An Outbreak Outing

Since I wrote the below on the eve of the outbreak, much has changed. In the name of freedom, from individual refusal to wear masks to presidential rebuttal of professional expertise, America, the home of the brave and land of the free, seems a perfect tailer-made suit for COVID-19 to wear. Sad. 

 

An Outbreak Outing

By Lostalley 3/20/2020

 

I am reading the Plague by Albert Camus, listening to contemporary music by Phillip Rombi, trail walking, occasional shopping but not stockpiling, and scheduling for a drink with friends for whom joy is indispensable even in the face of death. 

 

Yes, pandemic is getting closer, but I’m not counting. Let it be. I enjoy the distant viewpoint of an onlooker much more than a player too involved in the game to know who is more at stake. A hedonist and cynic, I’m striking for a fine and perhaps futile balance here: enough to hold the ground while pursuing the elusive. 

 

I get emotional when seeing innocent people suffering, Chinese, Americans, Italians, Iranians, or else. But it doesn’t stay long. Apathy returns when airwaves are filled with soundbites of alarmists and my iPhone with images of misery and spite. Finger pointing,  rumor spewing, disaster profiteering; and war-drum beating; a cacophony of panic, a carnival for all conspiracy theorists; a foreplay of the worst instincts; an orgy for voyeurs and vulgarians, whereas all are guilty in the eyes of Nature. What appears an existential threat by a coincidental monster virus is indeed stained with fingerprints of an insatiable impetus known as GREED. “Be merciful, Almighty, “ so yearned by the crowds of cowards. Would the pleading be heeded ? Or should it be? 

 

Just exiting Home Depot past a tiny pound, two languishing Canadian Geese glance over me or my car or my shadow? They seem aloof and stoic, oblivious to what’s going on in a deformed world in which species like them are forced to adapt or abandon. 

 

It’s a balmy day of 70 plus degree, eerily calm for March Madness, when American collegiate basketball teams would start slaughtering each other with massive attendees packed in stadiums. A potential perfect storm for Coronavirus. Across the Pacific, Formidable Country’s patriotic netizens aka Five Penny Trolls must be sighing in the lost opportunity. 

 

On my way back, I’m whistling a familiar song long forgotten. What a wonderful world!