The teacher sat in front of his screen and his students sat in front of their own
Because remote learning was how it was done, each one believing
They were part of the class but never really there, their world was an
Archipelago of solitude and safety and mass interaction was a sin, and
The teacher wondered for the thousandth just how to explain their lives to them,
So he said in a whisper “let me tell you a story…”
Was in the Spring when it all changed forever and 19th Plague breezed in
From the East and clung to those it chanced to meet like sand on a sweating
Man’s skin, and the people said it just a cold, and I won’t wear a mask and
I know my rights, until the hospitals were overflowing and even the skeptics
Began dying
And Spring became Summer and slammed closed the restaurant doors,
And the king of trumps spoke from the garden of the roses to proclaim the
Plague was a hoax his enemies concocted, but the Plague didn’t care, and
The MAGA-hat wearers began to die too
And Summer flowed into Fall and another million departed while the scientists
Counseled social distance, anti-social masks, and miraculous vaccinations,
But the King of Chumps knew better because of his impressive intellect,
And the cemeteries cleared more land for burial
There was an election and the people spoke with their votes to
Throw the Trump on the discard pile and proclaimed the
New King Joe who picked up the gauntlet the old king dropped and
Flourished with faith and common sense
Winter chilled our bones and loneliness left us alone,
While the loser cried cheater and misguided his
Minions to take back his throne by force but the
Plague didn’t care who you knew
And it was in the Spring again when the people cried for normalcy
And feared the vaccines were a mind control conspiracy so the
Loser retreated to his gilded cage in Florida while, you guessed it,
The unvaccinated continued to die
And when the plague passed people began to live their lives again,
But the world would not be the same one as before the virus came,
Because perhaps another plague was waiting in the wings,
Crowds were suspicious and extroversion insane,
Self-reliance and independence became essential virtues and
In-person communication with strangers was deemed suicidal,
And the eleventh commandment was posted on bulletin board screens
“Thou shall be virtual, the world is not what it seems.”