Essays in Idleness

What are we going to do, now that the (Red Chinese) Batflu is over? Or, not exactly over, for some of our progressive epidemiologists are still cheering for a second wave. But the thing itself — the first wave — is becoming harder and harder to sustain. In the Natted States, for instance, it has more or less disappeared from the Red States, and the “plateau” is tilting downwards even in the Blue — where governors had to feed the virus-infected into nursing homes, to keep their death rates up.

How will they justify their lockdowns, when their citizens stop dying altogether? When, with summer, they just go to the beach? When even their cops have stopped listening to them? And Doktor Fauci has noticed the wind shifting, and has therefore adjusted his sails to the “irreparable damage” that could be done if we don’t re-open quickly enough?

Moreover, it turns out, that the general public is somehow bored with “climate change.” What else can the progressive media use to scare them? How are we to maintain distancing in circumstances like these?

For social isolation is important to maintain. Myself, I look forward to the churches opening again, so I may sneak back into the Mass — the most Latin and traditional I can find — to get my isolation in there. The higher the Mass, the more is available, for the priest has turned towards God on our behalf, and even the wilder of the infant parishioners sense an atmosphere of reverence.

It has been my conviction, however, since before I began these Idleposts, that social isolation is possible even without wearing a bandit mask, or putting on that face which says: “Come any nearer and I’ll spray you with sanitizer!”

For decades, it seems, I have been avoiding long queues and crowds. I haven’t attended a football game in fifty-one years (and even then, I was playing). My computer is too old to have a Zoom camera, so I am able to keep unwanted visitors out.

Life in the city is chaotic enough: one is constantly affronted by shamelessness and noise. We must hatch a new scheme for social isolation.