might feel a yearning for the lockdowns of the past; that indeed we might long for their return. There was something in that certainty, What did it bring us? Paradoxically -- for the vast majority of us -- it brought an escape from death. Before COVID-19 there was old age, and then we expired. Then suddenly, it was not right for old people to die. Old people are people too you know. And you can save them. You can save your parents, If only you get the vaccine, wear the mask. Never before in the history of mankind did we have an official, foolproof, universally endorsed antidote to death. Wear a mask, follow the rules, don’t touch, don’t whisper 'sweet nothings', don’t love — unless you love from afar. Then you will be safe. Perfectly safe. You will not die. How could you? You have been so good. Then there was the moral certainty too, Christianity promised us heaven, but COVID-19 — for the ones who followed the rules — brought a kind of paradise in life. It was so, so reassuring to know that not only were we safe — that we would not expire — but we were such perfectly good perople! There were so many — of course —so many — the evil ones — who didn’t execute the rites perfectly (remember: you must sing the entire Happy Birthday song when you wash, if you want to live!), those who didn’t wear the mask — or God forbid, didn’t get vaccinated. And one couldn’t help wishing a little bit for their passing, because -- when the microphones were shoved into their deathbeds -- they were so stubbornly obstinate in their denial, so much so, that, we, well, dared to imagine that they deserved it. Not like us. We cared for our fellow men and women, and all others -- of all diverse genders — we were not only good but so much better than the rest, the careless uncaring ones. And finally there was the COVID-19 lifestyle -- itself a reassuring confirmation of the lives we had always longed for. It was always so much more comfortable being cocooned at home, clicking on social media and demonizing others. We were right, and safe, and there were so many bad people who pranced around in the so-called real world, screwing each other and being politically incorrect — it was so reassuring to denounce them. For surely the only true friends are online friends? Not like people who we meet in cafes or bars or in the schoolroom or office -- people who might betray you — with a glance or a touch. Surely our real friends (and enemies!) live in other continents, other worlds — you caress and revile them with a tweet, and Facebook them, people who are anywhere but near, who cannot invade your space, who you never see, really, except virtually. It’s so much better to cuddle up with our pillows and stuffed animals and the Facebook pages of our very best best friends. And we can eat and drink and smoke, and even take our favourite mind expanding drugs, i.e. indulge in whatever vices are at hand —- what, after all, does it matter, when we are being such good people, and are so safe? There is nothing to match that matchless ecstasy. Even now so many cannot stop wearing masks, they know the air must still be infected (we saw those droplets on television; the horrid live animations — the spreading of the disease — and we saw the molecule itself,so ugly and hairy and spiked, poised to kill). So nowadays you often find yourself getting sick again — It’s called ‘rebound’ now -- and it is with a twinge of nostalgia that we nowadays succumb yet again to the mild illnesses that characterize the heavily vaccinated. And yes, we still work from home and are suspicious of those who venture into the public square with abandon — but most of we are suspicious of their touch. Is it no wonder COVID-19 returns again and again! For some just won't stop touching each other, shaking hands, and God knows what else! That fear will be with us forever. And is that a bad thing, really? Monkeypox is not quite so satisfying; it does not kill -- in fact rarely does so -- and we so loved the fear of Covid, just so that we might be delivered from it. Sure. Monkeypox does have the horrific sores and the social stigma — they are in fact like 'stigmata' those horrible wounds — called lesions — that mark the 'men who have sex with men' (we don’t call them homosexuals anymore), those who live for pleasure. It is a kind of 'Mark of Cain,' for we know that it is the bad ones who get it, the ones who touch too much, the ones who are libertines, careless and unloving. The WHO has warned us that Monkeypox may terrorize the whole world the way AIDS did. This all comes from AIDS actually; it was from AIDs we first learned of this special, paralyzing fear, and of hiding, and how to separate the good from the bad, and what it felt like not to be a pariah when the pariahs are cursed with death. Of course they have commercials on television for AIDS drugs these days that claim to keep the victims alive and keep them 'uninfectious' (!). But we know this cannot be true, we know what is right and who is good, and the dreaded speckled monkeypox hand will strike them down, those who dare to touch each other anonymously, deep into the night. It’s safe here. And we will live forever -- in our imaginations — because it is only the real world that lies. Our imaginations tell the truth. They always have and always will. Because it is from the imagination that we first learned the possibility that we might live forever.
