Sneezing our heads off
It came suddenly like a sneeze. It was a sneeze; at first we (Drs) thought not possible, just a saying, just an exaggeration.
Walking from the parking garage to the the clinic blobs of pink matter splattered, large puddles greasy and aide cars, stretchers, weird but not totally out of the ordinary. It is a hospital/medical facility.
Then in office receptionist/nurse passes a call through to me. Woman panicked voice getting hight tense frightened “He’s sneezing it’s so hard oh god he’s sneezing it’s like, he’s on the ground he’s still sneezing what that! He’s sneezing his brain out what’s that! Oh god! Oh please help!”
Sound like she’s fainted a thump breathing in the background a different thumping like someone in the throws of a seizure. I note the phone number quickly match it to our records call police and medic emergency.
That was that ~ I thought. Only it was the beginning of the end. This wasn’t just allergy season — people really were sneezing — we used to say “their heads off” but this was close.
Blowing your brains out your nose was a messy and painful way to die.
Allergic people experience sneezing ‘fits’ where they will sneeze continuously 5+- times in a row, a real fit will be a series of these fits over an entire morning, seldom but possible a whole day. Usually accompanied by blurred vision and a major sinus headache.
This seemed, seemed, like a bad sneezing fit.
2 Problems with the theory, the first few deaths were people with mild allergies, usually taken care of with OTC medications. No record of sneezing fits.
Then many after, had no record of allergies at all, autopsies showed no signs of recognizable sinus diseases. They just blew their brains out through their noses.
CDC got involved, but with no virus or bacterial indicators, had no recommendations as the body count mounted.
And it did.mount.
As with so many pandemics, many patients who we|I were concerned about were completely unaffected. Patients on shots seemed resistant though not 100%.
Those immunized for grasses seemed to do best.
This was the first clue CDC noted it too.
That and that middle states and central plain areas of the world where grains were grown — the disease was worst.
There was an attempt to correlate what kinds of grasses were being grown — if different crops had more or less of an effect.
We collected pollens from the most severely affected areas. Special drones scooped the air, sealed and brought it in.
I’d been called/flown to CDC laboratories to help.
The pollens from the worst of the worst areas were from a specific strain of wheat bred by MMCoP. Said to increase yields and produce in the drier arid conditions climate change was bringing the world.
Pollen has the capability to float, but generally falls to earth fairly quickly. This hybrid shot the pollen into the air higher and allowed the wind to carry it further.
As a new pollen anyone with inherent sensitivity would not have resistance to it.
We thought we had the ‘culprit’ but what would cause people to “sneeze out their brains’? This was an affect of most allergies.
The wheat was crossed with a clover relative that when touched would eject it’s seeds much like the pollen shot into the air … and a datura — a poison, a psychoactive plant common to arid wastelands.
It was also known to cause internal hemorrhaging if taken in large enough doses.
By this time populations of the world had been decimated. Once the organs were rotting on the streets (when there were not enough people to clean it up), secondary diseases struck the unsneezing population.
Cities were the worst but rural areas were struck first and hardest as there were few survivors left to do clean up or attempt to.
Those left, the survivors (less than 30%),masked, living in rooms of filtered air, scavenging for food was easy.
Winter rains washed the pollen from the sky. Drones captured less and less. The hybrid was sterile so the seed that sprang from the seed heads could not germinate no new wheat with it’s deadly pollen regrew.
Wind was still a problem … after another year the world was relatively safe to go without filters/masks.
We begin again — maybe better?
We can only hope.
With each sneeze?, there’s always that worry|panic|that it won’t be the last, or worry that it’s the beginning of the end.

