DECEMBER 3, 2021 – While driving (hacking and sneezing) to a Covid testing site yesterday, I listened to “Vaccination Nation” on Public Radio. Several experts discussed the Omicron variant and its anticipated effect. Amidst predictions came news that Omicron had just landed in Minnesota.
My situation was a head-scratcher. I’d been “boostered” two weeks before our departure for Thanksgiving-week in Connecticut. My wife and I and all travelers we encountered were fully (mostly) masked; whereas Minnesota is a Covid “hot-spot,” Connecticut is not; we’d been around few people and had always masked up inside stores. Given all precautions and circumstances, how had I contracted even a cold? Without an answer, an imperative loomed: get tested.
Until the (negative—whew!) result was available, I was sentenced to prison—along with my atrocious cellmate, Cold Symptoms. To divert my attention from discomfort and anxiety, I created the following one-act play:
Scene: Dank hallway outside my cell in a notorious prison.
Dramatis Personae: A 20-something guard and . . . I.
Set-up: I’ve been sentenced to indefinite confinement for the crime of believing Covid isn’t a hoax and the concomitant crime of believing that vaccinations aren’t nefarious.
ME: Thanks, sir, for letting me out of my cell for some fresh dankness. I was going stir-crazy in there.
GUARD: You’re a model prisoner.
ME: Do you know why I’m here?
GUARD: Yes. Believing falsehoods.
ME: Ironic, no? . . . Why are you here?
GUARD: Duty, sir.
ME: Duty? To what, to whom, and why?
GUARD: I’m here to protect freedom, liberty, and justice.
ME: Hmmm. Care to define those lofty words?
GUARD: Freedom—to decide for myself what I can do and not do. Liberty—to go where and whenever I choose. Justice—a fair and open process protecting me from the loss of freedom or liberty.
ME: Whoa! What about me? What about my freedom not to be restricted by what you decide to do or not do? What about my liberty not to be limited as to where and whenever I choose as the result of your going where and whenever you choose? What about the not so fair and open process that landed me . . . in Covid prison?
GUARD: But you’re the one who endangered those around you.
ME: How?
GUARD: You believed in so-called experts, enemies of the people. You believed in what’s proven to be a hoax. Then, to make matters worse, you joined “Vaccination Nation,” a conspiracy to control the minds of your enemies.
ME: Where do I start? . . . When you board an airplane, do you care whether the pilots are experts? When you’re rushed to the ER because of chest pains and difficulty breathing, do you care whether the staff are experts? If you were to attend a symphony concert, do you think it’d matter whether the musicians are recruits from local middle schools versus graduates of music conservatories? As to a conspiracy to control the minds of my enemies, what about the reality of controlling a virus that threatens humanity? And proof? Sir, by calling Covid a hoax, the burden of proof shifts to you.
GUARD: I don’t make the rules. I just carry them out.
ME: Which is half the problem.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
