bit too….”
Suddenly the monkey took the last of her nuts and decided she was a bit rude by not having any more for him, so scratched her on the hand. “…. angry… hey!”
I looked on. She paused for a moment. She paused some more and looked at the monkey running off, the full implications not yet hitting her. She looked at her hand again. More silence. I waited for it to begin.
“Mika.”
“Yes Hannah?”
A bit more silence. “Mika.”
She looked around frantically suddenly realising the sky had fallen on our heads and the end was near.
“This is so your fault Mika!”
“What is?” I said innocently.
“The monkey scratched me!”
“Ohh that.”
“What am I going to do!?” She asked
“About what?” I tried to look confused.
“R-r-rab-rabiessss….” She was in a near panic by this stage, so she hit me on the back of the head.
“Watch where you swing that rabied hand of yours you never know what sort of diseases you are going to spread.” I said defensively.
“I’ll give you rabies!” she retorted and had another swing at my head. I wondered if this was a side effect of rabies and if its onset had set in yet.
“You know I think a side effect of rabies is wanting to go down fighting and take everyone with you, I think it may have already set in.” I informed her.
She sat down on the ground dejectedly.
“This is the end Mika, I have but a few hours to live, we should make the best of what I have left, Mika thanks for the good times. Give me a hug goodbye.”
I wondered if this was a trap or if these wild mood swings were part of the rabies.
“This isn’t a trap Mika! I am serious!” she said angrily.
I decided it must be wild mood swings and not a trap. Then I realised if wild mood swings were part of rabies then all women were born with rabies. Maybe kids were right about this whole girls have cooties thing, but maybe it wasn’t cooties but more rabies. Smart people those kids.
“Hannah are your wild mood swings the rabies talking or you?”
“I AM NOT HAVING WILD MOOD SWINGS.”
“Ok sorry my mistake.”
The monkey scratch had not broken the skin and our helpful Indian guy who was following us/trying to sell us stuff/using my nuts to feed the monkeys/wanted some money informed her that since there was no blood then it was likely she might not have rabies at all.
Hannah peered at the scratch almost willing it to bleed.
“Do you think this part which is a bit red is blood? Is the skin broken?”
“Not at all” I replied, still a little scared of her rabies to inform her that maybe the skin was a little bit broken.
Hannah was still not convinced. “I told you I was going to die of rabies!” and once again she tried to hit me on the back of the head.
“What was that for?”
“For not believing me when I said I was going to die of rabies. Now I am in the middle of the mountain, miles from a hospital and I have 4hrs before I get rabies.”
Like all good travelers I had a plan for the rabies. “I think we should put alcohol on it and maybe then the rabies will be healed.”
She looked at me for a second and shook her head. “Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe you are useful.”
So that became our action plan for curing Hannah’s rabies. The only small problem was we were in a holy village and alcohol was harder to get your hands on than just about anything. As we had learned earlier with the holy man it was easier getting some crack or heroin than alcohol, they sure had their priorities sorted here.
“No I don’t think you should have some cocaine to fix your rabies. Maybe for your wild mood swings… err…. ,“ I paused here for a moments reflection, “Well I guess you don’t have them anyway so it won’t help.”
I walked off down the hill quickly in the hope she didn’t notice my serious slipup. I needn’t have worried, she was by now so concerned about her rabies to mention much about anything besides informing every tourist walking up the hill that she had indeed contracted rabies and she had barely hours to live and if they had any alcohol. Most thought her plea’s a cunning plan to wrangle some alcohol out of them. They were probably not far wrong.
Finally we walked into the hostel; well Hannah stumbled for added effect crying out “alcohol” to the manager. I quickly explained the situation to him. He looked a bit dubious to say the least but he managed to rustle up an empty bottle of scotch which contained a few dregs. Now as any good traveler does when they get their hands on some alcohol they drink every last single drop so when I say a few drops, I mean about three.
Hannah pounced on the bottle snatching it from the man’s hand holding it upside down to try and get the final three drops which she eagerly smeared into her hand. I sneaked away hoping no-one noticed that I was with her. I was not to be spared that honor. Hannah began eagerly telling all in the room about how she had probably contracted rabies while with the skinny one sneaking down the stairs over there. I quickly headed to the toilet door to pretend that had been my destination all along and was unlucky to miss the rest of her wildly animated re-enactment of how it had ‘really’ gone down. I don’t think she did me any justice at all from the looks I got when I came out.

Publication Date: 11-24-2009

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