watch your head,

People are saying it’s something in the water that caused these things to grow. We’re being told by scrolling messages during my soaps and breaking news bursts at commercials that we shouldn’t do anything about this; just leave them be. Don’t touch, kick, throw or kill these multiplying, now painfully visible every-day germs.
I glare at the blonde anchorwoman who is seemingly reading the news to what looks like a spiky jello mold sliding across her fake mahogany desk.
“Researchers are still unsure as to why only some of these bacteria are ballooning in size, but scientists predict that the enlarged germs will multiply rapidly and perhaps grow even larger in size. The exact cause for this phenomenon is still being researched around the clock so the outbreak can be reversed or stopped. In the mean time, scientists at the Department of Sanitation say the residents of the Chicago-land area should go about their normal routines and ignore these harmless germs.” The anchor shuffles her headline pages and smiles forcefully at the camera, flinching slightly as a skinny purple worm falls off the desk and into her pencil-skirted lap. I’m amazed she could even sit still for so long without gagging or flicking one of those suckers off of her.
I shudder at the newscaster’s desperate show of teeth that wouldn’t pass as a smile by anyone’s standards. I turn off the TV and look around my small apartment. It’s hard to believe these things were here all along, only in microscopic form; until this morning.
I had fallen asleep on my couch last night after a long day of classes and cleaning. My apartment was spotless; every carpet shampooed and vacuumed, every surface wiped down and shined, the toilet gleaming. The sterile feel of my apartment wasn’t anything new considering I’m somewhat of a neat freak. Okay, so I’m more or less borderline obsessive when it comes to cleanliness. So the feeling of indescribable panic I experienced when I woke up to hundreds baseball-sized bugs and blobs bumbling about my living room. Foot-long worms and shapeless slimes were hanging around my apartment like residents, covering nearly every surface I could see.
I don’t think I even screamed. I just started frantically pushing the disgusting creatures off of my shaking body. Through the haze of bacterial shock I noticed I had left my TV on from the night before. I could hardly read the breaking news headline in my panicked state paired with a greenish film left by one of these horrible creatures.
“GIANT GERMS INFEST CHICAGO’S LOOP RESIDENCES”
I stare in complete disbelief as the reality of my worst nightmare hits me. Reminding myself that leaving my mouth agape probably isn’t the best idea, I run to the closet in my kitchen; I’ve been prepared for this. The closet is stocked with copious amounts of every rainbow-colored cleaning agent one could possibly imagine, as well as rubber gloves, a face mask for those harsh chemicals, and military-grade waders for occasions such as these. I pull on a new pair of yellow rubber gloves and grab two utility sized buckets from the bottom shelf. I filled my arms with several bottles of water from my backup stash and start filling the buckets; god knows what monstrosities are waiting to drip out of my sink’s faucet. I grab two bottles of antibacterial soap and empty one into each bucket, kicking a red blob away from the cupboard. I pull the mask over my nose and mouth and step into the waders; this is war.
With two cans of Lysol holstered around my waist and my super-powered vacuum at the ready, I step into the living room to fight.
I’m no stranger to extreme cleaning. My mother once grounded me for using all of her Pinesol on my Barbie dream house. But never did I think I would actually be fighting this kind of bacterial war that I had envisioned so many times. It’s time to put my skills to use. I creep into the living room, the most infected, and flick the caps off the Lysol cans with my thumbs. One by one I shoot antibacterial bullets into the bodies of the germs, which begin to fizzle and dissolve into the carpet. One of the aerosol cans runs out as a slimy brown worm slithers towards me with hostility. I shoot it with the full can and with my other hand I grab the vacuum and suck the dissolving worm into the overpriced machine; it was worth every penny.
The number of big bacteria in my apartment has diminished hugely and I’m getting really good at killing these fuckers. The room is foggy with the killing spray and my nose starts to tickle. Oh shit. I close my eyes tight to fight off the inevitable and grab onto the kitchen table to brace myself. My head bucks backwards with incredible speed as the force of the super-sized sneeze, and the hundreds giant germs it contains, makes its way to my rapidly growing sinus cavity.
BOOM.