We live in turbulent times. Monarchies fall, colonies talk of rebelling, and friends get transported to Australia for jaywalking. In these troubling days, couldn’t we all use a relationship we know we can depend on? Maybe the eternal threat of a Cossack horde descending on your minor Polish village wouldn’t be so worrying if you had a warm, dependable body to be thrown in the pits with. It’s just too bad that it’s impossible to truly know how much someone loves you until you’ve been through a horrifying tribulation together.

Enter mutilating diseases. In what some are calling “the defining cultural event of Generation A,” a growing number of young people, myself included, are giving themselves and their significant others smallpox in order to prove their either undying or extremely-dying love. Personally, I was shocked to discover how easy the whole ordeal is. All I had to do was pour some fluid from the blister of an infected friend into Edward’s food. The next two weeks were the absolute best of our whole relationship. It’s funny, you never truly know somebody until you’re bandaging up each other’s openly bleeding blisters while trying not to move too much due to excruciating pain. As we lay, groaning and whimpering in bed, I felt that I had never been so close with someone in my life. I talked non-stop the whole time, and Edward, he really listened.

Unfortunately, Edward failed the test. About 20 days after I exposed him to the disease, he stopped responding to me speaking. Of course, I immediately threw him into a mass grave that was about to be filled in. I’m not upset, though. It was good to know that the person I loved so much was not somebody I could depend on through thick and thin. I only wish I had done this sooner. It’s clear to me that any relationship which can survive this test is fated to last. At long last, the Almighty has granted us certainty.

Zakir Jamal

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