We're All Nurses Now

The first thing they teach you is to take a temperature. You look through the telescopic sight, press the trigger and read out what it says. Then you write it down in your book. Everybody is given their own thermo-gun. You write your name on it and keep it in your pocket, all of the time.

The thermo-guns have a range of a hundred meters and they are very high quality, not like the plastic toys we played with when we were kids. They're a shiny, silvery metal, with a glass display and a polished wooden handle. They feel heavy in your hand. You'll only get one, the entire time you're in high school, so you must take care of it. You must clean it regularly, and get it tested once a month to ensure its accurate. You fill out the warranty card and put it in the mailbox so the manufacturer knows its yours.

Taking temperature is important because it's a good way to tell if somebody's sick. Of course sick people don't always have a temperature, and you can't go around checking everybody all of the time (although some people try), so, at times in your life, you'll be around sick people.

What I can't figure out is why someone would go out if they were sick?! At first I thought that maybe they forget to do their morning check-ups. Some people are just forgetful.

But the teacher says that some people choose to go out when they're sick! When they have a virus in them! When they're infected! When they've been taken over by this foreign entity! They know they're sick and they go out! Why? we all asked. We were all puzzled. Why do they do it, when they know they could get arrested and sent to prison?

The teacher shrugs. She says that some people just don't have much sense. It's always been that way. And it'll always be that way. But that's why we have our thermo-guns, and the pocket Guidebook, and all this training: four years of it! It's our most important class, the teacher says. Because if you don't have your life, then what good is English or math?

I think she's right.

Next week we move on to visual diagnoses: more up-close things, twenty yards or less through the sight of your thermo-gun: things like pupil dilation or perspiration, the color of the skin, involuntary muscle movement.

But for now, we're all still just looking at our thermo-guns, rubbing them with their polishing cloths, putting them in their cases and then taking them back out, over and over.

And Michael Goodwin said he took the temperatures of both a bird in flight and an ant. Nobody else believes him, but I think he's telling the truth.