A virus has infected my home. Thus far, three victims are reported. The symptoms are familiar. Sore throats, coughs, general apathy. A condition mostly indistinguishable from too many bong hits accompanying a similar fatality rate. Zero.
Sadly, I remain unafflicted. This is perhaps due to the infected quarantining to medical wards referred to as bedrooms. This is a great excuse justifying their demand soup be brought to them. It is in the public interest if not mine.
I'm told this voluntary hunkering in place is to spare me the indignity of illness. A desire born of love. But I can't help noting it accomplishes my social removal in the bargain as if I were the offensive, infected vector. As the errand boy, no doubt I am.
I was always told sharing meant caring. If you love someone, you shared everything you had. But everyone is selfishly hoarding their miseries, instead. It’s the pits.
Something smells and as the only individual with a functional olfactory organ it falls to me to point it out. The additional irony of being the only smoker in the house is there as well, meaning I can’t smell or taste a damned thing normally.
We enter the fourth day of the illness moving through their bodies. Their anti-viral functions are learning how to best ward off microscopic beasts. Meanwhile, my own immune system languishes due to defunding. A slow strangling starvation.
Which brings me to my point.
In 2020, the world mostly took leave of its senses. We shut down schools, movie theaters, free speech, and worst of all, malls. The most radiant of immuno-medical kicks in the pants, the mall, would not let me inside. Locked. There was a plague on.
You see, everyone was sick with a virus. Those who didn't seem sick were somehow still sick, I'm told. People showed me graphs and charts asserting what no one could observe the truth or falsity of. Credentialed doctors and Jill Biden said so.
My response was not one of panic, but of self-serving conceit and confusion. I view adversity as opportunity to become stronger. If there is a virus that won't kill me, I want it inside me like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers wants that baby in him.
It was clear COVID-19 wasn't going to kill me. It mostly ripped up the elderly, who we stuffed into homes to die while having our dicks sucked by Trevor “Cuomosexual" Noah. That killed a lot of people, you know. But the real tragedy was closed malls.
This meant I couldn't lick escalator handrails as is my custom. I was forced instead to endure the indignity of some stranger shooting me up with barely tested drugs. Everyone self-isolated when all I wanted was a hug and a snogging. Bloody neoliberals.
There is a similar injustice playing out in my own home. I am being denied the loving embrace of a microscopic psychopath I need to become strong. Out of love. Bleh!
But there is hope. A chance for immuno-justice. Is that a term activists use yet? If not, they will, because it is completely stupid and in the United States all things insipid must be celebrated, advanced, and bankrolled by the state.
Anyway, the good news is I don't need their company to get myself sick. They use doorknobs like anyone else. Not as much as their essential worker, which is me, true. But I still demand they use the restroom themselves like adults.
Sometimes, just sometimes mind you, they even flush. Their filthy, disgusting, strength-infused germs are peppered all over the handle. Social justice jackpot. Once again, we are the immuno-justice we want to see.
Still, it is possible I will never get sick. I’ve licked a lot of toilets. My immune system is like Mossad. If it wants you, you’re not safe anywhere.
I may continue on, without a cough or running nose. I may not experience a fever or the shakes. That is fine. I am accustomed to setbacks and disappointment. We took a big step back in 2020, for instance. And 2016 before that. Every four years, really.
Come to think of it, it’s an election year. So, we’ll probably get around to falling down the stairs again soon. But at least we'll be stronger for it. Right? And if not, we can do drugs about it. We have a choice between NyQuil and DayQuil for President again.
Anyway, I'm off to lick a toilet to get strong. And I wouldn’t lick either of those knobs.
Sic vivitur.