Handle with care was written in the fall of 2008 as a writing submission for a scholarship through The Hear Me Project – a global contest to help promote HIV/AIDS awareness.
I’d already had an idea surrounding the scenario in this story some time prior to learning about the scholarship, but the particular day I learned of the scholarship the entire plot just happened to pop into my head – so obviously I had to write it down and submit it.
One of the guidelines to the contest was to write about AIDS, however as a literary choice I chose not to mention the disease or explain the process taking place to find a cure in the laboratory in order to reflect the indifferent (and perhaps even oblivious) nature of the lab technical assistant Richard.
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Jeri held the vial in her hand as she squinted her eyes in careful observation. She slowly rolled the glass cylinder between her fingers and gently raised it to the light, instantly making out the dark globules in the clear liquid within.
“Time of breakdown,” she sighed unenthused, still rolling the tube in hopes the chunks would disappear.
“3:42 a.m.,” grumbled a slightly stocky man sitting at a computer a few feet away. He held his hands over his face and inhaled deeply before letting out a deep huff and running his hands through his hair – as if it would wake him up any more than the ninth cup of coffee he’d been codling for the past 20 minutes.
“Damn!” Jeri blurted as she pounded her fist down onto the wooden surface of her workspace. The metal and glass objects on the desk shook and clinked into one another. Frustrated, she took a bite out of the remains of a measly-looking pastry and rapped her fingers on the countertop.
A few moments passed before the tapping suddenly stopped, a strange zeal filling her eyes.
I have another test I want to try,” she said with renewed determination in her voice, as she chucked the remnant of the somewhat stale treat in the trash and walked over to the fridge to get another sample vial.
The man wasn’t impressed. The percolator in the corner wasn’t either – it had been hoping for a break too.
“Geez Jeri, we’ve been at this for nearly 36 hours. I think it’s time we packed it in and came back after we got some rest.”
“Rich, I need…” she snapped but stopped as she realized how hostile she was starting to sound. She began again. “I need to do this. Just one more; if it doesn’t work then we’ll call it quits for now. I promise.”
Richard wasn’t really reassured – he recalled she’d said something vaguely similar the last four times she went back to the fridge to get another vial – but he really wasn’t feeling up to arguing at this point and he once again conceded to ‘one more test’.
Jeri removed a vial from the fridge and added it to some sort of boiling apparatus at the opposite end of the room. Richard didn’t show even the slightest bit of interest in this part of the experiment, though he didn’t even really know much about it – he was just there to run the computer simulation. He also figured both he and the experiment were a lot safer if he just stayed out of the way. He was constantly reminded of his first day on the job two months prior when he’d volunteered to help out with some complicated work – their supervisor, Peterson, had requested Richard take care of his prized protégé. In the bedlam that ensued he cut his left arm in several places and bled profusely all over one of the experiments, in turn setting back progress by at least a week.
Several noisy minutes later, the original sample was gone and Jeri had collected a new vial of clear liquid and thrown the clumpy, brown waste of the experiment in the garbage. Even though it looked like water, Richard knew that whatever DNA mixture was actually in the test tube was of vital importance to their research.
Jeri reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a small syringe. She injected its contents into the vial and mounted it into a shaking device – the blue concoction proceeded to slosh about inside its cylindrical prison like a small child shaking a Christmas present.
Richard put his hand up to his mouth and yawned, taking another swig from his coffee mug.
“You’re going to want to quit drinking that soon,” Jeri said, glancing up from her clipboard as she jotted down figures from the shaking machine that appeared on her computer screen. “When this works, you’re going to be so wired you’ll never be able to get to sleep.”
“Yeah,” Richard guffawed. “It’s funny, you know? I never even noticed that I’d finished the last one. I just saw my mug was empty and filled ‘er right back up again.”
He took another swig of coffee from his ‘#1 Lab technician’ mug and set it down on the counter, rolling up his sleeves in the process as he turned to type something at his workstation.
Jeri looked down at his bare arm and the scars from the accident – she couldn’t help but feel guilty about what had happened. Sure Richard had been somewhat responsible for the accident, but he ended up hurt trying to push her out of the way, even though she would’ve been clear from the debris. To make matters worse, he wouldn’t report the incident out of fear of losing his job at the lab – he had a track record for this kind of clumsiness that didn’t work in his favour.
“Richard…” she started, but he caught her glancing at her arm, like he had so many times since.
“I told you not to worry about it,” he said. “It’s not like it hurts.” Their eyes met in an awkward fashion – but their concentration was broken as a high-pitched sound pierced the room.
It wasn’t the percolator – though it thought this would’ve been the opportune moment to voice its opinion.
The humming of the shaking apparatus had stopped and a beep had signalled that the test was finished – a little red light flashed in agreement.
Jeri hesitantly walked towards the machine and removed the vial from its holster – once again raising the test tube to the light.
The liquid inside remained clear – any anomalies were absent to the naked eye.
“Rich!” she yelled, half unsure of the test, startling him from a seemingly sleep-deprived trance. “Check the figures!”
He glanced back at Jeri and caught the look of surprise in her eye. Suddenly overwhelmed with renewed vigour, Richard pounded a series of keystrokes on the computer and a slew of numbers erupted across the screen – the values indicating the trial’s success. Richard spun around on his chair to face Jeri, who had literally crossed her fingers in preparation for his response, a huge grin adorning his face.
“I’ll email the test data to Peterson when I get home,” he said excitedly, bolting to his feet, throwing off his lab coat and gathering up the print-outs. “He is going to FLIP when he gets this.”
Jeri let out a deep breath – she had been holding it – and allowed a sense of relief to wash over her.
“Hey, I meant to ask…” he started to mumble as he shoved the papers into his mouth to free up his hands, “where did you get the samples for this test anyway?” Richard began stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “It was a saliva sample right? We can’t possibly have gotten approval for it.”
There was a moment of silence as Jeri searched for the words to explain what she had done to her friend.
“It’s…mine,” Jeri wavered – a serious look on her face. Richard froze. He could see she was trying to remain strong, holding back the tears that were welling up. His excitement had suddenly turned to concern for his friend; he wasn’t sure how to comfort her.
“But I guess there’s no need to worry now,” she spurted with half a laugh, trying to lighten the mood as she wiped away a tear, “it looks like things will be just fine.”
Richard nodded in acknowledgement and pulled open the door to the corridor, beckoning her to follow.
“Come on, I’ll give you a lift home,” he said. “I’m supposed to look after you, right?”
“I’ll be along in a second,” she feigned. Briefly beaming back a look of reassurance, Richard switched off the percolator – which eagerly ceased bubbling after a job well done – and stepped outside, leaving her alone in the lab.
Jeri let loose a heavy sigh and placed her hands heavily onto the countertop, stretching out her back and staring into the sink beneath her as if to see her reflection…or to vomit.
She took a deep breath and collected herself, slowly gazing at the equipment that adorned the room. Her eyes shifted from the percolator near the door, to the fridge, and finally landed on Richard’s workstation.
“I’ll be the one to take care of you now Richard,” she said sternly.
Jeri spun swiftly on her heels and walked towards the exit, flipping the switch as she left; the fridge door closing sharply behind her, leaving the vials of cold coffee in the darkness.
