The other day, I found myself muttering a version of Yossarian's line from Catch-22: "That's some Covid, that Covid-19." It has certainly managed to lead the world a completely unmerry dance, the nasty little shape-shifter.
If only we could get the rabbit back into the hat and make it disappear again. But the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and since we're mixing metaphors, I wish we had a black box that could tell us how the world came crashing down around our ears out of a clear blue sky.
How exactly does a black box work? And since it is such an efficient survivor, why not make the whole plane out of the same material? Too heavy, probably, and the plane would fall from the sky anyway. ("Dead men are heavier than broken hearts," in the immortal words of Raymond Chandler.)
I learned too late that the black box is kept in the tail of an aircraft, last to hit the ground/ocean/ mountainside and more likely to survive a crash. Otherwise I would have spent a lifetime reserving seats in the rear of the thin tin fuselage. Most black boxes can withstand a 310-miles-per-hour impact, which in everyday terms is about 300 more than we can. Perhaps if we wore some sort of stainless steel suit of armour, or might that set off alarm bells in the airport?
Another invention of mine (no government patent granted yet, so I won't go into great detail) is an adjustable invisible force field which could be worn around the waist to keep other people at a safe distance. It would also be useful post-Covid, and might perhaps be fashioned from recycled hula hoops or discarded lightsaber plasma from Star Wars. (The old and the new: did you know there have been hula hoops since at least 500 BC?)
Such has been the debilitating and decimating effect of coronavirus on staff numbers that some lunatics may soon be running asylums, or Sixth Form students promoted to Principal Teachers. And policemen will look even younger. Prisoners put in charge of their own cell keys? -- One lockdown that wouldn't last long.
But everything changes. People get well. The green men on pedestrian crossings won't be issuing pointless invitations to cross safely for much longer, their lonely days are gone. Humanity has always won out over inhuman plagues. If this were a sporting contest, I would say our side has the better champion -- Victoria 'Strongarm' Vaxxer, a.k.a. 'The Needler' or 'Nurse Inoculator.' I hope you've met her.
