The sun was shinning brilliantly. The birds were twittering and the pond was placid and serene. Billy B. had walked campus this morning and had not seen a soul. He had felt, lonely. During his stroll, Billy Bump had not observed anything frightening, but rather an insidious beauty and preparedness for the serious job of learning. He noticed a deer stop and stare at him, for what seemed like, an hour or more. In reality it had been only a couple of minutes…but time was frozen. The deer looked as if she was thinking, ‘what are you doing here?’
Television was functioning as if their reporting was disconnected from reality. There was a group of happy senior citizens, playing cards and dancing and enjoying afternoon cocktails…seemingly without a care in the world. When a reporter interviewed one of the aged men, he announced that he was not only not going to engage in social distancing…but that the president did not seem to be too worried about the fake news regarding a virus, and he was not going to worry either. When the reporter asked the gentleman his age, he proudly announced that he was 85, and that he did not arrive at such an august number by running scared of every report that the media showed on TV.
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The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony S. Fauci announced to Congress that it was going to get worse before it gets better. ‘We can’t be doing the same kinds of things we were doing a few months ago,’ said Dr. Fauci.
Although, potentially, exposed to the virus, the president insisted that he was not worried about it and that he felt, ‘very…very…good!’ He went on the state that he felt no need to be tested. He held a re-election rally, where thousands of devoted followers attended. He promised that he would hold more.
The morality rate of the virus is somewhere between .7% and 15% according to health experts. The reason for the uncertainty in this most important of percentages is the lack of testing kits in the United States. Much of the testing is being done by two private companies, who are not obligated to share their results with the National Center For Disease Control. Although South Korea experienced their first occurrence of the virus at about the same time as the US They had tested 200 thousand of their citizens for the virus, while the United States had tested a fraction of that amount and was unclear as to the results…and was still waiting on test kits to arrive.
The president’s economic advisor went on television and assured the American public that the markets were in good shape and they continued to drop, as much as 2000 points in one day…driven by the mixed messages of leadership and the uncertainty of a plan of action.
Capitalism and our American ingenuity will save us, the religious schisms and sects and cults proclaimed. ‘Why…we are God’s people and the apple of his eye and his chosen and we must keep the undesirables out…and those from the, ‘shit-hole’ countries.
And…the invisible angel of death…visited the homes of the strong and the Pharaohs and the famous and the rich and the mighty… and the weak and the forgotten…
Billy Bump finished his short story…and a chill went up his back…as he wondered if anything like what he had written…could really happen?
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