Curtains for Covid?

Hopes and Fears

Has the curtain fallen on Covid theatre?  Admittedly provocative, but like most of us, (and Howard the Duck) I am trapped in a world I never made.

I didn’t invent Covid; we will probably never know who did, if who is the right word. A couple of Chinese scientists in Winnipeg, a lab leak, bats in a wet market, Russia, or the gun loving good guys just down the road apiece?  Is it a by- product of our ongoing rape and pillaging of Mother Earth, the heinously corrupt meat industry, Mercury in Retrograde, melting permafrost releasing prehistoric viruses? Or was it Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or any of the other pandemic profiteers.

The list of bad actors is almost endless.  Like a Grand Guiginol Comedy, it writes itself. Is that the pitter patter of splatter that I hear?

“The audience at "Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol" endured the terror of the shows because they wanted to be filled with strong "feelings" of something. Many attended the shows to get a feeling of sexual arousal. Underneath the balcony were boxes (originally built for nuns to watch church services) that were available for theatre-goers to rent during performances because they would get so aroused by the action happening on stage. It has been said that audience members would get so boisterous in the boxes, that actors would sometimes break character and yell something such as "Keep it down in there!"”

Wikipedia- Grand Guignol.

Keep it down indeed.  Covid will keep us all down in the boxes where the jackals programmed the hens to lay upon command.

I received my obligatory two shots of Pfizer with a Moderna Chaser, I mean booster.   Plus a side order of actual Covid, of the Omicron sub variant. 

So does anyone really know?

I had the “Stripes”, as a friend called the home test kits that we were sent home with, after the government abandoned us and left us to sort it out ourselves.   

Our Federal and provincial governments, both ran in the last election cycles as the protectors of our health. They were not afraid to take advantage of the fear of the other, to demonize anyone who dared to have a different opinion.

It was Vax vs Anti-vaxx, natural immunity vs. Herd immunity vs. Shots.  Lotsa shots.  Just line them up and keep them coming. That was what we grew to expect.

But “They” lost me at the Emergency Measures Act, introduced to quell a protest by some truckers, “anti- vaxxers”, and far right rabble who had occupied the capital.  There were media medleys lobbed at us with anxious aplomb, hoping that the staid Canadian media would lend credibility to the great overreach of their EMA.

The Son of The War Measures acting teacher had no smoking gun, other than the few spokespersons for the rally that seemed almost “cast” for their cartoon fury.

But the Liberal government propped up by the wannabe Liberal NDP, felt no shame in bringing in a Draconian response to a protest that had been loud, annoying, but not violent. Inconveniencing but not revolutionary in any sense.

The invocation of the Emergency Measures Act was where they lost me.  Too much, too late, the lady doth protest too much.

The week before I caught Covid, two years into the pandemic, I was one of two people at my work who had NOT caught the Covid.  Coincidentally the two of us who escaped the virus were the only two who wore a mask on a regular basis.  And not just one of those crappy, flimsy blue masks that they hand out at the hospital before you enter.   No, those are truly Covid Theatre.

The masks my  coworker and I were using masks that were closer to an N95 or N94.

Yet still, I was voted off the island.

How did I catch it, where had I slipped?

The local government and public health authorities had lost all credibility,  in my opinion, when they wouldn’t even admit the that virus was airborne. 

We breathe it in. Usually when inside and usually after being inside for a period of time.

Something’s In The Air. 

That’s what I wrote 5 years ago.

The words to the song are about more than virus, more about our need to share and over share.

“I must connect or I will die.”

Some similarities to another song of mine from the late 80’s that I called King Blood, except the virus then was in the blood. Blood was the great equalizer, the common dominator.

“Are we the victims of government virus?”

Covid is real. It was a real plague that respected no borders or boundaries.

Today they say it’s mild like a cold, unless it isn’t.  I am no expert here. I do not claim to be.  And I am not advancing any agenda, or advocating fear or conspiracy, because I JUST DON’T KNOW.

For me, it was mild.  If I didn’t get the “Stripes”, in olden times, I would worked through it, played my show, felt like shite, and spread it like Covid butter.

Yeah, my opinion is a jumble of feelings, highly contradictory.  I know that.  I don’t really care anymore.

The sun is shining and I am sitting outside, enjoying a burger and beer at a local establishment I had not visited in 2 years.  They survived without my help.  So I did tip them for what was essentially take out.  And after bringing me my meal, they came back and asked how it was, and if I wanted water, it being 27C.  I even elicited a smile.

I asked the woman who helped me if the store was still owned by the same guy as two years ago.

“Why? she asked.

Because I liked him and I am happy he survived.

She said, “ Well, we Chinese are good at surviving.” And she laughed.

I said,” I agree, and that makes me happy too.”

The pandemic was not a hoax.  The deaths of millions of people give bones to that argument. 

Is it gone now or are we just sleeping?

Is it safe or are we stupid and carelse’s?

It’s all risk management to me.  Part of the everyday tradeoffs, where principles and paycheques, and truth and terror meet for a coffee.  Decaf coffee, because the real stuff makes me too anxious.   Like the Pandemic. The World has made us all anxious.  Scared.  Unsure. Uncertain.

I saw people on my vacation/work holiday in the middle of nowhere, outside in the sun, no one around them for miles, wearing a mask.

To me that is sad.  The chance of catching an airborne transmission in the middle of a sparsely populated area, nowhere really, is slim to non-existent.

But maybe that made them feel safer.

The social damage that remains from these lockdowns, the nonstop drone of doom and fear are significant.  And sad. Perhaps of more importance than the virus. Only time will tell.

I’m not asking for a debate here, folks, this is all me, and my feelings alone about what I see and I have experienced.   I reserve the right to change my mind, and all offers are subject to confirmation.

But I have to say something. 

We can’t become hopeless. We can’t soak in the doom, because there is still some sun, some blue skies, some love and music.

Can’t we enjoy the apocalypse while we have the chance?

This is not music.  This is risk, but with risk comes choice.  And my choice is this:

I don’t want to live in a netherworld where fear is the only language.