Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Hope you’re all doing well out there in netlandia.
I thought today, being Wednesday in the era of the coronavirus pandemic, would be a good day for something lighter and sillier. While several songs leaped into mind, one leaped higher (and was accompanied by strange noises).
Here’s “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s, 1978. Feel free to dance in the safety of your own place, maintaining a safe distance from others.
That is all.
A quick rant, if you please. Just some first world blues.
Don’t know if others are experiencing WP issues. Here are mine.
So, if you notice that I haven’t visited your posts, I probably have, but I couldn’t comment, etc. Nothing personal; just WordPress.
ForeignFloof (floofinition) – Prock floof band from Amerifloof and Floofland formed in 1976 in Floof York.
In use: “Formed in the late seventies, ForeignFloof hit the charts with “Dirty White Dog”, “Floof Games”, and finally “I Want to Know What You’re Eating (I Want You to Show Me)”, their biggest hit.”
A scene bursts into my consciousness. Noisy and busy, I’m outdoors. People doing stuff surround me. I don’t know what they’re doing.
I’m presented with a location stocked with materials. “There are yours. Go to work.” Doing what? I wonder but respond with positive energy, “Okay.”
There’s a hammer, nails, wood, measuring tape, etc., essentially common hand tools associated with carpentry. As people bustle around me in a sunny area (I don’t see much past my immediate work space), I ponder what I’m supposed to do. Build something. Well, what?
A picnic table is in front of me. I presume that I’m supposed to use it as work table. After taking stock of the wood – it’s all sanded, finished wood (I don’t know what kind) – I start working, just following instinct. I’m enjoying it. I’m surprised to discover that I’m wearing a tool belt (which makes me laugh; me, in a tool belt?).
My construction progresses. People come by and compliment me. I’m pleased. Then, I realize, OMG, I’m building the picnic table. Wasn’t there a picnic table there before? I’m unsure. I thought there was, but now, I’m building one, and I don’t see another. Did someone take the original one? I didn’t notice that.
Being puzzled slows me down, makes me pause and reconsider what I’m doing for a bit. I look around for clues, but everyone else is busy. No one is showing me interest. Alright, just continue, what the hell, right?
So I do. I get deeper into the work. It progresses quickly. I have more wood than I realized, and work faster, more confidently. As I near completion, I realize, why I’ve built a room.
Astonishment striking me, I walk around to consider my work. Then I discover I haven’t built just a room, but a small house. How the hell did I do that? When did I do that?
As I contemplate the results, a man comes by. “Good job,” he tells me. “Keep going. Finish it.”
Keep going? Finish it? I have no idea what I’m doing.
After processing that, I notice missing details. I have floors but no ceilings. It’s incomplete. I decide to go back to work, thinking, what the hell, just follow the flow and see what turns out.
The dream ends.
This one looks colorful, challenging, and fun! Hope there aren’t any missing pieces. We buy used puzzles, so it’s a risk. One available for sale at the Goodwill the other day had a note attached, “Missing a piece.” Noble of your to note that problem, but no thanks. That’d be the piece that finally drives me completely insane.
He cited Elon Musk. “Elon Musk thinks the threat from the coronavirus is overblown. He’s a smart guy, and I agree with him.” Nodding, his friends came in closer to hear him. “Musk said that you’re more likely to be killed in a car accident going home from work than from the corollavirus.”
He purposefully misspoke, mocking the term, making his friends snort and scoff. “Just like President Trump said, this is a hoax. Yeah, sure, there’s a disease out there, but it’s not that big a deal. It’s not even as bad as the swine flu. We survived it, and we’ll survive this, too.”
“Fuckin’ a,” “Damn straight,” and “Preach it brother,” friends replied as others nodded agreement and encouragement.
Patient 46 continued, “The media is exploiting the news and the gullible sheeple because they don’t like Trump. They want this virus to succeed. They want people to die. It’s just like Trish Regan said, it’s an impeachment scam. They couldn’t legally impeach Trump, so now they’re trying to do this. You know she was right, because they shut her up straightaway, took her right off the air. Why else would they do that, if she wasn’t right?”
The rest agreed. A newcomer arrived. Greetings were bellowed.
Patient 46 turned away. It felt hot as hell in the bar. Sweat peppered his forehead. He took another long swallow of cold Bud to drown his fever. Nausea swarmed him. He mopped his face with a sleeve and then wiped his palm across his face. “Damn, it’s hot in this place,” he said loudly, but the televisions and jukebox drowned his words.
A grinning friend leaned in close. “Hey, man, don’t you know that you’re not supposed to be touching your face?”
The two laughed and slapped their palms together in a high-five salute. Each then made a show of touching their faces. Then, shrieking with greater laughter, his friend said, “No one said that I can’t touch your face.”
“Right on, scratch my nose for me,” Patient 46 said. His friend obliged as the two snorted and giggled.
It was the last thing that Patient 46 remembered before he awoke alone in the hospital. Lit machines were beeping, sighing, and humming. Tubes snaked to and from his body.
Such bullshit, he thought, such bullshit, what an over-reaction. Closing his eyes, he fought to breathe. Someone poisoned him, he thought. Trying to shut him up and make an example out of him. Probably the CIA or FBI. They were arms of the shadow government that Obama and Killary were running. Everyone knew it.
He’d show them. He would survive this fucking assassination attempt, and then share his story as a precautionary tale about the measures the libtards would take to shut people like him up.
Patient 46 died a few days later. His story remained untold. His services were sparsely attended.
Everyone was too sick to attend, but all agreed, it was a damn shame that such a smart guy, a real man like him, should die in a hospital bed like that.
Yes, a damn shame.
99 Floofballoons (floofinition) – International hit song by the rock floof band, Nenfloof.
In use: “The song, “99 Floofballoons” was about balloons that animals were using to save trapped animals, but humans, mistaking the balloons for UFOs, began shooting at them. The animals used their quantum cloaking to hide further activities from humans, successfully de-escalating the situation.”
Read a WSJ/NBC poll results. Posted today, the poll was conducted during 11 – 13 March 2019. It was about the coronavirus. The surprising results weren’t about support for the POTUS (not much changed there). No, more surprising was that most polled, particularly Republicans, didn’t think COVID-19 would have a major impact on their lives.
The poll was conducted as the NBA was shuttering the season for a while. The POTUS mad a speech that Wednesday and the stock exchanges showed a brief rebound. Since then…well, the news speaks for itself about what’s been shut down. It’s easier to list what isn’t shut down or impacted by the coronavirus. I guess it isn’t a surprise, then, as the POTUS has previously denounced COVID-19 as a hoax, or overblown as fake news by the media. Fox News happily supported those points for a while.
I then read another commentary on Italy’s situation (over twenty-five thousand cases now, and twenty-one hundred deaths). Then came an article that the U.S. (with over four thousand cases today) is where Italy was two weeks ago.
Finally, I read about Patient 31. She’s a woman in South Korea who carried on life as usual, attending church, eating at a lunch buffet, and working through a fever, a carrier who didn’t go and get tested, a woman now identified with a spike in South Korea’s coronavirus cases, a woman now considered a super-carrier.
Then I thought back to all the Americans who plan to continue business as usual, just as Patient 31 did.
From that came an old Bob Seger melody, “American Storm” (1986). Seger’s song was about a different epidemic, the increasing use of cocaine. But all the warning signs were ignored, and it spread. Feels like another song, about another storm, is due.
Michael Seidel, writer 