I sit up in my bed and look out the window. The sun has just begun to crest over the treetops, and the rays of sunshine stretch over the land. I get up, and after changing, walk downstairs. There’s no one in the house but me. I make some toast, and eat quickly, I have to get to work soon.

After breakfast I hop in the car and turn the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life, and slowly crawls forward onto the almost abandoned road. Few people are awake at this time of day, so traffic is light as I make my way to work. I drive on the highway for thirty minutes, all the while thinking about how sad today will be. Standing next to lonely patients, watching the life drain out of them as you stand there and do nothing. The facility I work at is one designated to COVID-19 patients. Who are on the verge of dying. It’s kind of like a slaughterhouse-if you’re sent there you know you’re gonna die.

I pull into the driveway of my workplace and turn the car off. I sit there for a minute, thinking more morbid thoughts. Finally I get out. I walk into the building, say good morning to the receptionist, and head to my office. On the way there, I see two doctors hurriedly rolling a bed across the room. The patient in the bed looks strange. He has little yellow dots all over him. And they’re moving. Curious, I follow him to wherever he’s being taken. The doctors roll him into a room, then one of them picks up the phone to call someone. Probably me. I walk into the room. One of the doctors turn to me with a surprised face and says, “Dr. Lake, you got here fast. The patient is almost dead. His name is Joshua Kanoski. You know what to do.” She turns to leave.

“Doctor,” I say slowly, “ why does Mr. Kanoski have yellow dots all over his body?”

She turns towards the patient and looks at him. Finally she looks up at me, “What do you mean? His skin is perfectly normal.”

Shocked, I look at the patient again. The yellow dots are still there, still moving. But even though I still see them, I say, “Sorry, Doctor, must have been a trick of the light.” She looks at me strangely one last time before leaving with the other doctor.

Two hours later, I leave the room. Mr. Kanoski is dead. When he died, his lungs were full of yellow dots. I wonder what it means, the yellow dots. And why no one else can see them. I walk, not knowing where I am going. I stumble into a room full of patients. It’s the welcoming room. New patients come here when they are are first admitted here. I glance up at them, then gasp. They all have little yellow dots on them.