Conspiracy

It was their weekly coffee. Two middle-aged ladies, meeting for a drink and a chat in their local café. They’d been friends for decades, ever since university. Amanda often wondered why they’d stayed so close; they didn’t really have any shared interests. Maybe it was because they lived in the same town. Maybe it was because they were both single; Amanda had been widowed in her thirties, Linda had never married. No matter the reason, their weekly meetings had become routine.

Linda had always been a little odd, but as the years passed, she’d become downright eccentric. She was always coming up with new, crackpot theories. Today it was about doctors. Amanda patiently listened without comment.

“It’s the doctors that give you cancer and those horrible diseases. How many times have you heard about a perfectly healthy person dying a few weeks after a routine checkup? They walk in, healthy and fit, and then the doctor diagnoses some dreadful disease!”

“Well, yes, I’ve heard that a couple of times. But I don’t understand why you think it’s the doctors causing it. Those people were just ill without knowing it.”

Linda gave her friend a condescending look.

“Oh, Amanda, you’re so naive. I’ll tell you why. It’s the doctors, they have special toxins, poisons. Bacteria. They’re paid by the drug companies to infect you, so they can make more money! It’s a global conspiracy.”

The conversation was getting a little too much, even by Linda’s standards. Amanda spoke, trying to inject some sanity into the topic.

“Linda, you know I work at a doctor’s surgery. You think I wouldn’t have noticed a little thing like that?”

“Of course not! You’re not in the loop, the doctors keep it to themselves.”

“I handle all the orders, including the drugs. I would have noticed.”

“Don’t be silly, Amanda. The poisons aren’t going to be sent through the normal routes.”

Amanda sighed inside. It was aliens last month, now this. She wondered for the umpteenth time if she could simply stop talking to her friend. Would Linda let her?

The next day at work, Amanda thought it would be funny to mention Linda’s theory to her boss, Dr. Lansing. His eyes flashed in annoyance and some other emotion Amanda couldn’t quite identify. It almost looked like fear.

“How ridiculous!” he snorted.

“That’s what I told her.”

“I hate hearing nonsense like that.”

“I know Dr. Lansing. I tried to tell her. She’s always getting these silly ideas, she spends too much time on the internet. She believes all that silly nonsense and then insists on spreading it around. It was aliens last month.”

He picked up a piece of paper from Amanda’s desk.

“She is clearly delusional. Disturbed. Write her name and address. She needs help.”

Amanda hesitated. Lansing detected her reluctance.

“Amanda, anyone who believes such nonsense is obviously mentally ill. She needs some intervention before it gets worse. Don’t you want to help your friend?”

Amanda wrote down the required information, with a sense of disquiet. Linda wasn’t ill, just eccentric, but she supposed Dr. Lansing knew best.

Linda didn’t answer when Amanda phoned the next week to arrange coffee. That was worrying. Amanda went round to her house, but there was no response. Had Linda decided on a spur of the moment trip? Surely, she would have let Amanda know. Amanda briefly thought about phoning the police, but decided she didn’t want to make a food of herself. Linda would turn up.

It wasn’t until the next week that Amanda saw the headline in the local newspaper.

‘Local woman, Linda Evans, found drowned’

Amanda felt an overwhelming sense of grief. Only now, after this, did Amanda realize how much her silly friend had meant to her. But amidst her tears, Amanda sensed something wasn’t right. The article reported that Linda had died while swimming in a nearby lake. Her clothes had been found at the scene, indicating she’d decided to take a dip. The weather had been unusually warm. There had been no suicide note; nothing to suggest it was anything other than a tragic accident.

“Well, that can’t be right,” she said to herself.

Amanda knew something about Linda that no one else knew. She’d discovered it by accident at university, when Linda had been hysterical after being pushed into a swimming pool by some of their classmates. Linda had told her that she’d always been terrified of water; she’d never even learnt to swim. Linda would never have decided to go swimming in the lake, not in a million years. Amanda was reminded of the note she’d written for Dr. Lansing. There couldn’t be a connection, could there? Surely the timing was a coincidence. It had to be. She thought back to the expressions that had flashed across Dr. Lansing’s face. Anger, then fear. Despite herself, she began to wonder.

∼ RJ Meldrum