Courtney Chapman's three-year-old son Tommy was lost in a daze as he stared at the iron wall that divided the town of Riverside in two. It stood a mighty five stories high, which was taller than any of the other establishments in the modest-sized town. The wall didn't wrap around the town limits, but checkpoints were setup along those perimeters. When Courtney stopped at one, a guard inquired about her business in the town. When she told him she was moving in with her sister, he asked for her address. She had to fish through her console for the paper it was scribbled on, and the guard told her that her sister lived on the east side of the town, which was the vaccine-free side. Courtney, ignorant and insouciant regarding vaccines, thought little about this.
Before she was let through, the guard explained that her son was to remain unvaccinated so long as she lived on the east side. But the option to vaccinate him was always available, so long as she moved out of the east side.
When Courtney reunited with her sister, she asked her about the reasoning behind the division of the town.
“Something the mayor decided to do after the latest outbreak of the flu on this side of country,” Bessie explained. “He hasn't disclosed the reason why he spent so much money building a wall and separating the town like this, so I'm as clueless as you are.” Bessie didn't share her opinion on the division while she helped Courtney unload the moving truck, and the topic wasn't brought up again until later that evening when they sat on her back patio, sipping iced water.
“It's child abuse,” Bessie said after Courtney asked for her stance on vaccines. “It may not seem like it, but that's because the doctors won't tell you what's in the vaccine. Do you know what's in a vaccine?”
Courtney pictured a syringe filled with a vaccine and guessed, “Water?”
“The virus it's supposed to protect you from.”
“Is that true?”
Bessie nodded and then threw up a hand with a shrugged shoulder as an I-don't-get-it gesture. “What's the point of protecting your kid from a virus if you're just going to give it to them, anyway?” She leaned closer and, with coldness added to her already-stern tone, asked, “I bet you can't guess some of the other ingredients in a vaccine.”
Courtney shook her head slowly, a bit annoyed that Bessie didn't just tell her rather than playing 20 Questions.
Bessie reared her head back and said, “Aluminum hydroxide. Mouse brains. Formaldehyde.” She waved a finger at Courtney while saying, “And that's just a few examples.” She lowered her hand. “Stuff like that doesn't belong in a vaccine—it belongs in a Satanic ritual.”
Courtney frowned and tried to repel the invading thought of having such repulsive and dangerous ingredients flowing through her veins.
“And that's not even the worst thing about vaccines,” Bessie said.
Though she didn't want to hear it, Courtney was curious about what could be worse than having mouse brains pumped into one's bloodstream and listened attentively.
Bessie leaned closer, and Courtney brought her ear closer. “They cause autism.”
The two returned to their usual postures, and Courtney's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really?”
“Yup,” Bessie said, her head bobbing from a slow, serious nod.
Courtney found her son chasing Bessie's five-year-old son Reed across the backyard. Though Reed had the clear advantage in the form of longer legs and experience, he handicapped his pace. Tommy ran up to the older boy, a huge smile on his face and stumpy legs doing their best to carry out their owner's wishes. Courtney wondered if hers or Bessie's son would be enjoying the early evening sun right now if either of them contracted autism from a vaccine that was supposedly designed to aid with their immunity. How would their childhoods differ? How would their entire lives differ? Would someone assist Tommy in making his mother a grandmother?
“Granted, there's only a 1 in 110 chance of it happening,” Bessie said, “so 109 kids get off scotch-free. But that's 109 kids who have to deal with the virus inside of them now. That's 109 kids who get the symptoms of the flu the vaccine was”—Bessie pressed her index finger repeatedly against her armrest—“supposed to protect them from. I don't get why parents would do that to their kids,” she said, throwing her leg aggressively over the other. “If they did their research like me, they'd know better. Like the ingredients in a vaccine?” She swiped a finger through the air as if she were holding a tablet while saying, “Right there on the CDC's website.”
Wrinkles of disgust dug into Courtney's face as she frowned again, amazed that such vile information was available on the website of an otherwise reliable source. She thought that would be like if the official US government website was adorned with a banner that read We were behind 9/11.
“And that's not all I found,” Bessie said. “Dig deep enough and you'll find all sorts of crazy information. Like how vaccinations are a huge business scam by the pharmaceutical companies.” After that, Bessie spouted on and on for what seemed like hours to Courtney about how all forms of entertainment—books, social media websites, cellphones—were all diversions to keep people from researching the truth about vaccines. After forty minutes and no end in sight to Bessie's ramblings, Courtney excused herself by stating that it was time for Tommy's evening walk, which was a tradition started right then. As if she hadn't been interrupted mid-sentence, Bessie let her sister have her leave, while she headed inside to start dinner.
Courtney rubbed her temples as she walked along the fenced yards of Bessie's neighborhood. It was surprisingly empty to Courtney, who was used to seeing at least a few children playing on the sidewalks or shouting in their yards. Many of the driveways were also empty, like the neighborhood decided to head out somewhere. If Courtney had walked with her eyes open, she would have thought that the governor declared a state of emergency or everyone had evacuated while Bessie was spouting her nonsense.
Her eyes were closed most of the walk, but she opened them every now and again and at one point noticed a woman walking to the wooden fence of her yard. She ignored her at first but observed that the woman seemed to be waiting for her.
The woman was in her mid-thirties, same as Courtney, but she looked older, with bags beneath her eyes and wrinkles trenched beside the corners of her lips. Her red hair looked like she had been running her fingers through it all day. She stared at Courtney with bloodshot eyes, like she hadn't slept a wink in days. She wore a yellow camisole beneath her black shirt. To Courtney, she looked like the sort of woman whose house would be the apartment complex to no fewer than two dozen cats, and she ushered her son out of the woman's line of sight.
“Excuse me,” the woman named Rose said as Courtney drew closer. “I might be wrong, but did you and your son just move in?” she asked, pointing first to Courtney, to Tommy, and then to Bessie's house.
Courtney stopped before the woman, kept Tommy out of her sight, and said, “Yes, we moved in today.”
The neutral expression on Rose's face melted to one of disgust as she asked, “What's wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?” Courtney spat back.
“You heard me. Why would you move to this side of town, where the flu is widespread?”
“What's wrong with moving in with my own sister while I work here?”
“Besides the fact that you've endangered your own son?” Rose said, a red-painted fingernail pointed at the child cowering behind his mother's leg.
“Endangered him?” she said, flabbergasted. “My son is safer on this side of town than he is over there!” Courtney jabbed a finger at the wall.
“How stupid can you be?” Droplets of saliva leapt from Rose's tongue. Courtney saw the projectiles and stepped backward, disgusted, to avoid them. Several curious residents that had been enjoying a peaceful evening peered out their windows to watch the conflict. “Anyone with half a brain who also did their research would know that vaccines are 100% safe.”
“For your information,” Courtney retorted, her words nearly a yell, “my sister has done her research and told me about all of the dangers of vaccines and what's in them.”
“Mommy,” Tommy mewled. Courtney placed a tender hand on his head.
“Oh really? And what has she told you?” Rose asked. “ That vaccines cause autism?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, she did.”
“Garbage! Absolute nonsense!” Rose spat. “If your sister had really done her research, she'd know that there's no creditable evidence linking vaccinations to autism.”
“Why should I believe your 'research' over my sister's?”
“Because you'd be stupid not to,” Rose said, and gestured toward Tommy.
“My sister's research has done her good, because her son is fit as an ox.”
“That's easy to say when the woman refuses to let her son out of the house,” Rose said bitterly.
Courtney grounded her teeth together and dug her nails into her palm, to the point where she thought she might draw blood.
“Aww, what's the matter?” Rose mocked. “Can't handle the hard truth? Tell me: What other nonsense has your sister been feeding to you? Did she tell you the ingredients? Ha!” She said slyly, “I bet she didn't tell you that all of the ingredients are in there for a reason!”
Courtney's hand squeezed the rounded tip of a fencepost. “What in God's name would mouse brain be doing in a vaccine?! Or aluminum? Or formaldehyde? Don't you know how deadly formaldehyde is?”
Rose held up three fingers and bent each one back as she explained each ingredient's purpose: “Mouse brains stimulate antibody levels, while formaldehyde keeps the virus from reproducing. And why are you so damned worried about aluminum? Or did you drop out of middle school before you could learn that it's the most common metal there is? I hope you don't take antacid tablets, because they contain 1,000 times more aluminum than any one vaccine.”
“Then what about the virus? What's the point of protecting yourself from a virus if you're just going to inject yourself with it, anyway? Huh?” Courtney placed her hand on her hip. “Got an explanation for that one?”
“That's the point of a vaccine!” Rose shouted, her own nails clawing at the fence. “A dead or weakened version of the virus is injected so that the body can develop the necessary antibodies to fight it off should the real thing come along. What, did you think that vaccines”—she waved her fingers through the air as if she was speaking of magic—“implanted white blood cells primed and ready to fight off the virus? Or maybe nanomachines instead. Bet if either were the case, you wouldn't have any problems.”
Several neighbors stood on their patios and porches, watching as Courtney held a balled fist, veins popped, behind her back to restrain from slugging the woman.
“Since you're so high and mighty and know all that's right for this world,” Courtney said, “why stay over here, huh? Why not climb over that wall and live happily forever after with all of the other perfect people over there?”
“I stay here to teach stupid people like you how wrong they are.”
“By yelling at them and spitting in their faces?” Courtney lowered her brow and then started away. “And you call me stupid.”
Rose spat after her, but her saliva splattered far from its target. “You know what? I hope your son gets sick! I hope he grows so ill that the hospital becomes your new home. Then after he dies because you refused to vaccinate him, you'll realize how horrible of a mother you were. And after all of that, you'll know what it's like to have walked in my shoes!”
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