A file in The Voice of One canon.
Pandemic Papers
The Coronavirus Notes
By A!Prophet
There were rumors of war. Nobody said what kind.
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Premise
ACT I
Humans on Earth—those who kept a biohazard mask and an oxygen tank near the bed—
were less likely to gamble with their health.
Or so the frightened part of the species believed.
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Case 1
The Supply Run
Shopping for basic supplies—at the neighborhood store—has been elevated to a biohazard nightmare on the street, and it’s not even Halloween.
Fact.
An eighty-nine-year-old launched me ten feet for the last roll of toilet paper.
Fact.
A ninja in aisle four beat me to the last roll of cleaning paper.
Fact.
If shortages persist, the sanitation department may have to make emergency house calls.
Fact. (Or prophecy. You decide.)
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Dispatch
Nation-states were in disarray based on how they handled the event. Infrastructure was not prepared—even in the “advanced” regions: Europe, Asia, North America, Australia.
Fact.
Yesterday, disasters were water, weather, and earth—storms, floods, quakes.
They cost lives, but they felt familiar.
Today’s disaster is microscopic.
A deadly virus.
Pretentious?
You decide.
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Pedantic Square
The Frightened Animal Theory
(Distant music: an old folk song. The kind that makes you remember childhood and regret adulthood.)
No doubt: the frightened animal theory is this—
When danger enters the room, the human becomes what it always was under the costume:
an animal protecting its breath, its food, its family, its fear.
“Who you calling an animal?”
Dear Sir,
Sorry if I offended you. It wasn’t my intention. Please excuse me.
The “animal” I mean isn’t an insult.
It’s a mirror.
It’s Darwin with a pulse.
It’s the survival reflex you pretend you outgrew—
until the shelves are empty.
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Parable
The Virus That Wasn’t Only a Virus
To make a long story short:
Not long after, the world caught a second infection—
not in the lungs, but in the mind.
A kind of code-virus spread through the grid.
Not the kind you can swab.
The kind that makes people run down the street looking for masks and toilet paper like it’s the last sacrament.
It turned crowds into a single organism:
panic with legs.
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Disclaimer
This next part is parable, not instructions.
Some people will always try to turn fear into a “game,”
and turn the world into a puzzle where the winners keep the spoils
and the losers are replaced by machines built for endurance, not tenderness.
That is the sickness beneath the sickness.
A Hunger-of-Systems masquerading as “efficiency.”
A gladiator logic wearing a lab coat.
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The Game
The rules are simple, and ancient:
Those who survive call themselves fit.
Those who don’t are labeled weak—
as if weakness were a moral failure.
Then the winners crown themselves,
and call it progress.
Meanwhile, the shortage of masks and gloves means we import what we lack from far away—
and discover we built a world that cannot breathe without someone else’s factory.
If your connections fail, don’t worry—
most people know someone who knows someone.
And if the broadband goes down, you’ll learn what silence costs.
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Benediction
But in light of today’s event, deepest sentiments go to all in quarantine around the world, and to those who have lost loved ones.
Our planet is in trouble.
And it makes me mad at no one—
including myself—
for loving all of you.
However: when someone stops the narrative—no matter how inconsiderate it seems—
it becomes the responsibility of a Prophet, not an artist.
Please be safe.
And if you can’t be safe, be kind.