40 Days into the Preview of Nightmare

With all life being placed on “hold” because of the Coronavirus outbreak we are being offered a chance for genuine introspection. Disruptive, indeed, from a certain angle and hence trending, but I am not sure all of us understand this “constructive time-out” opportunity that we have been given. I, for my part, am trying to cherish this “invitation to treat”, though, my melting micro-cosmos, becomes the canvas where my reality, my likely new reality and my fiction melt into one to tell me a new narrative about life in the day-after scenario.

Truth is, that I do not expect anything again to look like in the recent past. The expression “life as we knew it” is decomposed to a literal set of soon to be abandoned ideas, habits and lifestyles. How many times have I reviewed my entire conduct in the weeks leading to the outbreak and have wondered how much I would have done, not done, or done differently had I known about the upcoming crisis. And it does feel as if someone was operating on a precise schedule to push the button at the beginning of this year. I have seen it long time coming in my dreams, where this undefined event was lurking to claim the better part of my existence. I guess we all have our secret “fear moments” that run through our brains like a short film depicting all these events that could turn our lives upside down and are therefore feared. The death of our loved ones, the loss of our jobs and with it of our ability to sustain a particular lifestyle, fears that just position themselves in the inner corners of our minds waiting to be activated.

But how could I ever imagine something of this scale? My inner fears almost faint compared to the bigger picture unfolding since the end of January. All images of post-apocalyptic movies ever watched come to the surface as if they are here to stay. Images and the notion of scarcity of food, medicines and other resources come to mind every time I run to the super market, only to wait in line before being allowed in, and only after I have reported my movements to some supervising authority. This is no longer food in ratios but free movement in ratios, and it feels as if we are in shortage of physical space to move around. As if the air is not enough and the oxygen resources need to be better managed. Now with social distancing being the new norm of socializing we need more space to accommodate the new status quo. I cannot help thinking and comparing to 9/11 and the world we woke-up to in the aftermath, with the infamous Patriot Act being the new standard of privacy. In a similar fashion, I am trying to predict the aftermath of the Coronavirus, and what it will entail for each and every one of us. Whether it will mean Bill Gate’s global vaccination and chip-setting of mankind, which will inevitably result in the surrender of yet another aspect of privacy with all our biometrics being constantly monitored or the idea of working more for less, it all calls for more caution and reservation. Reminds me of the lyrics of that old song saying that I fear all that will happen for me without me.

Opinions are being voiced about the need of a Global Government to tackle the outbreak and in the back of that suggestion economies are collapsing. The scare-game is on and is holding-up well, and the Tower of Babel seems almost complete. Christians speak of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse approaching and I only speak of the mass distribution of desperation among the simple men who lost their jobs and cannot provide for food and shelter to their families. This is no longer the “tough going” but it is a complete reset of life. Tread carefully, whoever you are with the power to dictate the course of our lives and do not endlessly count on the fact that our memory falls shorter every other time. Call me a conspiracy fan but I remember last time the EU falling apart globalization was saved through the importation of Islam into Europe which glued the parts back. This time around it is even more diabolic as the first reading is that the Coronavirus has taken countries back into isolation and away from globalization. But in the end, I think that what it truly is, is that it is probably the closing act of it.