He’d had the flu for three weeks!
It would be the sort of understatement that you’d only hear from a politician who was being really nice to someone he really hated from an opposing party, to say that he was sick of it. Once more he came home from the pickle-canning factory, and a day of having a runny nose and watery eyes. At least the masks they wore, the ones everybody was compelled to wear, disguised the fact that he was highly contagious. As he entered the lobby, his perfunctory collection of mail from his box was brought to a halt by a surprise. This came in the form of a small, heavily-padded package, covered with important-looking stickers. It was an advertising gimmick, no doubt, and it was over an hour and several tissues later before he examined it again.
On closer inspection, it was from a Chinese herbal medicine company. When opened, he discovered a tiny pill box containing only four tablets.
This in itself was intriguing enough, but reading the enclosed paperwork was an absolute show-stopper! According to this, the consignment, which had been paid for, was valued at twenty-thousand dollars!
Now, blowing his nose yet again, he was staring at the pills. The incredible fact that each pill was worth five thousand dollars, was slowly sinking in. He looked back at the address. It read 42, not 24. It had been misdelivered; meant for someone else in the building. Yes… that kindly old Chinese couple that live up on 42. They were nice, he’d often spoken to them.
He kept reading. The leaflet explained that each tablet would provide perfect health, guaranteed for a decade. He needed to think very carefully before taking the next step. What he was looking at, was obviously the closest you could get to anti-aging.
Several days later, his bank account was cleaned out and he had sold off several of his personal items.
On the bus to the airport, he took all three pills with a swig from his water bottle.