[ WP ] You have been waiting at a doctor 's office for hours . You have now noticed that the same 15 people keep being called to see the doctor only to return through the front door later in different clothes , they check in and wait again .

The nurse is on the phone again. She's clutching it tightly, so her fingers are just as bone-yellow as the plastic sticks holding together the ragdoll skeleton behind her. I wanted to straighten it up a bit when I first walked up to her desk and asked to see the Doc. She said the Doc was busy for a while. I said I do n't know how Docs work around here, but where I'm from, I can just wait until I'm seen. She seemed nervous, and certainly clammy, but she asked me with only the slightest quiver in her voice to fill in my details. The form was a tattered thing, and stamped with the date of five years ago. Fifth of March, 2015. That's the day I first noticed The Limp. Thought it was strange, but coincidences happen sometimes. I once met a long-lost cousin in Germany. He took me to a club, and we danced, since I still had full Leg Mobility then. 
 
 But you know how it is. It's not just me. When it started, Mobility was quickly lost by people everywhere. 100 % infected in 58 days. That's what they told us. Remember? It was everywhere. But it was n't too bad for everyone. Just one part of the body lost. A finger for a lucky 13 %. We all wanted to be part of that 13 %. I thought the worst cases were those of the paralysed lips or eyes, but that was before I heard that internal organs had started failing too. I was pretty relieved with what I got. 
 
 So I did n't come here because of The Limp. 57 % of us lost Limb Mobility. Hospitals are treating all the issues and diseases that they're comfortable dealing with now, while The Scientists figure it out. And nobody really gets ill these days, anyway, though there are still all these reported outbreaks of diseases I ca n't remember the names of. I'm here because of a tickle in the back of my throat that I noticed a few days ago. I went to a pharmacy to get something for a sore throat, but I could n't find one in the city, which was strange. So I had to come to the hospital. And I filled in my name and my date of birth. My occupation, my nationality, my numbers, my statistics, my everything. The other patients do n't seem to be filling in forms. They just sit there, wait to be called, enter the Doc's office, and leave. Then new patients come in. Seems to be taking an awfully long time for my name to be called, though. Maybe they have more pressing diseases to worry about. My tickle, I suppose, is n't very important compared to things like Cancer or, well, you know. Other big diseases. I bet everyone here's much more ill than I am. 
 
 Look at that guy, there. The guy that's just about to leave. He's getting his things, look, by the coffee machine. He's looking over here! Look at his face. Look how white it is! Deathly, definitely. And his eyes, by God. He's barely had any sleep. Look how red they are, like little scarlet bugs embedded in his face. He's probably been up for a week with a terrible pain. My tickle's nothing. I want to give him a smile as he leaves, just to be reassuring, but that's probably a bit invasive. And he's leaving anyway, so I suppose I'll just keep sitting here and waiting for my name to be called. 
 
 There's a girl here too. She's quite pretty, but she's probably got some sort of agonising ear infection, so I'll keep my distance. She looks a bit like the girl who was sitting next to me earlier, who was cradling her stomach, but that girl was wearing some sort of long T-shirt and silver boots and I avoided engaging with her because I did n't think we'd have anything in common. This one's wearing jeans and a blouse, and if it were n't for her probable ear infection, I would slide into place right next to her, and ask her what her favourite part about the song they keep replaying is. 
 
 Another man's just come in. He's got a strange shuffle to his walk, so maybe he's also got The Limp. I raise my hand in a gesture of camaraderie, and as I do so, some air shoots down into my chest and the tickle is given life. The man looks at me as I cough, and I see his scarlet bug eyes and his chalk face and I know that it's the same guy that was here before. I'm confused about why he's wearing a suit now, and then I see that the girl is looking at me too, and she's definitely the Silver Boots Girl from earlier. And as I cough and cough and cough, the other patients begin to look more and more familiar, and then I do n't see them anymore because the doctor has finally called my name, and the nurse is here, and the skeleton is still lopsided like a broken smile, and the Tickle is roaring so loudly that I ca n't hear much else. 
 
 *** 
 
 **5th March, 2020** 
 First positive case of a virus detected in a patient in 1,796 days. Patient secured. Hopes that Re-Mobilisation will commence.
