I shake the thought from my head. I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. And who knows? My other distributors have been slacking off lately, maybe this one will be different.
(Credit: Alamy/The Sunday Times)
He introduces himself as Guy. We talk business, and it becomes clear to me this guy is genuinely passionate about getting vaccines to people in need. I usually reach out to my distributors when I have new batches ready to sell, but one day he contacted me out of the blue. He says he wants to talk to me about something that's been on his mind for a while, so we make plans to meet in person.
We meet He starts talking to me about his growing customer base and how a good number of them have more mainstream connections. He talks about spreading positive propaganda more publicly to increase the number of upvotes for legalization. He brings up all his plans to change people's minds, his hopes to see my product improve, and his dreams of seeing less people suffer from preventable diseases.
I'm so moved. It's weird to hear anyone have faith in our business, but this is exactly the kind of change I wanted to make from producing vaccines. I take him up on his offers to help make that a reality. We actively increase our customer base by pushing for advertising through word-of-mouth to keep under the radar. I put more effort into my vaccine production, making sure my product is the highest quality available. I also urge the rest my network of distributers to subtly remind their customers to upvote legalization.
And then one day, I wake up to see vax legalization trending on my phone, the upvotes climbing steadily. I compare the numbers to the original vaccine banning, which had over 150k upvotes. Legalization was already at 140k! The most it had ever been on our island!
I shot up, heart-pounding as I see the numbers change live.
142.1k...
145.4k...
148.6k...
It stalled there for half a beat too long, so I refreshed the page and...
It jumped to 203k upvotes!
That was it! Vaccines were legalized! I call Guy and we scream in excitement and celebration. We take a second to admire our hand helping make this happen, patting each other on the back for all the effort the other put in. Although it starts to sink in that my income will likely take a sharp dip, seeing people healthy from being able to use vaccines safely will make it all worth it. With all the savings I've accumulated over the years, maybe it's time to focus on overturning a different law to one day be able to leave it to my lineage.
(Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto)