I wake up each morning, I go online, and I check for the most current numbers. How many positive cases today? How many deaths? How many hospitalized? What percentage of beds are still available?
It is indeed a dread day for humanity, and tomorrow will be worse. More cases will appear, more foreigners will transit through the airport, and more of them will bring their variants into the midst of our pandemic-preventing population.
I reach for the nearest box, and pull forth a mask. Sure, I'm alone in my apartment - as I always am - but a fresh mask makes me feel comfortable. A fresh mask reminds me that I'm still alive. Seek not to glimpse the face behind the security of my face covering. It is not for your eyes. Even I myself haven't seen it in a very, very long time.
Testing kits? Why of course, I have them all. Every kind, organized by color.
Now it's time to argue with strangers online. Never mind that my belief in "The Science" borders on religious hysteria. Never mind that my proof of this or proof of that is predicated upon still deeper assumptions which I dare not consider. I will win every argument because The Science is on my side, and every foe will fall under the onslaught of my faultless reasoning.
Never mind that this virus I describe so lovingly changes shape all the time. Never mind that The Science isn't yet complete, and that the future of this virus is unpredictable. I know, you see? I know.
Covid-Zero? Sadly long behind us. Would that it could be resurrected. Oh, those sunny days when cases were in the single digits. Oh, those sunny days when the biggest question was whether to admit the infected into our fair country, or whether to keep them out. Never mind the fact that I was then, as I am now, alone and friendless in my studio apartment. Never mind the fact that I have perfected social distancing to the point where I will never come into meaningful contact with anyone, ever again.
No, now I have only unseen allies in my fight against disinformation. I will teach these people to fear the world outside their doors, and I will have them as masked up and as sanitized as I am. And when we go forth into the great Outside we will touch the world fearfully, we will distance ourselves from all others, and we will proceed with hands gloved in righteousness.
The threat is real, the threat is most definitely real. Death waits within each breath and upon every surface. There will be no return to normalcy, just wave after wave of blessed sickness, each more potent than the last. As the dead pile up I will thank myself for my boundless trust in The Science, and for the sense of terror in which I have outlived so many heedless others.
I am alive, you see, and I will continue living. Never mind that my life only extends to this apartment, to these numbers upon a screen, and to countless arguments with less enlightened strangers that I will never, ever meet. I am alive.
It was once suggested to me that the numbers I worship might be arbitrary, or inaccurate, or even the result of hypochondria. I do not believe it. I will instead place my faith in The Science, even if that Science sometimes changes its mind, sometimes refuses to state things clearly, and sometimes takes too long. There will NEVER come a day when I do not wear this mask. There will NEVER come a day when I am not washing my hands, checking the numbers, and casting a wary eye upon my fellow man.
And when you are breathing your last on some hospital bed, the victim of your own or others' carelessness, I will grin down upon you from some remote location that is everywhere and nowhere at once. Here I sit, ready to watch you
die.
Die.
Die.
But go ahead, if you please, and argue the point. The Science is on my side, and I have nothing but time at my disposal.
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