#this virus is just one horrendous announcement after the other | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thedefinitionofbts · 5 years ago

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Upon Your Existence (3)

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3

Pairings: Jeon Jungkook x Reader (ft. the rest of BTS)

Genre: Science Fantasy, Angst, Apocalypse Au

Words: 7K

Description: …and so they just meet each other in these stories written inside these worlds built in their minds. Of course some will be sad, and others happy, but that’s just the way the universe is…chaotic, imperfect, but magnificently beautiful.

You’ll always remember his eyes, a pair of dark obsidian orbs, cloudy and unreadable to many but to you they were always crystal clear like the polycrystalline structure of black diamonds.

“Hurry, we need to go!” He beckons urgently as you remained huddled in the corner of your bedroom closet, arms wrapped around your legs and chin resting on the caps of your knees.

“Where’s mommy and daddy?” You peer up at your older brother, eyes wide and stricken with fear.

It was already dark outside. The bright glow of blue and red lights flicker through the glass windows, ricocheting off the walls of the room your parents once read you bedtime stories in. You can hear the voices of police officers and military personnel through the loud speakers, advising everyone to evacuate the city.

“They’re waiting for us, come on.” Yoongi responds more softly, flashing you a tender smile, one that you have witnessed more than anyone else, giving you more than enough strength to latch on to his extended hand.

You were just nine years old when news of the first outbreak was broadcasted over the television. At the time, it had not occurred to you how strange it all was, or perhaps it did, but it was all too confusing to even begin questioning any of it. You knew nothing about viruses or the spread of diseases in general, but after moving to the designated “safe haven” for your district and continuing your education through your teens, some things have naturally come to light.

Like back in high school chemistry, when your teacher demonstrated the effects of acid on protein to show students how you could go blind if it got in your eye. It was simply to remind everyone to wear goggles, but you’ll never forget the way the drop of HCl seared the egg white, making the fluid bubble up and solidify instantly. You imagine the virus doing the same to human flesh, only with a more complicated mechanism that had less to do with altering the structure of existing proteins and more to do with actually changing gene expression.

It only takes one person. One mutation. One strand of viral DNA to contaminate it all.

It almost sounded too easy, and though the official announcement stated the virus originated in the jungle off the coast, countless people had suspected it was actually developed by the government, a biological weapon gone awry. It wasn’t until over a decade later that it became quite clear, though still unofficial since the elite would never admit to such a horrendous act publicly, that everything was more or less planned as a means to control the population.

So no, the virus did not entail the end of the world. The world government had actually done a pretty job controlling it. How could they not since they planned it all anyways? But of course, if the world wants to end, it’ll find a way to end.

That, you had also learned through a news broadcast.

“Karma” Hoseok exhales, twisting the key and turning off the engine.

“Hoseok, it’s not Karma if the top 1% still survive.” Yoongi mumbles, stepping out of the passenger door and stretching out his back.

“The biggest fuck you would be if the comet just disintegrates right before it strikes.” Hoseok scoffs. “If only…”

You ponder the possibility of this all being a false positive. “Maybe it’ll miss Earth, and everyone will have evacuated the planet for no reason at all.” It’s a joke, but not the funny kind. You know it’s impossible, but you didn’t really say it for the purpose of anyone agreeing with you or even refuting the statement, considering the nonexistent possibility.

“Maybe…” Hoseok exhales, not entirely paying attention to what he was even responding to but rather just blankly gazing at the open field with its tall grasses swaying in the wind.

Yoongi remains silent. He has been the whole trip for the most part, and in a way, his nonchalance was peaceful and reassuring as it had always been for you growing up.

But this is it. This is where you part ways.

It’s a strange feeling, really. You’ve always imagined this moment to be more emotionally overwhelming, saying goodbye to your brother forever and all. He was the only person you’d ever really trusted, and the only other person who has felt like the closest thing to home, a place that never really existed, and even if it did, it won’t for long. Maybe habituation, or months of convinced acceptance has left you numb, or maybe it's the effect of building something so much up in your head that the actual experience doesn’t live up to what you’ve expected all this time.

“Are you sure?” Yoongi’s voice is low and subdued. He doesn’t make eye contact as he awaits your response, and perhaps it’s because he’s never questioned your personal decisions or the fact that he’s directly expressing his concern for you that you find yourself hesitating for the first time in months.

Did he invite you on this trip hoping you would change your mind in the end?

The thought makes your heart clench, and you have to tell yourself you’re overanalyzing. Yoongi wasn’t the kind to hint at what he wanted. He always directly expressed his thoughts no matter how offensive or uncalled for they are. You’ve always admired him for that sort of bravery, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to change now. Besides, you had made up your mind half a year ago, ever since you saw the timer flash across the T.V. screen.

Six months was how long they gave the general population to decide. Either you were rich enough to leave earth or you had to come to terms with the end. They had known about it years in advance, and though it’s unclear whether or not the planned viral outbreak was related to the detection of the comet’s trajectory, what’s undeniable is that they had kept everyone in the dark to avoid chaos.

You had no interest in space, nor did you want to be a part of a system so cruel. Yoongi didn’t either, not initially, but you weren’t going to blame him for meeting a boy who was the literal manifestation of the sun, someone who could make his heart beat in ways it never did.

“Your spot will always be open” Hoseok chimes in with his bright sunshine of a smile, and you can almost feel a fraction of what Yoongi feels when he sees it too.

“There’s more I want to see before it’s too late.” It’s not like you were alone. There were millions of other people staying on the planet- those who couldn’t afford a ticket on the escape ship.

Yoongi nods lightly, turning to walk up the steps to join Hoseok, who was already at the top still looking at you standing below, perhaps also hoping you would change your mind. Even now, you can see the softness in the latter’s eyes, the tangibility of the warmth that he radiates, and you have no trouble understanding why your bother fell for him.

And that’s the last image you see of the two. Hoseok’s melancholic gaze and the slight upturn of Yoongi’s lip as the doors close.

…

There’s a certain kind of calmness that accompanies solitude, even when the entire world is ready to burst under suppressed chaos. There’s also a strange detachment that comes with wanting to do everything while at the same time not wanting to do anything at all because none of it mattered anymore.

Stepping onto the train, you immediately get a whiff of the stench of sweat and body odor, the kind that tells you you’re not the only one who thought spending the next few days just gazing at the world was a good way to ride through the end. Most of the seats were taken, homeless people with all their bags large and small, scattered across the floor. You almost trip on someone’s sleeping bag as you navigate down the aisle, looking for a less crowded cart, which you are fortunate enough to find just as the train begins to move.

Settling down in the seat closest to the window, you momentarily let your eyes dwell on someone sitting a couple seats away. His attention was focused on the scenery outside, but he somehow sensed the weight of your scrutiny as he turns just as you were about to lean to get a better view.

You barely avert your gaze before he catches you staring, though you’re pretty sure he noticed because the next thing you know, he’s made his way over and is now seated across from you. Despite the sudden proximity and the bout of nerves it has initiated, you choose to keep your attention pointed at the passing scenery now zipping by in parallel with the train’s increasing speed.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” His voice is light with a deep, husky undertone that glides through the air.

You look up to find that he isn’t even looking out the window. You swallow, finding it bizarre that he’s staring at you so intently. “Indeed.”

“Traveling?”

You nod.

“Going anywhere in particular?” He tilts his head curiously; a motion almost child-like in nature and it makes you relax for the first time since you started this solo venture.

“Nope.”

He smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges. “So your plan was to just sit on this train and look out the window?”

“Pretty much, yeah” You shrug, sensing your anxieties dissipate as he does not seem to pose a threat of any kind.

He chuckles softly. “But don’t you want to go out there and really feel the earth. Really experience being alive on this planet one last time?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s the end of the world. What do you have to lose?”

He was right, and your excuses don’t even sound convincing to yourself anymore.

“So what exactly are you proposing?”

“This train loops around the entire continent. I say we get off at each stop and do one thing we’ve always wanted to do.”

“We?” You’re thrown off by how easily he placed the word in his sentence. How he didn’t even hesitate to include you in his spur of the moment proposal.

He nods.

“Together?” You ask again, still skeptical.

He laughs softly; looking down and back up again with a playful smirk.

“What if we want to do different things?” You counter, still unsure why you are playing along with this stranger who hasn’t even introduced himself.

“Ok. We’ll get off at each stop and do one thing you’ve always wanted to do.”

“You’re sure putting a lot of bets on someone you don’t even know.” You comment, waiting to see how he’s going to react.

There’s a peculiar look in his eyes, one that speaks of anticipation precipitously lost to the wind. He drops his gaze momentarily, smiling to himself before looking up at you once more.

“Or you could say I’m going all in on someone I would like to get to know.” There’s cheerfulness in his voice that you haven’t heard in a long time, an unfamiliar yet heart racing aura of beginnings rather than the familiar imminent end that has surrounded your life for months. It makes you smile, but you can’t help but notice the sad glint in his eyes merely seconds before it’s gone.

“I…actually haven’t really thought about what I want to do.” You confess, diverting your attention to the landscape outside. Your life had always been planned. Whether it was wandering down paths that others had led you towards or the world leaving you no alternative option, you had never been offered the freedom of uninhibited choice. It was like the events had already been written, and you were just living it out like a character in a story everyone already knows the end to.

“Maybe you shouldn’t think about it.” His voice startles you, making you realize you had paused mid conversation.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve found that overthinking leads to indecisiveness.” He tilts his head, analyzing your reaction as if waiting for a specific response.

“I’m not indecisive, and I don’t overthink.” You deny, despite knowing full well you are and have always been.

He doesn’t look convinced. “Ok, then you’re afraid of regrets?”

“I’m just…I dunno…scared?”

He nods, displaying that he understands what you mean. “But you are here now, so you must’ve found some source of courage.”

You wouldn’t really consider your decision to stay on earth courageous. To you it was more like the final act of rebellion you had the chance of carrying out, not that you ever came close to rebelling in the past.

“Well?” The train has stopped, and you can tell he’s waiting for you to decide to get off with him or not.

It’s not forceful or pressuring in anyway, but communicates an air of patience you find to be very comforting. And there’s something about the way he speaks to you, the way he gauges your response as if he already knows what you’re about to say that inclines you to believe he knows more about you than logically possible for someone you just met. Maybe you were just easy to read, or this guy is just really good at reading social cues. Whatever it may be, you had two seconds to make your decision, and if the past has taught you anything, you already know that there’s no turning back.

…

Getting off the train, you’re surprised by the number of people still around and the cultural music dancing through the air. You expected the city to be less crowded and the mood to be more somber, a scene that makes the end of the world more obvious, in what way you weren’t sure, but definitely nothing close to what you were currently presented.

“They’re just here, like us, enjoying these last days.” He blinks slowly, somehow able to tell that the scene has left you dumbfounded.

“I guess I just expected something different” You reply, still looking around at the people laughing and chatting away in the outdoor seating areas of restaurants and coffee shops.

“Only 1% of the population left, and most of them probably didn’t live in old towns like this.” He glances at you from under the sunhat he had put on right after exiting the train.

His response puts a smile on your face. A picture of a smiling Hoseok and Yoongi flashes through your mind as you are remembered how they spoke about the privileged. It had been a long time since your mood has felt this light.

“So are you going to properly introduce yourself? Or am I going to have to ask you questions?” You narrow your eyes, feeling mischievous all of a sudden.

He laughs, eyes crinkling at the edges again. “It’s the end of the world. I could tell you anything and it wouldn’t even matter.” He skips a few feet ahead of you before twirling around and offering you his hand.

You’re surprised by your own lack of hesitation as you reach out almost instinctively.

“Wow, that was easier than expected.” He comments, referring to how quickly you accepted his offer compared to your obvious indecision back on the train, eyes almost wide as he gives your hand a light squeeze, making sure that it was indeed real, and his eyes weren’t just playing tricks on him.

“It’s the end of the world.” You shrug, repeating the words he had been reiterating since the two of you met. An unfamiliar fullness engulfs your heart, and you wonder if the boy next to you feels it too. You don’t remember the last time you had held someone’s hand like this or if you had ever held a hand that fit to yours so perfectly.

“Jungkook.” He suddenly breathes out, probably noticing the way you’ve been staring at your interlinked hands like he would suddenly let go or disappear into thin air.

“Huh?” You look up almost dazed.

“My name. It’s Jungkook.” He smiles, gripping your hand a bit tighter.

“Oh, um, I’m Y/N.” You response almost awkwardly, unprepared for his sudden revelation of sorts, trying to recall why the name seemed familiar while at the same time knowing with the utmost certainty you had never known a person with that name.

He bobs, the expression on his face making you almost suspect that this wasn’t new information to him.

“So what would you like to do, Miss Y/N?” He gestures at the completely foreign town, the lake and mountains not too far in the distance.

“I don’t know.” You reveal truthfully, not having thought this far yet. You were kind of just banking on intuition, but you were so caught up analyzing him along with your own shifting disposition that you hadn’t actually thought about the actual world and what you wanted to do. “With the virus and all, I had never made a bucket list or anything. I just assumed I would never get a chance to come to places like this anyways.”

“Even when it was nearly eradicated?”

“Then came this whole comet ordeal.” You sigh. “End of the world, remember?”

“Not like I could forget.” He starts swinging your interlinked arms causally. “Shall we just walk around then? Explore some abandoned buildings that may or may not be haunted.”

“You can’t seriously believe in ghosts, can you?” You cock a brow. “In this day and age?”

He cackles. “I was just testing you.”

“Sure you were” You flash him the look, but it doesn't last before you’re consumed by his contagious laughter.

It wasn’t long before the two of you stumble upon a rather decent looking lodging facility, not that you were looking for anything fancy. The walls were made of stone, a suitable complement to the cobblestone roads you had been walking along since leaving the train station, with ivy crawling up the sides and lining the windows. The building gave off the impression that it was an affordable choice for two broke travelers, not that money really mattered anymore.

“We should probably put some of our stuff down and explore the city.” Jungkook suggests, looking up from the map on his phone.

You exhale slowly, almost having forgotten how heavy your backpack weighed on your shoulders. The sun had moved to the middle of the sky, causing beads of sweat to form and start sliding down your forehead. It wasn’t extremely hot, but you had opted to wear a few extra layers in an attempt to keep your bags a bit lighter.

Following him into the lobby, you don’t expect Jungkook to arrange a room for you as well, but he comes back with two keys to two separate rooms.

“Thanks” You voice softly as hands one of them to you.

“It would probably be safer to stay in the same room, but I don’t want you to think I’m some perverted stalker trying to take advantage of you.”

You smirk before failing to contain your own laughter. “I already assumed you were.”

He rolls his eyes. “Just let me know if you need anything, ok?”

You nod, glancing at him one last time before heading towards your room. He seemed concerned, or his mind was thinking about something else.

The room smelled moist and musky, with an almost rotten scent, like it hadn’t been cleaned in quite some time. Not that you were expecting some pristine hotel room or sterilized classroom like the facilities back in the cities during the viral outbreak, but it was pretty clear the place hadn’t been tidied in weeks. The bed sheets were unwashed, and the trash bins hadn’t even been emptied.

You walk over to open a window, hoping the air outside would somehow neutralize the pungent odor. Just as you were contemplating going over to suggest exploring the markets, you hear a knock at your door.

“Who is it?” You call out, hoping that it was just Jungkook coming back to check up on you.

There’s no answer, but you can hear the pounding get louder, like whoever was on the other side was trying to break down the door. There’s a loud crack as the wooden door pane splinters, the rusty knob just falling off and rolling across the floor. You’re frozen in place, eyes full of fear as you stare at the large man standing at the entrance.

He slowly walks towards you with a frown on his face, blocking your view of the hallway and only escape.

Before you could scream, you hear a loud bang and the next thing you know, the man was on the ground. Your eyes immediately dart up and to your uttermost relief, you see Jungkook with a lamp clasped in his hand, eyes wide with alarm.

“We need to get out of here” He exhales, quickly grabbing your hand and making a run for it.

You don’t get a chance to look back, all you can focus on is keeping up with Jungkook’s speed as he leads you back out to the street and navigates through the crowds of people.

“Wha-how did you…?” You look at him and back in the direction the two of you ran from, mind still reeling from the hasty course of events.

“It was my bad really, I should’ve know most places aren’t safe anymore.” He shakes his head, looking around at the people still gathered in large crowds when you’re finally at a safe distance from the lodge. “Maybe that’s why everyone is here out in the open.”

“Hey, it’s ok, we’re fine and there’s only like three weeks left anyways” You give his hand a tight squeeze, unsure of why you felt so compelled to make him feel better. Perhaps it was the sadness in his eyes, something you can’t seem to ignore because it looked so familiar yet you’re unable to comprehend it fully.

He sighs. “Three weeks…are you the type who prefers to count down?”

You want to forget about it, to not be constantly reminded that the world you once knew is gone and these last moments will soon be swallowed in the same way. But no matter how hard you try to ignore the thought, it’s always there at the back of your mind, a subconscious countdown that keeps showing up intermittently.

“I just want to be as prepared as possible, and I don’t like surprises.”

“Somehow that’s not so surprising.” He smiles for the first time in a while, and you don’t miss the hint of playfulness in his words. It’s reassuring and quells some of your anxiety.

“You don’t seem to mind this whole ordeal.” You suddenly blurt out. Ever since you met this dark haired doe-eyed Jungkook, he’s seemed so…okay with everything, like the end of the world was some kind of adventure and not a dark and dreary end to existence.

He cocks a brow. “Almost getting us into some deep shit back there?”

“No, the fact that we have three weeks left, and then it’s over.” You exhale, letting out a breath you didn’t know you had been holding in for so long and finally feeling that weight being lifted off your chest.

His features relax as he turns to face you. “I’m looking forward to what lies beyond the end and in the meantime, making the most of what we are given now.”

You don’t quite understand what he means, and there are so many questions you want to ask, but the determined look in his eyes makes you wonder if you’re missing something deeper, something he wants to convey but is waiting for you to reach your own conclusion.

“Beyond the end?”

He chuckles lightly. “Like how people say endings give birth to new beginnings?”

“You sound like my mom.” You huff, knowing that he’s just playing around again and avoiding the real answer to your question.

“Do you miss her?” He suddenly asks.

“She was never really around much. Neither was my dad.” There’s an extended pause as Jungkook waits for you to continue, almost like he senses there’s more you want to say. “My brother Yoongi was my rock, the only person in my life that I could turn towards for guidance like an actual parental figure. My parents were loving and all, but being adopted, they were just nice picture parents. They didn’t offer me the kind of depth I needed. And my brother, you know, was older and I’m sure he didn’t think much of it at the time, but his advice was something I always took seriously, whether it was subconscious or not. His opinions impacted a lot of my decisions in life…” You trail off, thinking back to all the decisions you had made because Yoongi had expressed some form of bias towards it and still question to this day if they were the right ones. It’s not like you had that many regrets, but you can’t help but wonder if your life would’ve turned out differently had you made more choices independently. “You know I could’ve just said fuck it and did the thing I actually wanted to do.”

“Well, here’s your chance.”

…

The two of you decide that the safest place to sleep is the train.

Though it was often crowded and smelled of human sweat, it was still better than figuring how to set up a tent or having to climb a tree. And after the incident at the lodge, neither of you really wanted to risk it again. Besides, spending one or two days in one city is more than enough to grab some local food and do some sightseeing. You also realize that all of the towns sort of start blending into one another, like the days you’re still trying not to countdown. You’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t bother you as much, at least not when you’re with traveling with someone you’ve grown too fond of too quickly, but in the best way ever.

“I guess I really didn’t think any of this through, but none of it really matters now, does it?”

You were trailing behind him in the orchard, the sun’s rays filtering through the leaves casting moving patterns on the ground. Spending the past few days visiting gardens and vineyards had been more fun than you had expected. The fruit was sweet and the flowers were bright and lively. Each farm you visited looked to stretch on for miles and miles, twisting and twirling along the hills and rivers. You had always been told that beauty existed in the most unexpected of places, and you were finally given the chance to witness it for yourself.

“You know there’s no point in living every day thinking about the fact that you’re going to die anyways.” He takes a bite of the apple he just picked off of one of the lower branches of the tree. The sound so crisp and juicy, you can feel your mouth salivating.

You release a light chuckle. “You’re telling me this when it’s literally the end of the world?”

He turns to toss you an apple. “I’m advising you to stop thinking about endings.”

Catching it in your hands, you stare at the intermingled colors for a moment, red, yellow, and a tad bit of green merging but never really mixing to become one. Taking a bite you realize its sweetness is lace with a tangy after taste, like those bittersweet endings you’ve come to know so well.

“I used to come to these places filled with so many thoughts on how to remember the details that I forget to enjoy the actual experience.” You pause, taking the time to decide if you wanted to continue.

Jungkook doesn’t make a sound, no signal to hint that he was going throw in commentary or interrupt your train of thought. You turn to glance at him, wondering if he’s wrapped in his own contemplation, only to find that he just looking at you, staring so intently you have to look away as you feel the blood rush to face.

“You’re still afraid of losing your memories, huh?”

It leaves his lips as a whisper, so soft that you are compelled to believe he was just mumbling to himself. You want to linger over his interesting choice of words, but you try not to think much of it and continue.

“So I tried to reason that if the journey is what we should be focusing on, I should just set goals that I’ll never reach. That way I wouldn’t have to deal with endings or being directionless in life.” You laugh. “And of course that backfired.”

“Continuously chasing after something you’ll never obtain?” He tilts his head towards the sun, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

You observe his side profile, visually drawing the outline of his silhouette and carving the image of his physical form into your brain knowing that it will last only as long as the end of time will allow.

“I just don’t like endings…or goodbyes…or even the thought that this is all there is to it.” You murmur, shifting your eyes back to the ground.

“There’s always more too it than you think.”

“And then I read somewhere that people don’t remember what you do but they remember how you made them feel.” You don’t know where you’re going with your outburst of thoughts, and maybe the diminishing days are convincing you to let it all out before it’s too late no matter how nonsensical everything you are saying is.

The breeze blowing by emphasizes the brief silence that follows, in which only the gentle rustling of leaves can be heard. You don’t know what else to say. You’ve never gotten this far in a conversation where your thoughts have been unhindered and you hadn’t planned an entire speech out. At this point you’re just waiting for him to respond, to tell you that you should stop thinking about uselessly irrelevant things or at least question why you’re telling him all this.

You watch as he turns to face you, not having realized you had closed the distance between you whilst ranting. He was so close you can almost feel the light brush of his shirt as it lifts up slightly in the wind and the heat of his body radiating off his smooth skin. His gaze is distracting. It’s something you’ve learned over the past week and then some. The way his dark pupils twinkle mysteriously almost mimicking those of someone’s you will never forget, but there’s something different about his. His eyes reflected the sunlight like there were stars inside.

You’re so enraptured by his beauty that you don’t realize he’s reduced the remaining space between the two of you to almost nothing, lips just millimeters away now. Without another thought, you lean forward and kiss him, mouth clumsily crashing with his. You can feel his lips curve into a smile as he kisses you back much in a much more composed and practiced manner, like he has done it a million times before, only you know that’s not possible. He breaks free temporarily only to murmur one sentence in response.

“I’ll always remember the way you made me feel.”

…

Time starts to fluctuate in ways you begin to lose track of.

Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night confused about where you were and frantically searching for something to calm your racing thoughts. You have dreams about different phases of your life, places you’ve been, people you used to know, only they are distorted in ways that make them almost unrecognizable. And then when you try to dig them up from your memories, you find that they are lost and everything has changed.

Now you find solace in the moonlight pouring through the curtain windows of the train and the solidity of Jungkook’s hand intertwined with yours as his jacket covers both of your bodies. The way he never leaves your side is unusual for someone you didn’t even know existed until about two weeks ago, and yet he gives you no reason to doubt that he would ever leave.

It’s something you’ve too grown familiar with, the scent of his body and the warmth of his smile. And as you walk the streets of foreign cities, navigating through crowds of strange people whose faces you won’t even remember, you choose to inscribe the details of his features in your memoirs, the softness of his skin, the width of his shoulders, the veins on his forearms...

You’ve learned that he enjoys gazing at large bodies of water, lakes, rivers, and oceans, which is why you find yourself on the beach at the last stop of your journey.

“Would it make sense to say I’ve always liked being alone, but I’m not too fond of being lonely?”

He takes a minute to contemplate your seemingly contradictory statement.

“Makes perfect sense to me.” He absentmindedly tosses a seashell at the incoming wave. It’s swallowed instantly, and all you can focus on is the foamy ripples that wane back into the seemingly endless blue. “I think what makes us feel lonely is being with people who don’t really understand us, and that doesn’t happen when you’re alone since you’re just by yourself. ”

“Wow, you’re the first person who hasn’t just told me I’m just being anti-social…well, technically the second.” You smile, breathing out slowly. “I think you and my brother, Yoongi, would’ve gotten along pretty well.”

“Did he leave?”

You nod, recalling the last image of him still safely tucked away in your memories.

“And you wanted to stay to enjoy these last few weeks.”

You arch a brow, having expected him to ask why you didn’t leave rather than stating the exact answer you would’ve given him had he asked.

“How’d you guess?”

He laughs. “I figured, since you don’t seem bothered wasting all this time with me.”

“True.” You smile. “Although I wouldn’t call it wasting…”

The salty sea breeze is something you definitely didn’t have the luxury of smelling growing up. This is your first time visiting the beach, first time seeing the ocean. Each day you’ve spent on this adventure of sorts with Jungkook has been a first…and a last now that you think about it.

“You’re right. I couldn’t have asked for a better end to life on earth.”

…

Home.

It’s not a concept you are familiar with in the traditional sense. It’s not a feeling you’ve experienced first hand nor is it a place you’ve truly been to.

But looking into Jungkook’s eyes you can see it.

You can see it in the way he looks at you, the way he embraces you in his arms not because it's the end of the world and there is no one else to hold, but because it's where you belong and neither of you would have it any other way.

“This can’t be it.” You choke out, already losing yourself to the rush of tears, though you had tried so hard to keep it together until the end. “W-we j-just met…”

He doesn’t say anything, but instead holds you tighter.

“I never even asked you anything about yourself. All I did was ramble on and on about me, throwing all my stupid thoughts out there like any of it mattered.” You’re tears won’t stop. You had always hated endings; putting the utmost effort into not caring so you wouldn’t have anything you were afraid of losing. But you just couldn’t do it. Not with him.

He flashes you one last smile as he gently cups your tear-streamed cheeks in his hands, a gesture that is not overpowered by a deep sense of hollowness but rather reflects an almost peaceful ray of hope.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here.”

…

...

“I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched him die. I just remember always crying until I have no tears left to shed. But he always gives me that reassuring look, with those stars in his eyes and that twitch of his soft lips like it isn’t the last time, that we’ll for sure meet again.” You release a trivial laugh, already feeling the effects of the alcohol. “Of course, I never pick up on it until I’m about to wake up.”

The bar was dim and comparably quiet, being that it was only you and Namjoon sitting at the counter. It was a Monday night, not exactly the best of days to get drunk, but it’s not like you really cared, though you probably should. You had invited the entire lab out for dinner to celebrate the publishing of your most recent paper, which turned out quite pleasant and ended roughly an hour ago. All the other students and professors had gone home.

“He’s always waiting.” You murmur, staring at the shot glass in front of you, still talking as if you were by yourself, reiterating the words that continuously circle back in your head.

Namjoon looks up, startled by your sudden comment after a lengthy pause.

“I never have to look for him because he always comes back to me.” You scoff, bringing the glass up to your lips, tilting your head, and letting the liquid burn down your throat. “And then when I react like I’ve just met him for the first time, he just flashes that gentle smile of acceptance like I didn’t just break his heart.”

Your bottom lip quivers, and before you know it, tears are streaming down your face. God, you feel ridiculous.

“And that happens every time?” Namjoon’s voice is barely a whisper, his eyes focused on his own glass.

“Never misses a beat.” You sniffle softy, picking up a napkin to dot away your tears. “I thought I was ok, but I guess I am insane.” You laugh pathetically.

“I understand. He means a lot to you.”

“He’s the kind of forever that never changes, the kind of time that does not reach an end just to continue that moment you’ve always wanted to last for an eternity.” You don’t even know what’s gotten into you, and though you’re aware of the mess you must look like right now, you can’t seem to pull it together.

There’s a long pause, and nothing but the sound of stifled music and distant footsteps can be heard.

“Professor Y/L/N, I know it’s not my place to be curious about your personal life, but can you really not think of a single person that resembles him, whether it is in the past or now?” Namjoon voice is more desperate than he probably intended, but any could tell you were not being quite yourself.

A forced smile makes it’s way to your lips as you shake your head. “He was always exactly what I needed. He was always too good to be real.”

“It’s not impossible.”

“It’s bad to be too dependent on other people.” You flash him an amused look, not really knowing what you are saying anymore as your head begins to spin from the alcohol. “And please, please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not weak or insecure.”

Namjoon doesn’t respond, sensing your tipsiness.

“It’s not that he gives my life meaning or that he makes me feel complete.” You run your hands through your hair, trying to keep your cool, but anyone could tell you’re losing it. “He’s the only truth in a world of lies. Even when I’m not aware that everything around me is merely a dream, he always feels like the only thing that is real, and for him I would be content never waking up because the rest of reality doesn’t even matter. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve long learned to be independent and logical, to refrain from getting lost in dreams, relying on others, and carrying expectations that will only result in disappointment. I’ve practiced the art of self-love for all my life, and I’m fine. My life has purpose, and I am complete the way I am.” You release a shaky breath, palms feeling cold and clammy. “I’ve always felt that I’ve had everything and yet… he offers more.”

You look up to meet Namjoon’s eyes that are nothing but sympathetic.

“How could I not want more?” You croak, beginning to cry again. “I’m so greedy.”

That’s what it is. Always wanting more, never feeling like what you have is enough. When will you learn to be grateful for what is and stop trying to obtain what is not yours to begin with?

“You are not greedy.” Namjoon’s voice is discreet, but firm. “You’re afraid to believe of his existence.”

Your eyes shoot up to meet his. “Because I know he doesn’t exist.”

“Then why do you keep going back?” His question is not for the purpose of attacking you or for blatantly calling you out for something you’ve been guilty of for years, but it catches you off guard, and you suddenly find yourself exposed… vulnerable.

“My research” You reply dryly, maintaining a steady voice amidst the fable you’ve been repeatedly telling everyone who’s ever asked. “I don’t really have a choice.”

Namjoon doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t try to force the truth out of you even though he knows exactly why. “No, I mean, why does your mind subconsciously always go back to him?” He murmurs, staring at the table solemnly.

His query once again seizes you in unfamiliar territory, and for the first time, you don’t know what to say or at least can’t come up with an answer that will not expose the true reason you’ve been experimenting. Because you know Namjoon is right.

You just don’t know how right he is.

...

#bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #bts scenarios #bts angst #bts imagines #wow it's been so long #i didn't forget about this story i promise

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Monday, January 11, 2021

The workers hit hardest during Covid-19’s first wave are getting pummeled again (Yahoo Finance) Since the beginning of the pandemic, one group of workers has been hurt far more than others: those working in the service industries, specifically in leisure and hospitality jobs. And in December after some progress, that industry lost jobs once again. “The most recent surge in coronavirus cases is once again battering the US labor market,” Indeed’s economic research director Nick Bunker wrote in a note. “The economic fallout from this wave of cases is hitting the industries and workers pummeled hardest by the initial damage before they fully bounced back from that first hit.” The latest hit isn’t as bad as the spring, as vaccines are rolling out and certain measures are in place, but restaurants, bars, and other jobs that depend on people interacting still cannot do business in a pandemic environment.

Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone (AP) One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Navy’s Priciest Carrier Ever Struggles to Get Jets On, Off Deck (Bloomberg) Aircraft takeoff and landing systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford remain unreliable and break down too often more than three years after the $13.2 billion carrier was delivered, according to the Pentagon’s top tester. The latest assessment of the costliest warship ever built “remains consistent” with previous years, director of testing Robert Behler said in his new summary of the program obtained by Bloomberg News before its release in an annual report. The Ford’s new systems—which propel planes off the deck and into the sky and then snag them on landing—are crucial to justifying the expense of what’s now a four-vessel, $57 billion program intended to replace the current Nimitz class of aircraft carriers. The continuing reliability woes with the carrier systems built by General Atomics of San Diego are separate from another continuing challenge: the installation and certification of elevators needed to lift munitions from below deck. As of November, six of 11 “advanced weapons elevators” that should have been installed when the ship was delivered in May 2017 are now operational.

In Central America, tensions rise as soldiers aim to stop migrants (Reuters) Guatemalan and Honduran soldiers will be deployed to prevent new U.S.-bound migrant caravans from advancing, military officials said, amid growing desperation among those seeking to cross and signs that some groups will depart later this month. Two devastating hurricanes late last year along with severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic have pushed millions of people in the already-poor region closer to hunger, leading to a steady rise in U.S.-bound migration through Mexico. In online forums, many Honduras have indicated they plan to leave next weekend in a new caravan, which has caught the attention of U.S. officials who have called on the region’s governments to stop them. Many migrants in recent years have chosen to travel by caravan because being part of a large group offers protection from criminals who might prey on them, even though traveling alone is often faster.

Johnson under fire as UK again faces onslaught of COVID-19 (AP) The crisis facing Britain this winter is depressingly familiar: Stay-at-home orders and empty streets. Hospitals overflowing. A daily toll of many hundreds of coronavirus deaths. The U.K. is the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 outbreak once more, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is facing questions, and anger, as people demand to know how the country has ended up here—again. Many countries are enduring new waves of the virus, but Britain’s is among the worst, and it comes after a horrendous 2020. More than 3 million people in the U.K. have tested positive for the coronavirus and 81,000 have died—30,000 in just the last 30 days. The economy has shrunk by 8%, more than 800,000 jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands more furloughed workers are in limbo. Even with the new lockdown, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Friday that the situation in the capital was “critical,” with one in every 30 people infected. “The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” he said.

In the Cold and Rain, India’s Farmers Press Their Stand Against Modi (NYT) Under a rain-slick tarpaulin, half a dozen elderly women bake roti on a wood-fired griddle—flattening dough, flipping browned bread from dawn until the sun retreats into Delhi’s evening smoke. Anyone who walks in gets served rice and cooked vegetables and, to wash it down, a cumin-flavored yogurt drink. Across the road, Jagjeet Singh, a burly man with a large fanny pack and a light purple turban, churns a hefty pot of milk coffee from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. The scenes stretching for miles around the Indian capital don’t come from a fair. They make up one of the largest sustained protests the country has seen in decades, persisting through steady rains and dozens of deaths that farmers and the Indian media have attributed to the weather, illness or suicide. For six weeks now, tens of thousands of farmers have choked the city’s four main entry points. They are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has crushed all other opposition and stands as the country’s dominant political force, over his effort to reshape how farming in India has been done for decades. “They sold everything else. Only the farmers are left,” said 18-year old Ajay Veer Singh, who has been at the protest with his 67-year-old grandfather since it began in November. “Now they want to sell the farmers to their corporate friends too.”

China sees growing outbreak south of Beijing (AP) More than 360 people have tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing in neighboring Hebei province. The outbreak has raised particular concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the nation’s capital. Travel between the two has been restricted, with workers from Hebei having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter the city. Almost all of the cases are in Shijuazhuang, the provincial capital, which is about 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Beijing. A handful have also been found in Xingtai city, 110 kilometers (68 miles) farther south. Both cities have conducted mass testing of millions of residents, suspended public transportation and restricted residents to their communities or villages for one week.

Pompeo voids restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan (AP) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how U.S. diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the U.S. would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014. Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties. He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. “No more,” Pompeo declared in a statement. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.” The Chinese government maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organizations that require statehood for membership.

Japanese pray for end to pandemic in annual ice bath ritual at Tokyo shrine (Reuters) Men wearing traditional loin clothes and women dressed in white robes clapped and chanted before going into an ice water bath during a Shinto ritual at a Tokyo shrine on Sunday to purify the soul and pray for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a dozen people took part in the annual event at Teppou-zu Inari Shrine, scaled down this year due to the health crisis, compared to over a hundred in early 2020. After doing warming-up exercises and chanting under a clear sky with outside temperatures at 5.1 degree Celsius (41.18 Fahrenheit), the nine male and three female participants went into a bath filled with cold water and large ice blocks. Fewer participants at the Shinto ritual made the water extra cold, participant Naoaki Yamaguchi told Reuters. “Normally we have more participants and it makes the water temperature a little bit warmer. But this year, there were just twelve people, so it (the cold) was crazy,” the 47-year-old said.

Indonesian divers find parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea (AP) Indonesian divers on Sunday located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 meters (75 feet) in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the surface. It’s still unclear what caused the crash. There was no sign of survivors. Fishermen in the area between Lancang and Laki islands, part of an archipelago around Thousand Islands north of Jakarta’s coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

At a Yemen hospital wracked by U.S. funding cuts, children are dying of hunger (Washington Post) Her infant son, weakened by hunger, needed a better-equipped hospital in the capital, Sanaa, roughly 30 miles away. But Hanan Saleh could no longer afford even the $30 taxi fare. Before, she depended on a Western aid organization, Save the Children, for funds, drawn from money donated by the United States, to cover the travel costs, said employees of the organization and hospital officials. But last year, the United States slashed its funding to United Nations groups and others such as Save the Children. So Saleh had to raise money to treat her son, Mohammed, in Sanaa until those funds ran out, too. Her last option was a small hospital in this northern Yemen market town, a 15-minute walk from their home. The staff tried to build up his skeletal, malnourished 9-month-old body. “He died two months ago,” Saleh recalled in November, breaking down in tears. Aid cuts by the Trump administration and other Western countries, intended to prevent Yemen’s Houthi rebels from diverting or blocking funds, are worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis, already considered the most severe in the world. Last year’s pledges totaling $1.61 billion were less than half of 2019’s funding, and hundreds of millions of dollars committed by donors have not yet been paid, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office for Yemen. At least 15 of the U.N.’s 41 major programs have been scaled back or closed, and additional programs could shutter in the months to come, if more funds are not received, U.N. officials say.

The Tiny Satellites That Will Connect Cows, Cars and Shipping Containers to the Internet (WSJ) Scientists who track the health of Adélie penguins on the ice-covered wastes of Antarctica are managing their cameras from thousands of miles away—via tiny satellites orbiting above our heads. Energy companies are exploring using the same technology for monitoring hard-to-reach wind farms; logistics companies for tracking shipping containers; and agribusiness companies for minding cattle. It even helped National Geographic track a discarded plastic bottle from Bangladesh to the Indian Ocean. In the near future, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine this evolving satellite technology could put a distress beacon in every automobile, allow remote monitoring of wildlife in any environment on earth, and track your Amazon shipment—not just when it’s on a truck, but backward, all the way to the factory that produced it. And it could be done at a fraction of the cost of earlier satellite tracking systems. These novel networks of nanosats—aka cubesats—are a result of a number of factors. First, the satellites themselves are smaller, cheaper and more capable than ever. Just as important, there’s the rollout and adoption of new long-distance, low-power wireless communication standards that can work just as well in outer space as they do on the ground. In the next year, hundreds of satellites from more than a dozen companies are set to launch.

#headlines #news

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isakblu · 4 years ago

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The Takeaway from The Plague by Camus

2020 has hit people with a myriad of dreadful events, and COVID-19 is one of them. The pandemic first was announced in January and started from Wuhan, China, and then the virus spread later on around the world and became a massive crisis from March till now. COVID-19 not only purloined thousands of lives of people, taken away their ordinary day and replaced it with lots of requirements such as mask out on the street, and quarantine with social distancing lifestyle. It also questions people based on their actions and thought with multiple themes that have to deal with their status where they still try to figure things out from physically to mentally and emotionally their existence in this pandemic. However, the idea that most connect people together is the acceptance and revolt in the face of absurdity. It’s phenomenal in what manner the novel The Plague by Camus sketched a magnificent deep volume of the epidemic raging the characters in the books and the obstacles they have to face. I believe Dr. Rieux, one of the essential roles from the book, has been expressing his perception of absurd in these chapters of the book. Through this novel, people are going to find themselves being aware of humanity, and both The Plague and COVID-19 remind them that in the universe they are living in, death can be the last stop, but it can’t deny the fact that the dedication and enthusiasm people have for this life .

The idea of absurdity reflects the perspective of how people looking through the rumination on the parallel view between the side of living and dying. The Plague by Camus took place in Oran, Algeria, along a coastal town in North Africa, somewhere in the 90s. The author starts the novel before the bubonic plague even happening and becomes a critical event in the story where following by lots of narratives and character involved like the doctor, Rieux, the journalist, Rambert, the wanderer, Tarrou, and many more that show their characteristics and define the absurd and revolt in their term. From my perspective, Camus and the character Rieux both retain a strong relationship in their descriptions of the absurdity, and the readers can find out that Rieux has represented some part of Camus's thoughts all over the novel, even showing the opposite. Keith Nelson has distinguished the face of absurdity through Camus's point of view by the following quote: “Human beings are absurd because they have neither metaphysical justification nor essential connection to the universe. They are not part of any divine scheme and, being mortal, all of their actions, individual and collective, eventually, come to nothing.” Camus finds the meaning of life is bound to the words death, and worthless where he describes why people have to work so hard with all the blood, sweat, and tears they pour out while in the end, all left is grass, ground, and grave. Humans must lose and sooner or later die in nothingness behind their loved one's grief or no one, but some say difference. The rebellion, the people with hopes and dreams carry the actions, thoughts which make life more meaningful, revolting against the face of absurdity. People who believe that their darkest hour comes before their dawn, the one who enjoys the yellow come from life and the red they receive even if it turns blue, and nobody can symbolize both the acceptance and revolt of absurdity than Rieux, the luminary.

No one is perfect, and they can be fallible, but learning to change and fight for what right and wrong make the mortals human. In the town full of negativity, the soulless people, and the sorrow sky, Rieux seems to be the only one who sees as the days pass with the views as another painting and sound as another orchestra when he draws out his canvas “ The doctor was still looking out of the window. Beyond it lay the tranquil radiance of a cool spring sky; inside the room, a word was echoing still, the word "plague." A word that conjured up in the doctor's mind not only what science chose to put into it, but a whole series of fantastic possibilities utterly out of keeping with that gray and yellow town under his eyes, from which were rising the sounds of mild activity characteristic of the hour; a drone rather than a bustling, the noises of a happy town, in short, if it's possible to be at once so dull and happy.”(Camus 124) The meticulous details he gives showing how he is amused by the being, the existence of life, and acknowledging it. It's fascinating by the virtue of Rieux seeing things as it speaks to him, although the calamities have not come yet, came, and gone, he still finds the beauty and delight in each event as his vivid description passes on. The readers can figure out the point where Rieux shows the revolt in most of the parts in the novel, which explains how he loves to be pleased by seeing the world. He is also the first man in the frontline when the plague starts to hit Oran and spread all over the town. Announcing the news, organizing groups of sanitary, experiment vaccines, influencing others, treating and helping the patients, Rieux doing his best to be the cure against this deadly epidemic where it took so many lives from this place. He is the doctor where he can think that the death of people is a must thing and what moral is, but the facts that he tries to battling this disease exhibit that Rieux is a rebellion against what absurdity all about and a faith denier.

The acceptance is not always easy especially death, but before the eyes start to close and the heart stops to beat, the flashback of every moment and memory oozing back letting the person who listens to the last sound seeing how all the splendid things they do or give as happiness lies down with them. For the few left pages, before the final period place the last dot, Rieux has altered and become more aware of the reality where he accepts the absurdity as the suffering, the sadness he went through as the quote illustrates “But there was at least one of our townsfolk for whom Dr. Rieux could not speak, the man of whom Tarrou said one day to Rieux: "His only real crime is that of having in his heart approved of something that killed off men, women, and children. I can understand the rest, but for that, I am obliged to pardon him." It is fitting that this chronicle should end with some reference to that man, who had an ignorance, that is to say lonely, heart.” (Camus 302) Imagine after Rieux loses his best friend, Tarrou, he then receives news that his wife has also passed away, the ultraviolence he got is hard to compare. It’s unpredictable and how ironic is through this bubonic plague gave him the hero definition since the myriad of lives he had saved, but, at the same time, when calamity dies down, he left nothing but just a person with blackbirds on both his shoulders. The reality when he sees that all the stamina he works so hard for his people, friends, and beloved one, all vanish in the last breath. He accepts it, but the readers can’t contradict how Rieux knows that people will have to take an eternity sleep, he still hauls his body and mind to face the pandemic until it is all gone. I think that is the lesson I learn from this novel about how people should never giving up and put effort into their life. COVID-19 is a horrendous mess, but so many people have been doing the best to make the worst seem better, such as all the nurse and doctor wrestling their life to help patients. I think no matter how small the action is like just wearing a mask, it still contributes to my community and my family health as revolting against the face of absurdity rather than waiting for the death to come.

COVID-19 seems to be an unreal event, as shown in the pandemic from The Plague by Camus portrait. People tend to have hope in the pitch-black time of how many times it strikes them just to make the actions stronger where the victory they celebrate lies among the falls of the dead one. All things will have the last stop, and it's the same rule with humans and the plague in which the cure is going to found, where life describes the moment people have, and death is the proof of people's existence. The takeaway I found in the novel through the character Rieux is always battling for my life even though it short, I can make it meaningful. Absurdity is something someday I have to accept, but before that, I will keep seeking purpose, meaning, and happiness in this universe.

Work Cited

Camus, Albert. The plague. Vintage, 1948.

Website:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=a8LBjVImeO4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA2&dq=the+plague+camus&ots=DZh_dqjcDA&sig=JXM5oavWf83xNB9Sgjis6sVoJfc#v=onepage&q=the%20plague%20camus&f=false

Neilson, Keith. "The Plague." Masterplots, Fourth Edition, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno, Salem, 2010. Salem Online.

Website:

https://online.salempress.com

Thank you for reading <3333333

Khang V Sun

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alexsmitposts · 4 years ago

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When the Criminal Liars Shout, “Conspiracy Theory!” You Should Stick to the Facts Do you know who coined the curse, “conspiracy theory” or accusation, “you are conspiracy theorist!” – It was nobody less than the CIA in the 1950s, to silence those who saw through the lie of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. This was a complete lie by US war strategists, to install fear in the population in general and in Europeans in particular and to boost the American Military Industrial complex – and presenting a constant threat to the communist Soviet Union. A complementary phrase developed in the last years is “fake news” — people who are saying well-founded truths, are being accused of spreading “false news” – and that by the very media that spread the real false news and lies in the first place. A dystopian world indeed, and most of the public doesn’t capture it. The fear factor is always a crucial element in dividing people, and in corralling them into chambers of fear – which allows anything outside to happen – building up armament, faking an arms race – when there was none. The Soviet Union came out of WWII – where they lost between 25 and 30 million people to safe Europe and the world from fascism. But western history books have it, that it was the United States and her European allies, who foremost defeated Hitler. This false news is continuingly being propagated, last by the recent WWII Victory Celebration on 9 May 2020 – without any consideration of the key role of the Soviet Union – today’s Russia – in defeating the Hitler Nazis. After this enormous sacrifice, the Soviet Union had no intention nor the resources to build up an army to defeat the west – as was being propagated by the US and then being aped by Europe, hence justifying 40 years of a Cold War, based on FEAR. The Cold War destroyed the natural relationship (trade, diplomatic, cultural) between Europe and today’s Russia. Today, however, anybody who dares to remind the western media, politicians and friends of the real conqueror of Hitler, namely the Soviet Union – is a “conspiracy theorist” – or someone who spreads “false news”. The Corona Crisis The latest example of conspiracy galore, is the corona crisis. What is playing out in front of our eyes, a worldwide lockdown of everything, followed almost by every government of this globe with similar severity, quarantine, confinement at home for almost everyone under the “pretext” of protecting you – the people – from an invisible enemy – a corona virus. And every government KNOWS it is a disaster for the national and world economy – it is social suicide. Yet they go along – with the orders of whom? As most of us who look for our own sources of information, outside the mainstream dominated, government dictated or supported lies, data collection and statistics on COVID-19 infections, as well as death rates, are vastly inflated and willingly falsified, to increase the fear factor and prolong the all destructive lockdown. This horrendous cheat is not just actively practiced in the US, but also in Europe. A point in case is Italy Unless solid proof is presented, like by the Italian Member of Parliament and a number of medical doctors, virologists and microbiologists from Italy and other European countries, as well as the US, anybody who refers to the fakeness and unreliability of the statistic is called a conspiracy theorist — a liar. And in some countries people who tell the truth are even liable to fines and legal pursuit. These threats and conspiracy accusations should shut us up. But they don’t and won’t. We want the truth to come out and be known to the entire world. The World Economic Crisis We already now realize the damage of unheard proportions. In the first four months of this so-called, WHO-denominated pandemic, we see a global disaster of proportions far exceeding those of 1929-33 and 2008-09. Never in recorded human history has so much misery been created. Bankruptcies abound, the stock market plunged so far by more than 30% (with some ups and down – called “quick profit taking” by the rich and powerful on the back of the small investors), a meltdown of productive assets, easy prey to be bought by large corporations – unemployment soaring to heights never experienced before by modern humanity, currently at least 37 million Americans out of a job.This does not account for those having given up looking for a job or claiming unemployment. According to Fox Business News, up to 40% may never get back to work. The FED predicts unemployment may reach 50% by the end of the year (in the worst 1929 recession period unemployment attained 25%). These are only US statistics. The situation in more chaotic Europe may be even worse. The International Labor Office (ILO) announced that within months worldwide unemployment may hit 1.6 billion people, half the globes work force. Many of these people, especially in the Global South have already been at the verge of poverty or under the poverty line, living from day to day, with no savings. Now they are condemned to begging – and many, maybe hundreds of millions, to die from famine, according to the World Food Program (WFP). Many if not most of them have no access to health services, no shelter, or any other form of social safety nets, because the COVID-caused economic collapse has wiped out even flimsy social safety structures poor countries may have set up. Misery no end. And this is only the tiny tip of the iceberg. The worst is still to come – when in a few weeks or months a clearer picture of what industries will live or die will emerge – and more people will be relegated to economic paupers. The Real Conspiracy Taking a few steps back – it is clear, it is no coincidence that the entire world is stricken by the same virus. That does not happen naturally – but can happen, as it did, when the virus is artificially implanted in every country – and that at the same time. So, there is a diabolical plan behind this so-called corona-crisis which does not even have to be a crisis, if we look at real disease and death rates – not the inflated, fear-inspiring ones. So, who is behind this all? – Well, without naming names and leaving that guessing up to you, there are several reports and events that have “predicted” such a pandemic. One of the most prominent ones, is the 2010 Rockefeller report – that described in surprising detail what is happening now, and calls it the “Lock Step” scenario. According to the report it should get worse and the current pandemic might be followed by a stronger wave later this year or in 2021. Strangely, the IMF’s economic projections for a “post-Covid economy, foresees 3 scenarios, two of which consider another outbreak in the second half of 2020, or in 2021. Event 201 on 18 October 2019 in NYC, simulating among other atrocities a corona pandemic that would leave 65 million dead within 18 months. This was the final stroke before the planned outbreak. Let’s just say that the evil masterminds behind this monstrous crisis are a few very rich, power-thirsty psychopaths and their families and cronies. They are planning a One World Government, also called the New World Order, or the One World Order – that has been under preparation since the latter part of the last century. It requires total control over the population and- a sizable population reduction. That’s where the eugenics come in. Many of the Rockefeller club, the “Bilderberg Society” members have been advocating population reduction for decades, including Bill Gates. He even bragged about it when in a 2010 TED talk in Southern California, “Innovating to Zero”, he said, “when we do a real god job vaccinating, we may reduce world population by 10% to 15%.” . He wants to eliminate poverty, literally. However, talking about it, and connecting the dots of what we are living today – is Conspiracy Theory. Why are Bill Gates’ new corona vaccines possibly killer vaccines? – Here is how it works. The Gates Foundation first created the pharmaceutical company “Moderna” in Seattle, Washington State, not far from his Microsoft empire, basically to produce tailor-made vaccines for the Gates Foundation. Then the foundation gave US$ 20 million to Moderna for the development of a COVID vaccine. A few days ago, Moncef Slaoas resigned from Moderna’s Board to become White House Director of Operation Warp Speed, a plan to fast-track a COVID vaccine. Nobody seems to bother about the flagrant conflict of interest – let alone the health risk that poses. But it gets even better. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), a little-known agency that is hardly in the news, had, according to Whitney Webb (Last American Vagabond) knowledge of the pandemic outbreak at least since last November, possibly earlier. This means that President Trump knew about it, but didn’t do anything about it, rather let it happen. His blaming China today for mishandling the corona crisis is a sheer lie and a propaganda bluff to denigrate China’s reputation and her rising economy and solid currency, the yuan – which may soon take over from the dollar as a key world reserve currency. DARPA is also financially supported by the Bill Gates Foundation. They have been working on new vaccine technologies for several years. The COVID-19 outbreak brought this research work to prominence. DARPA is closely collaborating with Bill Gates in applying this new technology to the vaccine, Bill Gates wants to develop and impose on the world population. According to Whitney Webb, DARPA and its partners agencies are planning to “produce DNA and RNA vaccines, classes of vaccine that has never been approved for human use in the US and involve injecting foreign genetic material into the human body. Notably, it is this very class of vaccine, now being produced by DARPA-partnered companies, that billionaire and global health “philanthropist” Bill Gates recently asserted has him “most excited”, relative to other Covid-19 vaccine candidates.”. This is not conspiracy theory; this is real conspiracy. This sounds like the kind of medical trials Hitler’s medical team has carried out. The perpetrators were condemned at Nuremberg. In our dystopian world, nobody will be punished, even if thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands will die from the Gates WHO-supported rush with an untested vaccine. Though, it would match the eugenics agenda. *** The so called (by WHO) COVID-19 “is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the human race.” It is a multi-generational lie that has become a ‘false normal’, says Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, founder of the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center. And as a piece of reference enhancing her reputation, she has 20 years of vaccine research experience and her articles are translated in 12 languages and she appears frequently on radio and TV to educate parents. “By putting vaccines into our bodies, we are inserting foreign matter, toxins, into our cells, like mercury and aluminum.” In legal terms vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe”. Through pharma lobbying, in 1986 Congress has passed the National Childhood Vaccine Children Act, a law whereby pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued for any damage their vaccines cause, including death. Vaccines have enormous side effects, especially in small children, causing various lasting diseases, like peanut allergies, asthma, eczema and – yes – autism. Particularly harmful vaccines are western-made MMR (measles), polio and DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). Russian made vaccines have different compositions and have helped prevent millions from polio and other debilitating, crippling or killing diseases. Since 2002, when revenues from vaccines for US pharma companies amounted to about US$ 8 billion, revenues and profits have skyrocketed to more than 60 billion per year by 2020. Every new vaccine is worth about a billion dollars. Anybody who speaks out against vaccination, irrespective of the evidence given, is labeled a conspiracy theorist by the media, and often by the pharma-coopted medical society. People start understanding that Bill Gates and his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) call the shots on public health around the world, especially on vaccination – vaccination against the corona virus. The sinister new vaccine that Bill Gates in tandem with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), one of 27 agencies of the National Institute of Health (NIH), and supported by CDC and WHO – and in cooperation with DARPA – are described above. All Gates promoted vaccines are made by wester pharma-corporations. You should know, that the Bill Gates Foundation also generously funds NIAID, NIH and CDC. Both CDC and NIH own several hundred if not thousands of vaccine patents. So, they have a vested interest in promoting vaccination, no matter how much harm they cause to the population. But this cannot be questioned, let alone criticized – else you will be denigrated as a conspiracy theorist. In fact, western Governments hire psychologists, sociologist and medical doctors to give interviews and talk to the media, on conspiracy theories – in a last-ditch effort to dissuade people from thinking. And many still fall for the lie, but evermore stick to their own investigated information – and demonstrate and protest, often with civil disobedience, against harsh government measure of police -and often military crackdowns. They call out against Bill Gates and WHO, a corrupted organization that receives half to three quarters of its annual budget from private donors, mostly the pharma industry, Bill Gates, but also telecom-industries (that’s why WHO has been silent on the potentially nefarious effects of 5G). Bill Gates is the biggest single donor of WHO. Conflict of interest is never discussed in the media. Those who know the truth and don’t hesitate calling it out, are silenced by being called conspirators, liars by the media and – of course, by much of the medical community. In fact, Bill Gates literally calls the shots on matters of public health that affects the entire world. People – be aware! Also speaking out against vaccines and the lab produced viruses from which eventually vaccines are derived, is Dr. Judy Mikovits, a long-time NIAID micro-biologist, who has been severely punished by Dr. Fauci for defending her research results which Fauci wanted to hide. Her book, “Plague of Corruption” is currently Amazon’s number one Bestseller. That in itself tells a story of a public awakening. Referring to her and her numerous interviews, peer-reviewed scientific articles and her book, is called a conspiracy, because even her own outspokenness is called conspiracy – all in an effort to shut up critics of the current system, of the current new-normal that will soon require universal vaccination (Bill Gates with a sly smile wants to vaccinate 7 billion people in the next ten years). Will it be compulsory? Against most countries Constitutional and Democratic Rights? We don’t know. Seveb billion is a slight exaggeration, because Russia and China will certainly not vaccinate their people with vaccines produced under Bill Gates funding and supervision. But even if it is not compulsory, there may be so many “legal” hindrances put in place by western governments that most people eventually will roll over and accept the possibly killer vaccine that Bill Gates and his association of pharmaceuticals (GAVI) supported by WHO, will impose on humanity. For example, you may not be able to receive or renew your driver’s license, going to concerts, to the movies, to sports events, to fly – and so on. That’s all been talked about and is part of the 2010 Rockefeller Report’s ”Lock Step” scenario , in which we are currently hopelessly navigating – under lockdown and with social distancing’ – so nobody can get together and possibly organize a plot against these draconian inhuman measures. *** Robert F. Kennedy Jr., JFK’s, nephew, founder of “Children’s Health Defense” an NGO advocacy organization has this to say: “Bill Gates is the world’s largest vaccine producer and the single largest donor to WHO and the CDC Foundation. Those agencies are now marketing-arms for his vaccine empire. In January 2019, Gates had WHO declare “vaccine hesitancy” the top “global health threat” (with Ebola, cancer, war, and drug-resistant pathogens), signaling a worldwide Pharma Gold Rush to mandate vaccines to all people. Gates maxed-out in donations to Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff’s Political Action Committee (PAC). In February 2019, Schiff wrote to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Pinterest, demanding they censor “vaccine misinformation, “a term meaning all skepticism toward government and industry pronouncements about vaccine safety or efficacy––whether true or not. – “Vaccines are both effective and safe,” Schiff wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling disease.” This was misinformation. A year earlier, Schiff pushed a bill to hike the Vaccine Court admin budget to $11,200,000 to reduce vaccine injury backlogs. The court had already paid out $4 billion for vaccine deaths and disabilities. Facebook and Pinterest said that they will rely on Gates’s WHO and CDC to say which on-line statements are “misinformation or hoaxes.” Facebook and Google hired “FactChecker” (Politifact) to censor vaccine misinformation. The Gates Foundation is “FactChecker’s” largest funder. In his article, “Fact Checker, a Propaganda Device,” investigative journalist Jeremy Hammond concludes, “Facebook is guilty of misinforming its users about vaccine safety… They have no problem with lies about vaccine safety and effectiveness, as long as it’s intended to persuade parents to vaccinate their children.” On May 4, 2017, FactChecker declared as false, Del Bigtree’s statement, “Vaccines include aluminum and mercury, which are neurotoxins, and vaccines cause encephalopathy.” FactChecker explained, “Current data show vaccines are safe and do not cause toxicity or encephalopathy.” [However], manufacturer’s inserts reveal that many vaccines contain aluminum and mercury, and cause encephalopathy. – Finally, massive gifts to NPR & PBS buy Gates biased vaccine coverage. This statement is from public media Highwire. “I’m (Robert Kennedy) not anti-vaccine. I’m against dangerous, shoddily tested, zero liability vaccines with toxic ingredients. If someone came up with a thoroughly tested vaccine that was completely safe and efficient, one that performed as promised, one that made people healthier rather than sicker, I’d be for it. – Indeed, only an idiot would oppose it. But under no condition, would I support mandatory vaccination. Government has no right to force citizens to take unwanted medicines or to submit to involuntary medical interventions.” And he adds: “Google is a vaccine company. It has a $760 million partnership with Glaxo-the world’s largest vaccine maker and similar deals with Sanofi and Merck to mine your medical information. Googles mother company, Alphabet, has 4 vaccines developers working on flu, and other, vaccines.” Google and Youtube are removing videos from highly experienced doctors, epidemiologists, biologists and virologists – censuring is also the new normal – but they are promoting a billionaire software developer and a 16 year old climate change “expert” about viruses and vaccines — what does that say for the media, for the governments that support and finance the media. The Strategy behind shouting Conspiracy – Conspiracy Theorist There is a lot of psychology behind the strategy – leading people to a state of cognitive dissonance, of believing a narrative they know is a fiction, meaning, you know there is something not quite right, but you don’t’ dare questioning it. Why? Because of being called a conspiracy theorist. And why does that matter? Because it is a demeaning term, robbing the accused of his credibility (well thought-out by the CIA in the 1950s). Somebody stamped as a conspiracy theorist, believing in conspiracy theories – in fake news, makes you a lesser person in your friends’ eyes. So, they may avoid you – and if you stick to your opinion, you may gradually move into isolation. Being isolated, no friends, is fear-provoking. So, better believe the official narrative. The silver lining around this dark cloud is ever more visible and ever brighter. Be self-assured. Don’t cave in. Stick to your own research, to your opinion, regardless of being insulted as a conspiracy theorist. Stand up for what you believe – and do it with passion. Other people also have doubts, and when they see people defending their believes with passion, they may join you. And so, a critical mass grows. And the conspiracy theory strategy loses rapidly power – and fades away. Fading is already visible throughout European and US cities, where tens of thousands take to the streets, defending their civil and human and Constitutional Rights. These are encouraging signs. Hope never fades – until “we shall overcome.”

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digitalyogesh · 3 years ago

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Aconite 30

Aconite 30 is one of the effective and most oftentimes utilized homeopathic medication. Aconite 30 and Aconite 200 are the most well-known potencies used to treat different illnesses of the body.

You can utilize Aconite for different grumblings like – hack, fever, sore throat, migraine, toothache, coronary episode, dizziness, hypersensitivities, uneasiness, rest problem, and some more.

Aconite 30 is a homeopathic medication, which should be in everybody’s home in view of its advantages. I will clarify exhaustively the Aconite manifestations, its medical advantages, its uses, and measurements.

In the wake of Completing this article, you would have the option to know the itemized employments of Aconite and can endorse to your patients.

Besides, toward the finish of this article, you will get the cost and web based buying join for Aconite of the brand like sbl, dr. reckeweg and so forth

So let us start –

Article Contents Show

What is Aconite 30 ?

Aconite Nap is a plat realm medication got from the Ranunculaceae family. It is perhaps the most powerful and deadliest toxic substances.

Despite the fact that it is poison, there is no requirement for you to freeze. Similarly as the expression goes, just a precious stone can cut a jewel; in like manner, in homeopathy, we have faith in ‘what it causes, it fixes.’

Consequently, we utilize every one of the cures in a potentized structure to treat the very side effects that they cause. By potentization, we imply that the medication is weakened so much that lone a hint of it stays back.

The cycle of potentization is to such an extent that the mending properties of the Aconite are actuated strongly. The more the medication is potentized, the higher is its ability to recuperate and fix.

You can best utilize Aconite in the underlying periods of an intense condition. You can contrast Aconite with a Storm. Very much like a tempest comes unexpectedly, shows vicious annihilation, and just finishes suddenly.

Additionally, for any illness condition, which comes out of nowhere with savage manifestations, you can utilize Aconite.

Who can utilize Aconite 30 ?

Following are the constitution of an individual who can utilize Aconite –

Since Aconite is a cure that is for the most part utilized in intense cases, the patient’s actual make-up doesn’t essentially contrast. Nonetheless, in the event that you are a youngster driving an inactive way of life and are inclined to liver kind gestures, Aconite is fit to you.

In the event that you have a solid and powerful form, however you get influenced effectively by dry and cold breezes, then, at that point Aconite is the ideal solution for you.

Assume you have gone to the workplace on your bicycle on a cool, breezy day, and promptly after arriving at the workplace, you are assaulted by extreme and brutal sniffling and a parting migraine. All things considered, Aconite is the thing that would remember you in a split second.

In the event that you end up realizing a young lady presented to an episode that caused serious dread, her period has gotten unpredictable.

Then, at that point you can prescribe a portion of Aconite to her and watch the dread scatter and the periods return.

Aconite Uses

I will take you through all the body parts from toe to head. You can coordinate with the side effects and when you feel these indications are coordinated with then you can take Aconite –

Aconite 30 Uses in Mind Symptoms

You can utilize Aconite if the accompanying psyche manifestations are coordinated with some understanding –

Mental uneasiness is the most conspicuous indication going through this cure.

Individuals requiring Aconite are too unfortunate individuals. They dread that their illness is deadly. The dread is significant to the point that they even anticipate the date and season of death. This extraordinary dread of death is exceptionally impossible to miss to Aconite.

They are restless and unfortunate of doing straightforward things in day by day life like associating with others or in any event, going across the street. Mental nervousness, anxiety, and dread are the main side effects to be seen while endorsing Aconite.

The shortfall of these indications invalidates the utilization of Aconite. Mental serenity and a non-fomented perspective are the main side effects for recommending Aconite.

Does this all help you to remember somebody? Presently you realize how to deal with him sometime later. Keep a jug of Aconite pills helpful.

Head Complaints

Assuming you notice any of the accompanying manifestations, you can endorse Aconite –

The cerebral pain is welcomed on by openness to drafts of dry virus wind.

The agony is in the front facing district generally, however Aconite is appropriate to headaches as well.

The head feels substantial and full. The individual regularly depicts the agony as though his head would explode. Furthermore, the substance inside would be pushed out through his temple.

The torment makes him exceptionally fretful, and he thrashes around in bed out of misery. Any endeavor to rise leaves his face flushed and excessively jubilant with transient loss of sight and awareness.

That is the reason the Aconite individual will continue lying on the bed, thrashing around on the bed in torment.

He will disclose to you he will kick the bucket on account of this migraine, and he will reveal to you the specific time. However, he will not get up to take care of business.

Eyes Complaints

Each time you go out into natural air or are presented to dry virus winds, your eyes become red, swollen, and watery.

You may discover there is an impression of substantialness in the eyes. The covers are swollen, hardened, and red.

Ear Complaints

Aconite 30 is shown in ear contaminations where the ear is red, hot, and very agonizing to contact.

An individual can’t bear the music, and surprisingly the smallest touch bothers it.

You will feel a sensation as though a drop of water is held up in the left ear.

Nose Complaints

In the event that you are out in the natural air for some time, and you right away beginning with a running nose, Aconite is the thing that will help you.

The natural air welcomes on such an excess of sniffling that it prompts torment at the foundation of the nose. Also, it might prompt serious nosebleeds where the blood is dazzling red and in bounteous sums.

The trademark here is that despite the fact that there is nonstop watering from the nose, the nasal bodily fluid films are dry.

Try not to be astounded on the off chance that your feeling of smell is elevated, and you can feel each aroma in a horrendously precise manner.

Face Complaints

you may have a fever, and because of this, your face is flushed hot to the touch and seems swollen.

Your cheeks are flushed inconsistent; regularly, one cheek is redder than the other.

After rising, the blood channels from his face and leaves him looking ghastly pale.

Aconite is appropriate for the left side’s neuralgia, where the jaw pulsates with serious torment, making the individual thrash around in desolation.

Mouth Complaints

At the point when you feel your mouth is dry and numb, and there is shivering agony at the tip of the tongue, you may require Aconite.

Your gums and teeth might be swollen and rosy with a toothache. Your teeth are delicate to cold, and you consistently crush the lower jaw as though biting something.

Assuming you ended up gesturing ‘yes’ to every one of these, the following time you fall wiped out, remember to take Aconite.

Throat Complaints

On the off chance that you have had frozen yogurt or been out in the outside air and quickly your tonsils get swollen.

It very well might be red with a pricking sensation while gulping anything. Then, at that point Aconite is the thing that you need immediately.

Heart Complaints

Any sickness influencing the heart is a genuine one. The manifestations are not to be messed with.

Aconite can be utilized as a first-line cure in coronary failures where there is sewing torment in the left shoulder, expanded heartbeat rate, and extreme dread.

Respiratory Complaints

The cases that react well to Aconite are the shallow ones where the sickness cycle is simply starting, and the infection hasn’t limited.

The grumblings start Suddenly and Violently.

The individual continues to hack so much that the hack leaves him raspy.

Extreme agony in the chest while hacking; the patient should get the throat each time he hacks.

Outrageous affectability to breathed in air. The hack is most exceedingly terrible during the evening, explicitly post mid-night.

Hack is trailed by windedness and sewing torment in the chest.

Stomach and Abdominal Complaints

At the point when you fall wiped out, there is for the most part an unpleasant desire for the mouth, and there is no craving to eat anything. Such is the situation with an Aconite individual as well.

There is a too harsh desire for the mouth; everything with the exception of water tastes severe.

The individual is extremely parched and drinks a great deal of water. Be that as it may, all the water is regurgitated out right away.

The vomitus is bilious, watery, and greenish. Retching prompts serious agony in the midsection and a failure to inhale effectively.

The individual retches, feels emptied out, and normally announces he will pass on.

Stomach torment in an Aconite individual is normal of the Burning kind.

The colic is excessively unendurable.

An individual thrashes around in anguish, yet no position gives him alleviation.

A bowl of hot soup, nonetheless, can do ponders for him.

Rectum Complaints

Going to the washroom to soothe himself is a too unfortunate assignment for the Aconite individual.

Each time he elapses stools, there is a ton of new blood joined by consuming and torment in the butt-centric area.

The dread of enduring is such a lot of that he regularly emerges from the latrine with the task half finished.

The sensation of not having discharged his insides is constantly annoying him, yet he will not chance going to the latrine because of the dread of torment that will follow unavoidably.

In kids, Aconite 30 is utilized for watery looseness of the bowels where there is torment with daily tingling in the butt.

Stools are visit and seem green, as cleaved spices.

Urinary Complaints

You may feel frightened while passing pee.

There is extraordinary consuming along the urethra while passing pee.

The agony is incredibly insufferable and leaves the individual shouting.

You feel uneasiness and dread prior to passing pee. The dread is awful to such an extent that the patient regularly winds up smothering or holding the pee.

Male Complaints

A patient has regular and agonizing emanations with early discharges. The Aconite should be for your salvage.

The balls are swollen and red, excruciating to contact.

Female Complaints

A patient with a dry, hot, and powerless vagina can us

Aconite Nap is one of the effective and most oftentimes utilized homeopathic medication. Aconite 30 and Aconite 200 are the most well-known potencies used to treat different illnesses of the body.

You can utilize Aconite for different grumblings like – hack, fever, sore throat, migraine, toothache, coronary episode, dizziness, hypersensitivities, uneasiness, rest problem, and some more.

A Aconite 30 is a homeopathic medication, which should be in everybody’s home in view of its advantages. I will clarify exhaustively the Aconite manifestations, its medical advantages, its uses, and measurements.

In the wake of Completing this article, you would have the option to know the itemized employments of Aconite and can endorse to your patients.

Besides, toward the finish of this article, you will get the cost and web based buying join for Aconite of the brand like sbl, dr. reckeweg and so forth

So let us start –

Article Contents Show

What is Aconite 30 ?

Aconite Nap is a plat realm medication got from the Ranunculaceae family. It is perhaps the most powerful and deadliest toxic substances.

Additionally, for any illness condition, which comes out of nowhere with savage manifestations, you can utilize Aconite.

Who can utilize Aconite 30 ?

Following are the constitution of an individual who can utilize Aconite –

In the event that you have a solid and powerful form, however you get influenced effectively by dry and cold breezes, then, at that point Aconite is the ideal solution for you.

In the event that you end up realizing a young lady presented to an episode that caused serious dread, her period has gotten unpredictable.

Then, at that point you can prescribe a portion of Aconite to her and watch the dread scatter and the periods return.

Aconite 30 Uses

I will take you through all the body parts from toe to head. You can coordinate with the side effects and when you feel these indications are coordinated with then you can take Aconite –

Aconite Uses in Mind Symptoms

You can utilize Aconite if the accompanying psyche manifestations are coordinated with some understanding –

Mental uneasiness is the most conspicuous indication going through this cure.

The shortfall of these indications invalidates the utilization of Aconite. Mental serenity and a non-fomented perspective are the main side effects for recommending Aconite.

Does this all help you to remember somebody? Presently you realize how to deal with him sometime later. Keep a jug of Aconite pills helpful.

Head Complaints

Assuming you notice any of the accompanying manifestations, you can endorse Aconite –

The cerebral pain is welcomed on by openness to drafts of dry virus wind.

The agony is in the front facing district generally, however Aconite is appropriate to headaches as well.

The head feels substantial and full. The individual regularly depicts the agony as though his head would explode. Furthermore, the substance inside would be pushed out through his temple.

That is the reason the Aconite individual will continue lying on the bed, thrashing around on the bed in torment.

He will disclose to you he will kick the bucket on account of this migraine, and he will reveal to you the specific time. However, he will not get up to take care of business.

Eyes Complaints

Each time you go out into natural air or are presented to dry virus winds, your eyes become red, swollen, and watery.

You may discover there is an impression of substantialness in the eyes. The covers are swollen, hardened, and red.

Ear Complaints

Aconite is shown in ear contaminations where the ear is red, hot, and very agonizing to contact.

An individual can’t bear the music, and surprisingly the smallest touch bothers it.

You will feel a sensation as though a drop of water is held up in the left ear.

Nose Complaints

In the event that you are out in the natural air for some time, and you right away beginning with a running nose, Aconite is the thing that will help you.

The trademark here is that despite the fact that there is nonstop watering from the nose, the nasal bodily fluid films are dry.

Try not to be astounded on the off chance that your feeling of smell is elevated, and you can feel each aroma in a horrendously precise manner.

Face Complaints

you may have a fever, and because of this, your face is flushed hot to the touch and seems swollen.

Your cheeks are flushed inconsistent; regularly, one cheek is redder than the other.

After rising, the blood channels from his face and leaves him looking ghastly pale.

Aconite is appropriate for the left side’s neuralgia, where the jaw pulsates with serious torment, making the individual thrash around in desolation.

Mouth Complaints

At the point when you feel your mouth is dry and numb, and there is shivering agony at the tip of the tongue, you may require Aconite.

Your gums and teeth might be swollen and rosy with a toothache. Your teeth are delicate to cold, and you consistently crush the lower jaw as though biting something.

Assuming you ended up gesturing ‘yes’ to every one of these, the following time you fall wiped out, remember to take Aconite.

Throat Complaints

On the off chance that you have had frozen yogurt or been out in the outside air and quickly your tonsils get swollen.

It very well might be red with a pricking sensation while gulping anything. Then, at that point Aconite is the thing that you need immediately.

Heart Complaints

Any sickness influencing the heart is a genuine one. The manifestations are not to be messed with.

Aconite can be utilized as a first-line cure in coronary failures where there is sewing torment in the left shoulder, expanded heartbeat rate, and extreme dread.

Respiratory Complaints

The cases that react well to Aconite are the shallow ones where the sickness cycle is simply starting, and the infection hasn’t limited.

The grumblings start Suddenly and Violently.

The individual continues to hack so much that the hack leaves him raspy.

Extreme agony in the chest while hacking; the patient should get the throat each time he hacks.

Outrageous affectability to breathed in air. The hack is most exceedingly terrible during the evening, explicitly post mid-night.

Hack is trailed by windedness and sewing torment in the chest.

Stomach and Abdominal Complaints

At the point when you fall wiped out, there is for the most part an unpleasant desire for the mouth, and there is no craving to eat anything. Such is the situation with an Aconite individual as well.

There is a too harsh desire for the mouth; everything with the exception of water tastes severe.

The individual is extremely parched and drinks a great deal of water. Be that as it may, all the water is regurgitated out right away.

The vomitus is bilious, watery, and greenish. Retching prompts serious agony in the midsection and a failure to inhale effectively.

The individual retches, feels emptied out, and normally announces he will pass on.

Stomach torment in an Aconite individual is normal of the Burning kind.

The colic is excessively unendurable.

An individual thrashes around in anguish, yet no position gives him alleviation.

A bowl of hot soup, nonetheless, can do ponders for him.

Rectum Complaints

Going to the washroom to soothe himself is a too unfortunate assignment for the Aconite individual.

Each time he elapses stools, there is a ton of new blood joined by consuming and torment in the butt-centric area.

The dread of enduring is such a lot of that he regularly emerges from the latrine with the task half finished.

The sensation of not having discharged his insides is constantly annoying him, yet he will not chance going to the latrine because of the dread of torment that will follow unavoidably.

In kids, Aconite is utilized for watery looseness of the bowels where there is torment with daily tingling in the butt.

Stools are visit and seem green, as cleaved spices.

Urinary Complaints

You may feel frightened while passing pee.

There is extraordinary consuming along the urethra while passing pee.

The agony is incredibly insufferable and leaves the individual shouting.

You feel uneasiness and dread prior to passing pee. The dread is awful to such an extent that the patient regularly winds up smothering or holding the pee.

Male Complaints

A patient has regular and agonizing emanations with early discharges. The Aconite 30 should be for your salvage.

0 notes

a-question-of-social-justice · 3 years ago

Text

The Philippine Health Care System is in a Critical State Amidst of the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Salvador Bibat Jr. and Jason Rafael A. Lumasac

The Philippines currently has the second highest number of new COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia, with over 116,000 reported cases at the time of writing. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 1 million people have been infected by the virus and 17,000 people have lost their lives to COVID-19.

From the usual 2,000-3,000 reported cases since October 2020, the country’s daily tally began to surge in mid-March reaching as many as over 15,000 new cases on 3 April 2021, the highest since the pandemic began in March 2020. Daily deaths recorded in April 2021 are also the highest on record.

According the Amnesty of International, the virus is spreading fast and the Philippine government continue to fail its people, failing to response to the thousands of people that are struggling to get a sufficient health care. Hospitals are at risk of being overwhelmed by the increasing number of the people getting infected since March. Filipinos are being non-compliant, disobeying health protocols and ignoring lockdowns are quarantine due to their distrust to their government. Because of their lack access to the healthcare in the amidst of the pandemic, they have no choice but to get their basic needs despite the on-going pandemic on their own.

The Philippine government are in serious violation of human rights, stated Emerlynne Gil, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director. Filipinos are not safe and secure, and because it’s the lack of action of the government.

“Specific measures to protect those most affected, including health workers and those most at-risk, must be taken without further delay. Furthermore, the government must stop attacking human rights defenders and activists, a practice that only makes a dire situation worse.” He added.

In the midst of a restored flood of instances of COVID-19, the ignorant management of the pandemic has brought a critical access to health care, which has developed particularly intense as of late. People are being disobedient, opposing and resisting the government’s health protocols, resulting to a high risk of getting infected. No one could blame them for their disobedience though; they are overlooked and disregarded of their basic needs by the government.

Health workers have raised the alert about clinics being overpowered inferable from an absence of beds and insufficient health personnel. Workers are additionally encountering neglected advantages and absence of medical-grade personal protective equipment (PPE).

In the course of recent weeks, Metro Manila and the close by territories of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal have been under stricter isolate measures, after a few clinics announced coming to 'basic' inhabitance rates following a flood in Coronavirus cases.

Dr. Pauline Convocar, a crisis clinical expert for both public and private clinics, depicted to Pardon Global the absence of a pre-arranged medical services framework - which has been the situation for the Philippines for quite a long time however aggravated by the pandemic. The public authority's pandemic reaction offices have been broadly censured for being driven by military authorities instead of general wellbeing specialists. What's more, the 19 billion PHP (393 million USD) financial plan of the outrage hit Public Team to End Neighborhood Socialist Equipped Struggle (NTF-ELCAC) has additionally drawn clamor for misallocation of assets.

The new flood indeed featured the serious troubles that wellbeing laborers have confronted, with next to no improvement from their circumstance when the pandemic began a year prior. As of April 2021, no less than 80 wellbeing laborers in the Philippines have lost their lives because of Coronavirus, as per the public Division of Wellbeing. Alliance of Health Workers- a public association addressing laborers from public and private emergency clinics, wellbeing establishments and offices - revealed to Amnesty International many health workers still haven’t received their legally mandated allowance. These incorporate extraordinary danger stipend and a hazard pay, just as remittances for food, transportation and convenience and advantages since September 2020, just as their yearly execution-based reward since 2018. They additionally communicated worry about the absence of adequate medical personnel, as nurses and nurse aid are set under unmanageable pressing factors.

Marginalized communities keep on enduring on account of police and face additional difficulties because of Coronavirus, remembering extra hindrances for admittance to medical care and a deficiency of pay as they couldn't work during pandemic limitations.

On 13 April, the Philippine National Police reported that isolate violators would presently don't be captured, following the demise of two men on account of police and nearby authorities. The two men were from helpless networks.

Low-pay families are presented to more prominent wellbeing dangers and face critical snags in getting to quality and reasonable medical care during the pandemic. During the latest improved local area isolate (ECQ) that went on for about fourteen days, neighborhood governments gave 1,000-4,000 PHP to the families in the most minimal level of pay, yet many whined of the lethargic conveyance of help.

World leaders including President Duterte have utilized COVID-19 to dispatch new assaults on basic liberties. Amidst the pandemic, the public authority dispatched a horrendous mission of strikes, captures and killings of activists and common liberties protectors who have been 'red-labeled' – or blamed for connections to 'socialist' and 'psychological oppressor gatherings – while killings of suspected medication wrongdoers have proceeded.

As of late, people and gatherings that set up "community pantries" in their nearby areas – to give food and other fundamental supplies free of charge to those out of luck – have likewise been blamed by police and government authorities for connections to 'communist' gatherings, starting objection from general society.

The Alliance of Health Workers has likewise communicated caution at being 'redtagged' by the public authority made National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, subsequent to calling for expanded government support and better reaction to the pandemic. The team is likewise behind the 'red-tagging' of numerous other basic freedoms safeguards and activists that frequently prompts expanded provocation, assaults and even killings.

“The Duterte administration’s continued practice of ‘red-tagging’ and attacks on human rights only further exacerbates the dire situation that the country is facing,” Emerlynne Gil said. “We call on the President and his government to end its attacks on human rights and urgently focus efforts on mitigating the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anything less is yet another failure of governance.”

#claim of fact #article

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fly-with-our-beautiful-wing-blog · 7 years ago

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BTS in a Zombie Apocalypse

Reaction: How the boys react / adapt to the zombie apocalypse

A/N: I don’t wish harm on any of the members especially not Namjoon who I kinda singled out in the AU a lot ;-; sorry Nams. Also I speak about the military a lot cause I think any country would fight this with their military as harshly as possible.

Jin:

When it starts: I think that he’d be watching the news when the zombie apocalypse happens. Of course the group would be on tour, busily working their schedules and trying to remain level headed through out the whole ordeal when the virus “cows disease” becomes a topic. Through out the past couple of weeks people had been coming down with the illness which leads to extreme dehydration, death, and hunger. And most importantly; it’s extremely contagious.

However it wouldn’t seem like that big of a deal until the next morning when there’s a knock on the boy’s hotel room door and Jin (who’s already awake) goes over to see who it is. it’d be their manager and he’d look deathly pale and nervous.

Without a seconds worth of hesitation Jin would let their manager in, asking what’s wrong and if he’s okay before he sees the traces of blood on his managers arm, his hand holding the bloodied spot tightly.

“Someone bit me,’ Is all his manager is able to say before he collapses over, heart not beating anymore.

With a piercing scream, Jin would back away, not knowing what to say or do other than call for the other boys to come quickly since their manager is literally dead in front of him.

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi would ask just as the supposedly dead manager’s hands start twitching back to life.

Adapting: After escaping from their turned manager, the boys would have just enough time to get out of the hotel room, grab the younger members and get out. They’d run down to the garage unit where their bus is and then, Jin, knowing how to drive would get them out of there as quickly as he could.

Driving for who knows how long, the boys would eventually find themselves in a more remote area of Korea where they could settle down essentially and build a base camp, joining other survivors who had the same idea. Through team work and the will to survive they’re able to build a whole community and eventually work towards learning the way to cure the ravage illness that destroyed their country.

However, I can imagine Jin being possibly a little sad since his parents most likely didn’t make it out along with the rest of the family. He has his brothers, but it’s still not the same.

Yoongi:

When it starts: It was in the middle of the night when the sirens went off across Seoul. The sirens had spooked Yoongi awake, his first though thinking they were going to be bombed or something.

“This is an important message. There have been numerous terrorist attacks against our country. All citizens must stay inside. All citizens must not open their doors for strangers. Call police if there is anyone outside that you can see that looks ill or in danger. Do not bring attention to yourself. I repeat, do not bring attention to yourself.”

The message played loudly and sudden screams of those who were on the streets from late night drinking were loud and abundant.

“Yoongi?” Jin asked quietly through the darkness, the older male also awake as he started to stand up, worried about the messages they were hearing.

“Let’s go lock the door and windows,” the shorter replied as he began to get out of bed.

The other members, all but Jeongukk were beginning to exit their bedrooms, wondering what all the commotion was as they too had heard the announcements.

“Keep the lights off,” Namjoon said to Jimin just before the younger could turn them on.

Quickly, Yoongi made his way to their door, making sure to lock it and looking through the peep whole when there were a few bangs heard down the hallway. Out of the side, Yoongi could some people running? There were some shouts coming from out their with a sound that was almost like a growl type thing not too far behind.

The person who was running was no all of a sudden in front of their door, banging loudly and screaming for help. And yoongi, was frozen. He stood their and watched as this person, this thing, comes running and tackles the man to to the ground, tearing and biting at his jugular in a vicious manner that was horrendous enough to make Yoongi come back to reality.

“We need to block the door,” He said as he began moving to their shelf that was dedicated to all their shoes.

He didn’t know what was going on, but it was evident that it wasn’t good.

Adapting: Yoongi shuddered from the cold air that was drifting in his direction. Him and the other six members had almost all made it out of their hotel safely, making it to the roof as they waited for a rescue helicopter. The only one who hadn’t made it was Namjoon who’d thrown him and one of the infected off the roof in order to protect the rest of the members. But from that, the others had managed to survive.

“Coffee?” Soekjin asked softly as he found his way over to the younger member, sitting beside him as the looked out at the night sky.

The six of them were currently at a military base just outside of Seoul. Only one of the member, Taehyung had actually been reunited with his family so far, so it was a matter of waiting for the current moment to see what would happen.

“No thanks,” Yoogni sighed as he shifted to the side to give Seokjin some room. “Just thinking.”

“About Nams?”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll get better okay?” the older said softly.

And Yoongi wasn’t sure if it actually would.

Hoseok:

When it starts: They were on a plane when the zombie apocalypse started. Flying to America for their upcoming concert in LA when there was a sudden burst of turbulence and the buckle your seatbelt sign came up.

“Attention passengers, because of airport disturbance we’re going to be making a detour to a different landing dock. Please remain seated until we say so.”

The announcement was in English and quickly the members were trying to have Rapmon explain what was being said.

“We won’t be landing in LA apparently,” Namjoon replied to the other before he went back to sleeping, trying to get some shut eye before they had a week of no sleep.

“Okay,” Hoseok replied before he too went to sleep and let the plane land where the pilot suited best.

Adapting; When they plane had landed in the middle of an abandoned field in Kansas, the boys were shocked to say the least. They’d been watching the news on the little TV’s that were provided in the plane and had seen the total amount of chaos that was happening world wide right before they emergency landed.

“Alright, stick with me and the other managers since we’ll be able to communicate,” Namjoon had told them when they started to make their way around.

When a few weeks passed however and Hoseok realized that they didn’t have any way back to Korea or let alone, back to where they needed to be, it’d felt like his world had crashed a little.

Of course, he’d tried getting ahold of his sister and mother right off the bat, saying that he was okay. But from what he heard, the contagious disease was even more rapidly spreading there than it was in America, and after the first week, he couldn’t get ahold of his family anymore. Everything just went to voicemail.

“Hey hyung,” Hoseok said one morning at the base they were staying at. They were lucky enough to be able to pull some strings and stay within one of the underground military bases in America even though they weren’t American. “Do you think we’ll ever make it back?”

Yoongi shook his head as he started walking down one of the many hallways that led to all different sorts of rooms, “I don’t know dude.”

“What about the group?”

“What about us?”

“You think we’ll be okay?”

It was during sensitive moments like that Hoseok’s never ending happiness seemed to run out.

“Yeah,” Yoongi said with a soft smile as he looked at the younger, “And if you want to know something maybe a little cool... I was able to get a hold of my brother today.”

“Perfect! Where is he?”

“At the base just outside of Busan, they’ll be relocating so he said he’d look for your sister.”

And with that small amount of hope, Hoseok’s smile returned.

Hoseok biased and I suck at his ;-;

Namjoon:

When it starts: Namjoon was off on one of his very few vacations. He’d been trying to spend time with his mother, taking her out to Jeju island and showing her around for the fun of it since he loved spending time with his parents. It was there, though that the older was witness to a cruel scene of a woman being attacked by an older man.

“Hold on a second,” Namjoon said softly, stopped in his tracks as he put his arm out, stopping his mother from walking forward before he bolted towards the scene and grabbing the deranged male before ripping him off the now bloodied woman.

Everything then seemed to be in slow motion for Namjoon as he was able to throw the chubbier male to the side and look down at the motionless girl that layed on the floor. Her neck and chest ripped apart and her ear was missing on the right side. It was enough to make the older puke on the spot. Disgustingly sad.

“he just attacked her!” A person screamed as Namjoon’s mother walked over to her son, tears springing to her eyes from the shock of such a nice peaceful day turning so sour so quick.

“Are you okay Joonie?” She asked as she patted his back, concern shown throughout her features. It was then that the dead women they were standing next to grabbed onto his mother, pulling her leg down and bitting harshly into the flesh which made his mom scream out from the pain.

Adapting: After Namjoon had carried his mother away from the scene, trying to escape as best as he could from the danger, his mother as well, had turned. It’d been terrible, a mother trying to kill her own son. And for a moment, Namjoon almost let her. He didn’t have it in him to fight her off and instead resorted to pushing her undead body into a closet and locking it from the outside, wailing at everything had happened. He felt hurt and scared and didn’t know what to do. He wanted his mom.

Later on, when the military had stormed through the island, essentially killing anything that moved and taking the few survivors they deemed healthy, Namjoon was then safe. Or so he thought. He’d gone to base near Japan where a medic team declared they might have some sources and ideas of what was going on, but truly, nothing was clear.

That was why, him, as a survivor had been forced into becoming a lab rat essentially for the virus along with other citizens.

“You should be proud,” one of the doctors had said when they were injecting small traces of the virus into him. “You’ll make history, you could be known as a hero to Korea.”

Namjoon stayed silent. He’d been at the base for nearly three months and had witnessed terrible things in the time being. Been fed basically nothing. Been kept alone with nothing. Had been told nothing.

He was alone in the world right now and hoped that if any of his family was alive or any of the members had made it out, that they weren’t in the same situation as him.

“Are you sure that I would be? Or are you talking about yourself?” the younger retorted as he hissed at the needle going into his arm. There was a moment of silence between the shot and the doctor talking once more, a numb feeling rising up in his arm as the seconds ticked by.

“We’re going to inject you with the virus and then and antidote to possibly erase the effects.” the doctor explained before his pushed Namjoon back against the paper lined bed, “It’s just a short nap okay?”

It was around this time Namjoon knew there was no way out of his situation. He was going to die, he knew it. He’d seen it happen to the rest. No antidote had been discovered yet. So he let his eyes close and he relaxed and breathed in the clean air and rubbed his hands together one more time, thinking about all he’d achieved and how his mother, just minutes before everything had turned bad had been telling him how proud she was. And then, just like that, his consciousness slipped.

“Mom?” Was the last thing he said before his body went motionless and was pronounced dead.

~~~~~~

A/N: okay I didn’t expect to make namjoon’s so sad ;-; In fact.... I was gonna make that one Jimin’s but he’s soooo smol I just didn’t have it in me. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed!!! The Maknae line will be up tomorrow or maybe Wednesday !

#bts #BTS rap monster #bts jin #bts jhope #bts hoseok #bts hobi #kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #zombie #zombie apocalypse #zombie apocolypse au #bts yoongi #bts suga

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phantom-le6 · 4 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 (1 of 5)

With the first season of Star Trek TNG firmly and thankfully behind us, it’s now time to warp into the show’s second season, which although better overall still has a few horrid episodes. Anyway, let’s warp to the first round of second season episodes without any further ado…

Episode 1: The Child

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The new Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, is brought aboard the Enterprise as it prepares to travel to Aucdet IX in order to take on dangerous virus samples, which will be carried to a Starfleet Medical station hoping they will be able to devise a cure for a plague epidemic in the Rachelis System. After taking aboard the new doctor, the ship is traveling at sub light speed when a ball of energy passes in through the hull, eventually settling in the womb of Counsellor Deanna Troi. Captain Jean-Luc Picard wonders why the new doctor hadn't checked in with him, and locates her in the Ten Forward lounge, where the bartender, Guinan, works. Picard finds Doctor Pulaski talking with Troi about her unexpected pregnancy. The senior officers meet to discuss the pregnancy. The foetus is developing at an accelerated rate and would be fully developed in 36 hours. Troi does not know who the father is, but was aware of a "presence" entering her body the night before. Though the senior staff debate terminating the pregnancy, Troi decides she will carry the child to term.

The Enterprise arrives at Aucdet IX to pick up the plague samples, which are stored in a highly secure storage vessel. Troi gives birth to an apparently normal boy, whom she names Ian Andrew after her father. Ian continues to develop rapidly; within a day, he appears as a four-year-old child with corresponding mental faculties, and later develops to the physical and mental equivalent of eight years old. When asked if he is ready to explain who or what he is, Ian responds "not yet." Having completed the transfer of the virus samples, the Enterprise heads for the Starfleet Medical station. En route, the crew finds one of the plague strains is growing inexplicably; should it continue growing, it will rupture the storage vessel and result in the catastrophic exposure of all on board.

They discover that an unknown source of Eichner radiation is causing the growth. Ian confides to Troi that he is the source of the crew's problems and will have to leave. Troi realizes Ian is dying and calls for medical assistance. Ian dies in Troi's arms, and returns to his energy form. The energy being contacts Troi's mind, and explains that he impregnated her in order to discover what it was like to be human. With Ian gone, the plague sample returns to normal and the crew continues on their mission.

As a subplot through the episode, Wesley Crusher is trying to cope with leaving the Enterprise to join his mother on Earth after her promotion to director of Starfleet Medical. After receiving guidance from Guinan, he decides he wants to remain on the Enterprise.

Review:

Within this episode, there are a number of noticeable shifts among the Enterprise crew. First off, Worf, Geordi and Wesley have all undergone wardrobe changes, with Wesley’s top now a more serious plain grey in place of the one featuring a few colours in stripes across his chest from season 1, while Worf and Geordi are sporting yellow uniforms, and Worf’s sash is now a heavier silver metal rather than the gold we saw him wearing in season 1. All of this appears to be symbolic of these characters maturing a bit, with Worf now full chief of security and tactical officer, Geordi now the ship’s chief engineer (which makes way more sense than the rotating chief engineers of season 1), and Wesley is now not tied to his mother’s apron strings.

Speaking of Wesley’s mother, this season also has Gates McFadden dropped from the main cast, and according to behind-the-scenes features on the TNG boxed set, it seems this is mainly attributed to a writer insisting the actress be let go because she complained about sexism in his writing. This is apparently supported by the fact that in season 3, the same writer left and McFadden came back, which just goes to show how bad TNG was at embodying the values of Roddenberry’s creation in their real-life conduct at the time. Though Beverly Crusher is basically replaced for the duration of this second season by Dr Kate Pulaski, played by Diane Muldaur, the actress declined a main cast credit in favour of a special guest star one, and apparently, she was meant to be a kind of female analogue of Dr Leonard McCoy from the original series of Star Trek. Another recurring guest star making their first appearance in the show is Whoopi Goldberg as Guinnan, a bartender who runs the Enterprise’s bar space known as Ten-Forward. The final change of note is that Riker is now sporting a beard, something he does for most of the rest of the Next Generation franchise.

Sadly, all these changes, as good and interesting as most of them are, land in an episode that is very much as abysmal as the worst of season 1. Here we get an episode where Troi is effectively ‘raped’ by an energy being so that being can be reborn in human form, and the being’s rate of growth is phenomenally accelerated. If this sounds like a familiar plot to some, then I’m guessing you’ve either read my film review for Captain Marvel from my Facebook-posting days, or you’re enough of a Marvel Comics buff to have read the horrendous David Michelinie-written story arc that some fans would refer to as ‘the Marcus incident’, but which I and many others would know as ‘the rape of Carol Danvers’.

In the story I’m describing, Carol Danvers develops a pregnancy that takes days to come to term, giving birth to a child who then grows at an accelerated rate, only to turn out to be the human form of an extra-dimensional being who plucked Carol from our space-time continuum in order to essentially rape her, all so he could be born in a form compatible with our dimension. In this, the Trek episode at hand is almost identical, even with the rapist’s human form causing a major sci-fi techno-babble disruption that has to be ended by said rapist leaving; the only difference is that where Ian chooses to effectively kill his human form to save the Enterprise, Marcus took Carol back to his home dimension.

The key similarity between the two stories is there’s no effort by the main characters to consider how the character whose has been subjected to a sci-fi-twisted version rape feels. There is no attempt to consider their emotional well-being, no investigation to seek and punish the culprit, and when the culprit is known, again nothing is done to penalise them. Frankly, this episode is just Trek at its worst, and there’s not even any follow-up in later episodes regarding the impact on Deanna. Add in Polaski’s stupid and out-of-place prejudice against Data, not to mention Data being very, very stupid in his question bombardment of Deanna during her labour, and it’s easy to see why most people hate the living guts out of this episode. That’s before you factor in the meeting where Picard, Riker, Data and Worf all discuss this like they should have any say in the matter. None of them are the father, the pregnancy is not happening to them, and their supposition of any authority in the matter makes me want to shove them out the nearest airlock. This episode only gets 1 out of 10 for a few good scenes not otherwise connected with the title plot.

Episode 2: Where Silence Has Lease

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

While on a charting mission, the Enterprise, discovers a zone of pure blackness in space; probes launched into the area simply disappear. As they study it further, the zone expands and soon envelops the Enterprise, leaving them in a black void with sensors reporting complete nothingness outside. Captain Picard orders the ship on a return course, but they find that they cannot escape; they leave a stationary beacon behind them, only to have it reappear ahead of them again.

A Romulan Warbird suddenly decloaks in front of the ship and attacks, and Picard orders the crew to return fire; they destroy the Warbird, but Picard is suspicious of how easily this occurs. The crew then detect what appears to be their sister ship, the USS Yamato, approaching, but it does not respond to hails. Commander Riker and Lt. Worf beam over to search the ship, where they find it empty with various inconsistencies in its construction, including more seemingly impossible physical loops. The Enterprise then detects an exit from the darkness, but cannot lock onto the away team to retrieve them before the opening disappears. The Yamato begins to fade away, but the Enterprise is able to beam Riker and Worf back just in time. More openings appear in the blackness, each closing as soon as the Enterprise approaches them. Picard realizes that they are being manipulated, and orders a full stop.

Suddenly, an entity with a distorted, almost childlike face as a result of it attempting to look humanoid, appears in the void, calling itself Nagilum. It announces its curiosity about humans and their "limited existence" and would like to test the limits of the human body. It causes Ensign Haskell to experience violent convulsions, and he then falls to the floor dead. Nagilum then states that it wants to know everything about death, asserting that it would take between a third and a half of the Enterprise's crew to complete its experiments. Picard decides to activate the ship's self-destruct sequence rather than to submit to Nagilum's whims.

As the crew prepares for their end, Picard is tested again by Nagilum through peculiar behaviour displayed by doppelgangers of Counsellor Troi and Lt. Commander Data, both of whom question the self-destruct order. After these facsimiles are gone and the countdown nears zero, the void suddenly vanishes, leaving the Enterprise in normal space. Picard orders the ship to move away at high speed, and when he is finally satisfied that they are truly free, cancels the self-destruct sequence. As the Enterprise continues on its mission, Picard is met by the face of Nagilum on his ready-room computer. Nagilum offers its evaluation of humanity, criticizing the species’ faults and claiming they have nothing in common with its kind. Picard disagrees, pointing out that their recent encounter shows that both species are curious, a logical statement to which Nagilum concedes before disappearing.

Review:

This episode is far better than this season’s opening episode, but at the same time it’s a bit confusing. While with some episodes it’s easy to grasp their intention or confirm what you suspect it to be by checking a wiki site, such as Wikipedia itself or a Trek-specific site like Memory Alpha. However, this time I’m not sure what we have there is right. The episode’s director claims it’s based on the idea of perspective and how people from different groups don’t necessarily perceive each other in the same light, but I fail to see why that idea would be explored through the idea of an alien being subjecting the Enterprise crew through experimentation. To me, that whole idea of the Enterprise and its crew being proverbial ‘lab rats’ made the whole thing more of an attempt to show audiences why lab tests on live animals can be cruel and wrong.

The fact that the episode is so confused is ultimately what makes it a fairly forgettable one among the lifetime of the TNG series. The writers should have made up their minds what the episode was meant to deal with and then deal with that exclusively in a way that wouldn’t confuse any prospective audiences. As an autistic person, I believe in what I call the three C’s; be clear, be concise, be consistent. Apparently, whoever wrote this episode couldn’t be clear if their life depended on it, otherwise we’d have a clear idea just from watching it what its intent was. For this reason, I give this episode only 5 out of 10.

Episode 3: Elementary, Dear Data

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

As the Enterprise waits to rendezvous with the USS Victory, Chief Engineer La Forge and Lt. Commander Data go to the Holodeck to recreate a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Data, playing Holmes, has memorized all of the Holmes stories, and recognizes and solves the mystery within minutes. Frustrated, Geordi leaves the holodeck, leaving Data confused. In Ten Forward, Geordi explains that the fun is in solving the unknown; Data does not understand. Overhearing their conversation, Chief Medical Officer Dr Pulaski asserts that Data is incapable of solving a mystery to which he does not already know the outcome. Data accepts Dr Pulaski's challenge and invites her to join them on the Holodeck. There, Geordi instructs the computer to create a unique Sherlock Holmes mystery with an adversary who is capable of defeating Data.

In the new program, Dr Pulaski is kidnapped, and Data investigates. They soon discover that Professor Moriarty is responsible, but when they find him with Pulaski in his hideout, they are shocked when they learn that Moriarty is aware of the Holodeck program being a simulation, and is able to access the Holodeck computer, showing them a sketch he has drawn of the Enterprise, based on the computer's description. Data and Geordi leave the Holodeck to alert Captain Picard, and Geordi realizes that when he asked the computer to create the program, he had asked for an adversary who could defeat Data, not Sherlock Holmes. As a result, the computer gave the Holodeck character Professor Moriarty the intelligence, self-awareness and cunning needed to challenge Data, plus the ability to access the ship's computer. When Moriarty gains access to ship stabilizer controls, Data returns to the Holodeck with Captain Picard.

Picard meets Moriarty, who demonstrates that he has evolved beyond his original programming and asks to continue to exist in the real world. Picard tells Moriarty that this would not be possible; instead, he saves the program and tells Moriarty that if they ever discover a way to convert Holodeck matter into a permanent form, they will bring him back. Picard discontinues the program and the USS Victory arrives, with La Forge preparing to present a model of the historic HMS Victory. Moriarty’s actions have damaged the model slightly, but Picard assures La Forge that she’ll soon be “ship-shape and Bristol fashion.”

Review:

Data impersonating Holmes briefly was a great bit in one of the season 1 episodes, and it’s brilliant seeing it fleshed out to be the subject of a full episode, which is made even better with guest actor Daniel Davis’ performance as Moriarty. In fact, if Brent Spiner and Daniel Davis haven’t played Holmes and Moriarty somewhere at sometime outside of their Next Generation appearances, I have to wonder why on Earth not, because they’re too good in these roles not to have carried them on in another form of Holmes adaptation.

Although the episode gets some praise around its focus on computers and artificial intelligence, these are just window-dressing for the real elements of the story. Leaving aside the development of the friendship between Geordi and Data, and Polaski’s irksome Data-bashing, there are two key issues at play. The first is the question of whether someone who learns by rote can be imaginative, whether they can show the invention and intuition necessary to solve something original. Because Data has characteristics akin to autism, and because as a writer who is autistic, I have struggled to develop original concepts to write about, I don’t see Data’s struggles as a strictly AI question. Rather, it is a question that affects many humans and is just being explored through a character who happens to be an ‘artificial’ life-form.

The second key issue is the power and importance of the words we choose. In this episode, a single word makes a huge difference by giving a holodeck character sentience, something that in hindsight would pave the way for the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine’s Vic Fontaine and numerous other self-aware holographic characters within the overall Trek canon. This is why the study of language is highly important, and why our freedom to express ourselves is a great power that demands the greatest responsibility in order to be wielded well. We’ve seen only too well in recent times the damage that can be inflicted in real life through the misuse of words, and it’s a lesson we need to hammer home to people now more than ever. Without doubt, this episode is some of the finest Trek going, and I give it the first top score in my reviews for episodes of this series; 10 out of 10.

Episode 4: The Outrageous Okana

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

As the Enterprise passes through the Coalition of Madena, it detects a small cargo ship, under manual control by its single occupant. The crew makes contact with the pilot, Captain Thadiun Okona, and offer to repair a part on his ship. Captain Picard orders that the Enterprise tow Okona's ship while Okona is brought on board. The crew soon finds that Okona has taken a keen interest in the women on the ship, beginning with Transporter Chief Robinson, and is in no rush to effect repairs.

Continuing through the sector, the Enterprise is set upon by ships from two different planets, each of which locks its weapons upon the Enterprise, though both are vastly outclassed, and pose no actual threat. Debin, from the planet Atlec, accuses Okona of impregnating his daughter Yanar, while Kushell from the planet Straleb asserts that Okona has stolen a state treasure, the Jewel of Thesia. The two leaders clearly know each other, and both demand that their own claim on Okona take priority. Okona denies both accusations but offers nothing to defend himself with. Picard offers to arbitrate the dispute, and brings Debin, Yanar, Kushell and Benzan, Kushell's son, aboard the Enterprise. Okona sits and quietly listens to both Debin and Kushell's arguments but does not offer any evidence to defend himself from both allegations.

After much more arguing amongst the two leaders, Okona then declares that he is the father of Yanar's child, and offers to marry her. Benzan then declares that the Jewel of Thesia hasn't been stolen: it is revealed that Okona has been acting as a go-between for Yanar and Benzan, who are in love with each other, and that Yanar is pregnant with Benzan's child. Benzan has offered to marry Yanar, intending to present the Jewel of Thesia, which he asserts is rightly his, as a courting gift. Okona was carrying the jewel between the two planets when he got engine trouble, and he only falsely claimed to be the father to force the two lovers to reveal the truth. Embarrassed and frustrated with how her relationship with Benzan has caused such a crisis and the quarrelling of their parents, especially her father's pressuring her to marry out of honour, an exasperated Yanar declares that she is not marrying Benzan or Okona. Okona has a heart-to-heart conversation with Yanar about how she cannot throw away her relationship simply because their parents cannot "behave themselves". Yanar takes heed to Okona's advice, she and Benzan profess their love to each other in front of Debin and Kushell, who finally realize how happy their children are with each other. Picard cannot get involved in the internal political disputes between the two planets and allows Okona to go on his way once his ship is repaired, and Debin and Kushell are left to argue (in a friendly manner) about wedding details.

Meanwhile, Lt. Commander Data is motivated to explore the concept of humour after meeting Okona. Prompted by Guinan, Data uses the holodeck to generate a comedy club setting and stand-up comic as his adviser, but when he performs in front of the holographic audience, he is dismayed to find that they are predisposed to laugh at anything he says or does. Guinan cheers Data up by explaining that being able to laugh or make people laugh is not the ‘be-all and end-all’ of being human; Data agrees, but points out that ‘there is nothing more uniquely human’. As the Enterprise parts with Okona, Data is able to unintentionally make the crew laugh, but does not at first understand the joke himself.

Review:

Observant fans of DC Comics-based TV shows will note that this episode features an uncredited appearance by guest actress Teri Hatcher, who would later appear as Lois Lane in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman during the 90’s, followed by a role as Daxamite Queen Rhea in the Supergirl TV show of the 2010’s. However, her role in this late 80’s guest appearance is fairly minor, simply serving as the first among a number of ‘conquests’ made by the title guest character, the charming rogue that is Captain Okana (played by William O’Campbell).

The title plot of the episode is a rare bit of fun for a Trek episode, though it lacks for much depth, and ends up verging on being a Romeo and Juliet in Space situation once we find out Okana has been playing go-between for this episode’s pair of star-faring lovers. Luckily, Okana’s portrayal in the third act nicely fleshes the character out into the heroic outlaw definition of his characterisation as a rogue, and avoids the necessity of the traditional R&J suicide pact. Frankly, I think it’s a wonder more Shakespeare adaptations don’t work in an Okana-like go-between and a Juliet-is-pregnant-by -Romeo plot to create a true romantic ending, as opposed to the original Shakespeare version that was just tragic in its entirety. Then again, what do you expect from someone how also wrote comedies that were actually romances and tragedies that were actually comedy? If a great play-write like that can’t be accurate when categorising his plays, how can you expect him to really write well?

The B-plot is a bit more of Trek’s stock-in-trade as Data tries to grasp the concept of humour, but Joe Piscopo makes for a lousy choice of holographic mentor, as his performances were so ridiculously silly, I just had to fast-forward them. Likewise, as great as Whoopi Goldberg is as Guinnan, I don’t think she was necessarily coming at teaching Data from the right angle either. Leaving aside Data not being programmed with emotion, which is a key component in effective humour, the episode tried to throw our favourite android in right at the deep end, and therein lies the B-plot’s failure

As I’ve noted before, Data is many ways not unlike an autistic person, and this includes some aspects of his misunderstandings around humour. Now as a person with autism, there is very little that I have learned well by being thrust in at the deep end and having to adapt on my proverbial feet. By my very nature, I’m someone who needs to take time to learn something new before putting it into practice, and I need to learn in a way that works best for me. When I’ve been doing some research for my novel writing, for instance, reading books and making notes has been a key element of learning at least one key item being worked into the second novel in my trilogy.

By the same token, Data doesn’t seek any non-interactive forms of information about humour or comedy first, which he perhaps should have done before seeking the advice of Guinnan or any holodeck comedians. Unfortunately, the title plot crowds out the time he could have spent doing that, and so a great moment of character development just becomes so much cringe-worthy filler. Overall score for this episode, 5 out of 10.

Episode 5: Loud as a Whisper

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is set to take aboard Riva, a renowned and successful negotiator, to help resolve a centuries-old war between two tribes on planet Solais V. Riva is deaf and mute due to a hereditary genetic deficiency, but travels with a "chorus", an entourage of three people in telepathic communication with him, who are able to enunciate his thoughts. Riva dismisses the Enterprise crew's briefing on the history of the conflict, explaining that the dispute has long since become personal, regardless of whatever tangible concerns that may have started it. When Riva, his chorus, and several Enterprise officers beam down for the meeting, a rebel member of one tribal delegate fires upon them, killing the chorus. The tribe's leader immediately brands him a traitor and executes him, begging for the talks to continue, but the away team has already begun emergency transport back to the Enterprise amid the chaos.

Riva, frustrated and agitated, struggles to communicate with the crew, so Captain Picard orders Lt. Commander Data to find and learn Riva's sign language in order to act as a translator. Counsellor Troi offers to take Riva's place at the mediation, but Riva believes the Solaian tribes will only cooperate with him. Riva is prepared to abandon the peace process and return to his home planet, accepting his failure, but Troi inspires him to stay, suggesting that he turn his disadvantage into an advantage, recalling Riva's own negotiating tactic.

Riva returns to the meeting spot on the planet, and to the crew's surprise, tells them that they should leave, and he will signal Starfleet when the negotiations are complete, as they may take several months. In order for the tribes to work with Riva, they will both be forced to learn sign language from Riva, which will create a shared experience between them. Thus, Riva is turning his disadvantage of being unable to communicate into an advantage. The crew leaves Riva to await the tribe representatives.

Review:

This episode is another great example of Star Trek doing a good job, for the most part. According to the Wikipedia page for the episode, the show’s writers initially wanted the deaf character of Riva to gain the ability to speak after losing his interpreters, but the guest actor Howie Seago opposed this. Seago was deaf himself, and felt that the concept would encourage a practice of forcing deaf children to speak aloud rather than through sign language, and the show amended the script accordingly. Considering this show had fired a main cast actress for speaking up against sexism in the show’s writing, this kind of receptiveness from the show’s writing staff seems almost uncharacteristic.

As a result, we get a great episode about accepting the differently abled for who they are, thought not perhaps a great as it could have been. I find it strange, for instance, that if people with sensory deficits still exist in the future, sign language hasn’t been worked into the basic education of Federation cultures or into Starfleet. It is even stranger considering how Worf notes the usefulness of the non-vocal communication style while Data is learning it, because it only serves to highlight how useful learning sign is. Had more of the crew shown an ability to sign, maybe there might have been more of a push to work sign into national curriculums, especially considering that the children of most countries are more likely to encounter someone who is deaf than someone from another country.

Even worse is Polaski having looked into prosthetics to give Riva the ability to hear and then offering something similar to Geordi. It makes her the symbol of regularly abled arrogance, an arrogance that suggests everyone not fitting into the regularly abled average is somehow defective or lesser and somehow needs ‘fixing’. That should have all been taken out because as Riva notes, we’re all special in our own way. If someone is born deaf or blind and they can be their best self with that as part of their own normality, then that is fine, and it’s not them who need to change to fit the world. The world needs to change to fit them, as it should for autistics, for the dyslexic, for the wheelchair-bound and everyone else outside of the narrow (and too often narrow-minded) scope of our societal default. Except for Polaski, all the other main characters are at least trying to embody proper acceptance of people like Geordi and Riva, and we need much more of that kind of acceptance in real life. Overall, I’d give this episode 8 out of 10.

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/the-latest-malaysia-extends-ban-on-foreign-tourists-world-news/

The Latest: Malaysia extends ban on foreign tourists | World News

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia has extended its pandemic movement restrictions including a ban on foreign tourists until the end of the year.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said in a televised address late Friday that global cases have been rising and the country has seen sporadic virus clusters even though the situation was under control.

Malaysia has recorded more than 9,000 cases with 125 deaths.

Muhyiddin said the extension of restrictions will not disrupt daily activities as most businesses and schools have resumed. Only nightclubs and entertainment centers remain shut and international sporting events prohibited. Borders will stay closed and those entering the country will be quarantined.

——

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

— Health agencies’ credibility at risk after week of blunders

— Too risky? Fed pressed to expand aid to some businesses

— College towns growing alarmed over outbreaks among students

— French President Emmanuel Macron is urging European neighbors to better coordinate cross-border virus restrictions as infections resurge. Multiple countries have imposed tests or quarantines on visitors from France.

— California Gov. Gavin Newsom is announcing a new process for reopening businesses that is slower and more gradual than what the state tried earlier this summer.

— The British government is encouraging workers to return to their offices amid concern that the number of people working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic is hurting coffee bars and restaurants and turning city centers into “ghost towns.”

———

Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

———

HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has reported 323 new cases of the coronavirus, marking its 16th consecutive day of triple-digit jumps as health officials prepare to tighten social distancing restrictions in the greater capital area.

The numbers released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Saturday brought the national caseload to 19,400. Fatalities reached 321 after the country added five more deaths overnights.

The KCDC said 249 of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people live, where health workers have struggled to track infections linked to various places, including churches, restaurants, schools and apartment buildings.

The country has added 4,630 cases over the 16 days, raising fears about possible shortages in hospital capacities.

For eight days starting Sunday, the country will allow restaurants to provide only food deliveries and takeout meals after 9 p.m., franchised coffee shops like Starbucks to provide only takeout drinks and food and to shut down gyms and after-school academies to slow the viral spread.

———

ALABAMA — The University of Alabama reported Friday that an additional 481 students have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total to more than 1,000 infections since students returned to campus for the fall.

The University of Alabama System released new numbers on its dashboard of cases for all three campuses. The additional 481 cases on the Tuscaloosa campus were reported between Aug. 25 and Aug. 27. The university system said no students are hospitalized.

“We are closely monitoring our data daily, and we will continue to adjust operations as the situation warrants,” said UA System Chancellor Finis St. John in a statement accompanying the release of the numbers. He said testing for the virus was a “key pillar” of the university’s health and safety plan.

St. John said every student on the three campuses has the option of moving to fully online instruction at any time, remaining either on campus or returning home to continue their course work.

The university has not announced official fall enrollment figures. Kellee Reinhart, a spokeswoman for the university system, said the enrollment will be upwards of 30,000, which would equate to infections being reported in about 3.3% of all students.

The quick rise in COVID-19 cases on campus prompted action from city and university officials to try to limit student gatherings and off-campus socializing.

———

ATLANTA – A 1-year-old boy is now Georgia’s youngest victim to die from COVID-19.

The state Department of Public Health included the suburban Atlanta boy in a table of deaths released Friday.

The department says the boy had a chronic underlying condition that may have contributed to his death, but released no further information. The Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Officer says it can’t release further information until the boy’s death certificate is completed.

He’s one of 5,471 people to die in Georgia so far from the respiratory illness. Deaths from Georgia’s summer spike remain elevated, having averaged 68 over the seven days ending Friday.

The boy displaces a 7-year-old Chatham County boy as the state’s youngest victim of the respiratory illness. A preliminary count by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found only 29 deaths involving coronavirus among children younger than five nationwide.

———

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The University of Virginia announced Friday that it is moving ahead with plans to offer in-person instruction for the fall semester.

In a statement posted on the school’s website, UVA officials said they had initially delayed the start of in-person undergraduate classes by two weeks to allow for more assessment of the spread of COVID-19. They also said they delayed the decision in order to take a look at how other schools have fared since opening.

UVA said it is now proceeding with plans to welcome students to residence halls starting Sept. 3 and to begin in-person instruction for undergraduates on Sept. 8.

“We know some will be delighted to hear this news and others will be disappointed,” the statement said. “To be frank, it was a very difficult decision, made in the face of much uncertainty, and with full awareness that future events may force us to change course.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Friday that UVA has reported 67 total positive COVID cases since Aug. 17 among students, faculty and staff. Of those, 23 were students who reported a positive test on Thursday, the school’s highest single-day total. Twenty-five students, faculty or staff have been hospitalized.

———

FOSTER CITY, California — U.S. regulators are now allowing use of experimental antiviral drug remdesivir for all patients hospitalized with COVID-19, drugmaker Gilead Sciences said Friday.

It said the Food and Drug Administration has expanded its emergency use authorization, which lets doctors administer the IV drug during the pandemic. Until now, that was limited to patients with severe COVID-19.

Foster City, California-based Gilead applied to the FDA on Aug. 10 for formal approval of remdesivir, to be sold under the brand name Veklury.

Gilead said in a statement that the expanded emergency use was based on results of a recent federal study of hospitalized patients with different levels of severity, plus a Gilead study published a week ago. Gilead’s study found that among hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19, those getting remdesivir were 65% more likely to improve after a five-day treatment course than those just getting standard care.

Remdesivir previously was shown to shorten treatment by about four days for hospitalized patients with severe disease, compared with those getting standard supportive care.

———

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans’s youngest public school students will begin returning to classrooms as early as Sept. 14, the city’s school superintendent said Friday as he announced a phased re-opening plan tied to the control of COVID-19.

Henderson Lewis said the plan is for students from prekindergarten through 4th grade to begin returning to schools in phases beginning Sept. 14. Older students will begin returning in October.

“We know that our youngest students have the most to gain from in person learning,” Lewis said.

All of the plans are contingent on current trends indicating the spread of the virus has been successfully limited in the city, Lewis and Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the city’s health officer, said.

The benchmarks include a continued new-case rate of less than 50 per day in the city.

Statewide, the health department reported more than 600 new confirmed cases Friday, bringing the total to at least 146,243, with nearly 128,000 presumed recovered. Thirty newly reported deaths brought the virus-related death toll to at least 4,741.

———

TOPEKA, Kansas — Fueled in part by college students returning to classes, Kansas has set another pandemic record for the seven-day increase in coronavirus cases, with the surge prompting a school district to put the brakes on some fall sports and another to extend its mask ordinance.

Statewide, the number of new reported cases rose by 1,111 from Wednesday to Friday, bringing the total to 41,048. The state Department of Health and Environment also reported an additional six COVID-19-related deaths, to put the pandemic total at 443.

The average for the seven days ending Friday was 599, 3.6% more than the previous record of 578 for the seven days ending Wednesday. The state also reported 16 clusters in colleges and universities with 189 cases.

Gov. Laura Kelly called the most recent spike in coronavirus cases “horrendous” and said her administration is looking into why it has occurred. But she said outbreaks on college campuses and fraternities and sororities are a factor.

#extends #foreign #latest #Malaysia #tourists #World

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omfgtrump · 5 years ago

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The Tale of Two Viruses: Part 8

The greatest president who ever lived announced at one of his reality show press conferences that he was forming the “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups.”

The biggest, the best, the greatest business people anywhere were going to get this country going, right? Full steam ahead. America’s economy will be blazing in no time.

One problem: The great blusterer forgot to inform many of the greats that he was calling on them. Who does that kind of thing? Did he just forget to tell them? Did he make it up on the spot? Or is he so grandiose that he believed the mere mention of their names from his lips would automatically make them members of an imaginary committee?

Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. found out while The Don was giving his briefing.

The head of Pfizer who was also blindsided by its inclusion in the group, receiving a heads-up that Mr. Trump might mention the company an hour before the announcement, with no information about how many other companies were involved or what the purpose of the group was.

The pattern of confusion appeared to be repeating itself with members of the House and Senate who were abruptly notified through an email that they had been selected for a congressional task force on reopening the country.

“The purpose of the task force is to provide counsel to the president on the reopening of America in the wake of Covid-19,” the email continued. “The formal name of this task force has not yet been announced.”

It’s a little bit like fantasy football. You pick players that have value but they don’t know you picked them. If you were to run in to one of them for real and tell them they were on your fantasy team they would look at you and say “that’s cool man, but some of us are due back on the planet earth.”

And then there was the check thing. The government is sending $1,200 to most Americans to help them during the financial crisis. Funny thing happened on the way to issuing the checks: the process was delayed because The Don, in a move unprecedented in our country’s history, insisted that his signature be on checks.

When someone mentioned that having his signature would delay people receiving the money it is rumored The Don said:

“Then let them eat cake!”

When his aide asked him if he knew the historical figure said that he said: “Me, it’s me, I just made that up.”

“Actually it was Marie Antoinette,” said the aide.

“Is that another woman wanting to be paid off because…you know?

“No, Mr. President, she was the French Queen during the French Revolution.

“So?”

“The people of France revolted, and they chopped off her head by guillotine.”

“Must have been quite a bitch. Isn’t my signature beautiful? My letters are like mini Trump Towers. I think people should think twice about cashing them and just frame them. One day they are going to be worth a lot of money, like rare coins.”

After having his name put on the checks, The Don actually stood at the podium in one of his press conferences and said he wasn’t sure how his name got on the checks. You can’t make this stuff up!

And how about banks having permission to garnish money from their customers if accounts are in arrears. So instead of people getting money they desperately need, the banks are filling their coffers. So imagine you have no job, are running out of money for food and you need that money to survive. Oops, sorry, no money for you. The administration could have made sure the banks didn’t take any of the $1,200, but banks rule and people drool.

In this week’s episode of “Survivor” The Blusterer-in Chief declared he was king and could tell the states that they had to do what he said. The Governors pushed back and The Don backed down but not for long.

He decided to go after specific democratic governors supporting protests by Trumpites who declared they were staying home no more. “Liberate Michigan. “Liberate Minnesota.” “Liberate Virginia,” he tweeted after observing the rally on the Capitol steps of Michigan.

The rally was organized by Owen Shroyer, the host of a show on Infowars, a website founded by the right wing nut, Alex Jones, who traffics in conspiracy theories. Mr. Shroyer told his Infowars audience this week that the Coronavirus was part of a scheme by the Chinese Communist Party and the “Deep State” to undermine Mr. Trump, and that reports of overwhelmed hospitals like those in New York were “propaganda.”

The person responsible for the safety of 330 million people is championing conspiracy theorists who believe the virus is a plot to dethrone The Don. Makes you really feel safe. The Don is not interested in saving lives; he is only interested in externalizing the blame for this horrendous situation on someone else.

Delusional Don. So desperate for the economy to come roaring back because he believes it is his path to re-election. The Don’s incapacity to take advice from anyone and understand what needs to be done to begin to open things up in a manner that can be successful, works against his own best interests. If he ramped up the testing dramatically, the data would help us understand how to proceed. But data be damned. In the end, his plan to open up too soon and his brazen egging on of Americans who want to do what they want, will lead to more deaths and a worse outcome for the economy.

Here is what one of The Don’s supporters, Representative Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana, said. He acknowledged the chance of “loss of life” from an early end to social distancing but asserted, nonetheless, that it was better than the alternative. “It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say it is the lesser of these two evils,” he said to a local radio station.

“Put on your big boy pants everyone and get up and dance. We are going to kick some mother fuckin ass. So Corona watch out because you are just some silly old virus and I have lots of guns. Governors get out of our way. So bring it on. “Live free or die (hard).”

If they are looking for a theme song, how about this.

We ain’t going to stay home no more,

Home no more, home no more,

And if you try to make us stay

We will simply blow you away.

Let’s check in with the virus and see how it feels about all this? How it’s doing in the game of “Survivor.”

“You can’t close America,” chanted the people.

“Absolutely not said the genius devil virus, smirking.”

“I love it” says the virus.

“The American spirit is awesome! Come on people, what you waiting for, spring is upon us. Things are blooming, the world beckons you. You have been lonely too long. You’ve been thwarted too long. Your freedom is not for the taking. Your man with the orange hair is urging you to take back America from those tyrannical governors. Just love, love, love that he is saying “Liberate Michigan, Liberate Minnesota.” I just Love, love, love that he is promoting faulty anti-body tests and says things like America can get back to work ‘by showing us who might have developed the wonderful, beautiful, immunity.’ Promote more false information Mr. Orange and I will get more deadly every day. This is so much fun. My cousins in Germany are feeling stifled by a lady called Angela. I thought presidents were supposed to protect people? Has the devil finally come to inhabit America?”

So get out there, America. No one is going to fuck with you, macho motherfuckers. You got the ammo. But last time I looked guns didn’t work with viruses. This game of “Survivor” is fun.”

“And one more thing. A special shout-out and thank you to Governor Desantis in Florida for opening up the beaches. I need a good tan and what better way to do that then to sprawl out on a beach blanket with some people who are (yuck, yuck) drinking Coronas. It’s like people swimming with sharks, but on land!”

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perksofwifi · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus Wrecked China’s Car Sales, and America Is Probably Next

The numbers were horrendous but were drowned out in the cacophony of COVID-19 coronavirus news. Major domestic Chinese automakers and their joint ventures with foreign auto giants saw their February sales crater by as much as 92 percent. Now, with the virus spreading in the U.S., could the same thing happen here?

To understand how the coronavirus could affect the U.S. auto industry, we must first understand what caused Honda sales in China to drop by 85 percent, Toyota to fall 70 percent, Volkswagen by 91 percent, and GM sales were down 92 percent. There are two primary factors tightly linked by one overriding event: the Chinese government’s decision to put much of the Hubei province on lockdown, including the massive capital city of Wuhan. By preventing about 60 million citizens of Wuhan and Hubei province from leaving their homes except to get groceries or medical attention, China created two big problems for the auto industry. First, no one could go out to buy cars, and second, even if there were customers, auto manufacturing plants were shuttered with no one to build the cars.

Hubei, however, is only China’s 14th largest province by land mass and 9th by population, so it alone cannot account for the sales drops. Hubei wasn’t the only province to experience lockdowns, though. At its peak, at least four provinces (of 26) and nearly 50 cities had imposed some kind of lockdown, including major business hubs such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu.

China isn’t the only country on lockdown, either. Earlier this month, the entire country of Italy was placed on lockdown to slow the spread of the virus. While democratic Italy’s measures are far less strict than authoritarian China’s, it has nonetheless led the country’s largest domestic automaker, FCA, to temporarily close three plants in the country which produce roughly 600,000 vehicles annually for both domestic and export markets. Late in the day Friday, Lamborghini announced it would close its factory until March 25 and the Ferrari factory is running at reduced capacity. Meanwhile, the country’s largest dealer network has closed until the end of the month.

Lockdowns in America

The same could happen in America if the outbreak gets bad enough. America’s first lockdown has been put in place in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle, and serious outbreaks in Washington State and Santa Clara County, California, have raised the possibility of similarly drastic measures. In just the past 48 hours, every major sporting league in America, from the NBA to NASCAR, has either cancelled its season or postponed games or races.

The auto industry was quick to cancel major events including major auto shows in Geneva and New York. Smaller auto shows in other communities have also been cancelled. Not only is this a financial hit for companies who spent millions in preparations and elaborate stands with their latest vehicles on display, but it will impact future auto sales which the auto shows would have stimulated.

Ford, GM, and FCA have now asked their employees to begin working from home starting Monday, March 16. While no domestic auto factories have closed, a worker at an FCA plant has tested positive for the coronavirus and this person and their closest coworkers have been quarantined. And the FCA minivan plant in Windsor, Canada, has been idled since Thursday after employees walked off the job after one worker went into self-quarantine.

An outbreak at a U.S. factory has a large and immediate impact on a community. If that plant happens to supply key components, such as engines or transmissions, it can quickly shut down assembly plants that rely on a steady supply of parts. Likewise, the closure of a parts supplier’s plant anywhere in the world could grind assembly lines to a halt. Many parts are sourced from China which is disrupting the supply chain. While some of China’s plants are beginning to come back online, most are believed to be running well below capacity, though specific information on which plants are open and their operational capacity are hard to come by. In the U.S., Detroit’s automakers have told reporters they have enough parts to keep production running until nearly the end of the month, though there are also reports of certain parts being flown in at great expense to keep the lines running.

It’s not just domestic plants at risk. Earlier this week, Mexican officials reported their plants are having trouble sourcing parts from China and are at risk of shutting down before the end of the month. While German automakers continue to insist their supply chains are fine, both Japanese and Korean automakers have reported disruptions to the supply chain and partial or temporary plant closures.

The bottom line is, if Chinese parts suppliers don’t get back up and running soon, there are going to be fewer cars to sell in the U.S. or anywhere else.

Buyers Staying Home

It may not matter, though, if customers stay home. Individual outbreaks and precautionary measures like bans on large gatherings across the country will keep potential car buyers out of showrooms. Dealers in affected areas are already reporting lower foot traffic. Even areas not yet touched by the coronavirus are seeing smaller crowds at dealerships as people avoid public areas and practice social distancing.

More than just a fear of catching the virus, many people are likely to put off a major purchase over economic uncertainty. After all, a car is the second-most expensive purchase the average person makes in their life behind a house. While the economy hasn’t crashed as of this writing, Wall Street has had several of its worst days on record in just the past week and the cancellation of major festivals and sporting events will have a noticeable economic impact. With a great deal of uncertainty over the state of the economy, consumers are likely to keep their money in savings until things get better, just as they did during the Great Recession. If people start losing their jobs or the country falls into a serious recession, it will only exacerbate the downturn in car sales.

How bad will the downturn be? No one knows for sure, but earlier this week, Morgan Stanley released a report predicting a nine-percent drop in car sales for 2020. Blaming customers who put off car purchases due to economic uncertainty, the report expects annual sales to drop from 17.1 million in 2019 to 15.5 million in 2020. This report was released, however, prior to the announcements from major league sports and the stock market taking yet another dive.

Better indicators of the seriousness of the problem could come as soon as next week, when North American plants are predicted to begin running out of Chinese-sourced parts which could force production to slow or stop. The full impact will be evident when first-quarter sales figures are released in April. Despite a strong February, bolstered by President’s Day sales events, March results could be abysmal with the rapid deterioration of the stock market and consumer confidence.

How long the pain lasts depends on both supply and demand. As long as consumers avoid showrooms out of health or financial concerns, auto sales will suffer. Even if the coronavirus pandemic were to end tomorrow, addressing disruptions to the supply chain and filling the product pipeline could take some time. With the situation changing daily for both consumers and automakers, it’s impossible to predict when and where this will end, but we’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

The post Coronavirus Wrecked China’s Car Sales, and America Is Probably Next appeared first on MotorTrend.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/car-sales-coronavirus-covid-19-america-china/ visto antes em https://www.motortrend.com

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worldcakecakecake · 7 years ago

Text

Good Luck Friedrich

A series of video diaries by Isabella Beilschmidt for her baby brother, Friedrich, where she details and explains the lives of their hectic family.

Video 3.2

They both laughed and ogled, Feliciano pointing and describing the events of the pictures. There was one of them jumping on Ludwig and Feliciano’s bed, another of them sliding through freshly polished floors in their socks, both hugging their favorite dog plushes, another of them laying down in a nap on the couch with Ludwig and finally of them covered in flour and sauce as they helped Feliciano in making a pizza.

“They’re really so nice and cute, the most darling little boys I have been so blessed to have,” Feliciano said as Mrs. Natale returned the pictures, now his turn to look dearly to them.

“I see you’ve also really progressed with the house,” she pointed, looking over her clipboard as she analyzed what could be wrong with Feliciano after his checking.

“Well it’s not done yet. There’s still a lot of rooms that need to be fixed along with the outer appearance, but we have done more than enough to be able to live there. Right now were focused on the garden."

“Really? What kind of things are you growing?” Her eyes squinted over the analysis, slowly conjuring an idea.

“Lots of things! We’ll have all kinds of colorful flowers and trees, but were also going to grow celery, cabbages, plums, apricots, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, oh of course tomatoes! And Ludwig really hopes to make the best batch of potatoes!” Feliciano was incredibly excited, practically jumping on his seat.

“That’s absolutely wonderful. Are you planning to sell any of the growths?” She jotted down.

“Probably not. We really want to use them for our recipes and give everything to our family,”

“All five of you?”

“Of course all five of us and m- wait, Mrs. Natale, we’re actually four.”

That’s when she finally dispatched her eyes from her clipboard, sure about what was going on with Feliciano. “Feliciano, you might be pregnant again.”

In an instant Feliciano stilled, along with all words and thoughts as Mrs. Natale simply continued to tap her clipboard with a pen.

“No-no-no, I mean-no! I-I can’t, Ludwig and I always use protection, it can’t be possible, we’re really careful about it,” Feliciano tried to excuse, tried to make the idea something far off.

“Did you use protection for your last heat?” She asked straight on, which instantly caused Feliciano to widen, to shock himself to silence, biting his lip hard and looking away.

“Oh god…no…no we didn’t,” he groaned, a hand rubbing into his forehead, slowly slumping until he was buried in them, feeling the heavy fault run through him, irking him for the rather large mistake they had made that night of celebrated bliss and freedom.

“Heats tend to do that, after all, you lose a great amount of structured consciousness and forget about anything but your mate, these are normal occurrences,” she tried to ease, for Feliciano continued to wallow in the shield of his hands. “But it’s not sure.” She wanted to keep a light as she went through a drawer, picking a brand new pregnancy test and offering it towards Feliciano, who peeked out, a new kind of nervous shaking through him that made him hesitant in reaching for the small device.

How could everything be so calm? How could the sky be blue, the sun shine, the air of the hills surely a refreshing one for the summer? He was worrying with all kinds of storms inside him. It was a surprise he could keep the car on the road as he drove, his mind in other dilemmas to be able to focus on the curves and bends, for once not escaping from the asphalt or nearing his car to a high cliff. Ludwig would be proud if he saw him now.

Ludwig…oh god, he was supposed to tell Ludwig, his grip harshening on the wheel, thinking of just continuing on ahead and taking more of the wonderful views of the area to avoid the coming situation.

No, he had to face this, parking the car in front of the house, too late to run away, no more ideas to help him escape from this. He thought of perhaps waiting, give them some time to really focus on the garden they wanted, and when he would start to show…maybe then he could tell him. Yes, that was a good idea, a sure one until he got down from the car and spotted the house.

The form was still so awful, the colors dreadful and in the process he got reminded on how the basement was still a mess of debris, how there were halls still coated in dust and cobwebs, how there were unfinished rooms, slated and disgusting that Feliciano didn’t bother to enter as he focused on the twins’ room and his own that he shared with Ludwig. No…they really had to start working to prepare for this new one.

He raised his hand to his stomach, the beginning form of his next baby giving him that enough assurance to lock the car and make his way inside.

He was met with a nice breeze, the slide doors to the back open, enough of a convey to let him know that all his family was outside in the back. He met with Heinrich first, who sat by the terrace, eyes looking about to the shine of the day, an occasional tap to the toy drum he had on his lap. Feliciano took him by surprise, holding and kissing his head as welcome.

“Ciao, caro, where’s vatti and Alessandro?” He questioned.

Heinrich first pointed to his brother, who was pacing around a tree, picking up rocks to then throw over the cliff, testing to see if he could make one drop in the river down below. He then pointed near to one of the growing patches they had for tomatoes, where Feliciano began to see movement, Ludwig surely working on caring for the potatoes. He was burying and checking the ground, dressed appropriately, even with a sun hat that made him quite the comical sight. Feliciano gave a laugh as he settled Heinrich back on his sitting, continuing with his toy drum, then going over to Alessandro to greet him with his own hug and kiss, aiding him with the throw of a stone to the cliff…didn’t reach the river either, but Feliciano gave him the assurance to keep trying before he began walking down the slope, between the rows of growing tomatoes, finding Ludwig at the end of one of them, rubbing away some dirt that managed on his face. He was so focused that he hadn’t even noticed Feliciano’s approach, slow, silent, even his breaths controlled, his mind still trying to think of the proper words to say.

“It’s coming along great,” Feliciano thought he could compliment, finally breaking him from his dedication for their eyes to meet, with instant smiles and a relief to be back at home together.

“They are, might have something for next month."

“Hmm, what dishes do you think we should make then?” Feliciano wondered, already his mouth watering, his stomach rumbling with hunger.

“Mashed potatoes definitely,” Ludwig started, feeling that very hunger as he began to dig into a new pile to plant.

“With some ricotta,” Feliciano dreamed.

“Rosemary roasted,” Ludwig continued to suggest.

“Potato gratin.”

“Those potato bites you made last month.”

“Oh yes! And um…speaking of things we made last month…um…Mrs. Natale figured out the problem.” And suddenly he was nervous again, a hand coming to rub at his arm as Ludwig gave him all the attention he needed, taking a sitting on the ground to hear.

“Yes?” Ludwig questioned after Feliciano let the silence elongate.

“Um…” Feliciano gripped on the hem of his shirt, pulling it as if to hide more of the nonexistent bump.

“Was it a virus?” Ludwig thought he could help.

“…No."

“An allergy?”

Feliciano shook his head.

“Is it anything dangerous?”

“Uh…no."

“Feliciano, just say it then. It can’t be anything so worrying as to-”

“I’m pregnant,” he proclaimed, loud enough to interrupt and make clear, a reach that was enough for Ludwig to be claimed by the silence of the valley as the words repeated on his head, ringing and alerting while in his physical he only remained in his sitting, no immediate reaction, no joy, no scorn, a lost expression that Feliciano couldn’t decipher.

He slightly flinched when Ludwig took off his hat, a hand rising to rub out the sweat that had accumulated, rare in such a fresh day. He raised his head to meet his eyes with Feliciano once again, not yet with a clear response, his mind surely thinking of a line of duties he already had to fulfill even with only minutes of knowing the news.

“Um…uh…” he tried to say, but he really couldn’t show a proper response.

No, it wasn’t anything dire, it wasn’t horrendous, it wasn’t bad, it was just the looming threat of having to raise another child when they were still dealing with twin toddlers. If it wasn’t for the nervousness, their situation, a reminder to Ludwig as he took a glance to the still rebuilding house, he surely would have been excited, would have twirled Feliciano in the spot, kissed him all and immediately call out the announcement to the twins and even to Vash and Lili next door. But no, all Ludwig could think about was the impending new work, along with the weight of his new job and still dealing with a pair of twins. He sighed…at least they had money now to not worry, but they would still have to make some adjustments.

“We’ll…start working on the room next to the twins’. Smaller, but the window has a seating and an incredible view to the valley. If we don’t stuff it with too many things, I’m sure it would be comfortable,” Ludwig already recommended with a huff as he stood, trying to rub out any prominent dirt on his clothing before he began moving forward.

“A-all right, that be…perfect.” Feliciano tried to smile, but he was still rather nervous. It slowly stilled as Ludwig came closer, with an adoring and trusting smile that Feliciano joined with in his own, letting him lay his hands on the grasps of his hips. His thumbs rubbed gently on his stomach, enough of an assurance of Ludwig beginning to accept and already love. Feliciano smiled at the growing promise, raising his hands to caress at his face before bringing him down to a kiss of beginning for this new child.

They went back into the house, Heinrich following obediently behind, eager for some cooking, while Ludwig had to pick up Alessandro, who kept edging himself to the cliff no matter how many times Ludwig told him against it.

That night, while they dined on Greek salad, salmon and of course Pizza, Ludwig and Feliciano didn’t stall long enough for the boys to know.

“Boys, your papa has some important news,” Ludwig declared with a teasing smile as he helped Heinrich take a better bite of the pizza slice he held.

Even while still munching, their mouths slowly being stuffed with food, their brown eyes gazed up with curiosity and eagerness, attendant to when the words would leave their papa’s mouth.

Feliciano was nervous, but also excited, twirling his fingers in a way that only made the boys anxious, jumping along in their seats along with Feliciano wanting to instantly know. “Boys, you’re going to be big brothers.”

At first they were both confused, Alessandro looking over to Heinrich knowing he was the bigger brother. It was a word that they only understood for each other and didn’t so for another being.

“Boys, your papa is going to have a new baby,” Ludwig helped to clear and then their faces alighted, jumping, shouting and even screaming.

“New baby! New baby!” They repeated, standing from their seats and both running over to their papa, hugging and looking for this new baby.

“No, boys, this baby won’t be arriving for a while, it’s just starting to grow in my stomach,” Feliciano explained, which widened his boys, looking over to the area as if they could already see hints of their new sibling. Alessandro poked as if hoping it could cause something, Heinrich joining along, but all it did was cause a fit of laughter to Feliciano.

“Another boy!” Alessandro though he knew.

“Boy! Boy! Boy! Boy!” Heinrich already wished as well.

“Actually, we don’t know that yet, it might be a boy, but it might also be a girl,” Feliciano continued to explain, and even so it didn’t dwell their happiness, their smiles, their activeness, even as they headed to sleep planning all kinds of games and things they could do with this new future member to their family.

Four months into yet another pregnancy, once again to the cramps, to the heavy weight, to the weird cravings (Fried cheese… he wanted friend cheese, accompanied by potatoes with eggs and artichoke soup), to the vomiting at any suddenness, the uncomfortable sleep and the extra carefulness Ludwig took with him that barely left him any kind of enjoyment. But there were sweet things, like Heinrich and Alessandro always laying upon his stomach expecting to hear the baby or catch some sort of movement, their mouths filled with gibberish of ideas that Feliciano smiled dearly to, rubbing their blond hairs until they found themselves napping upon the bump. There was Ludwig raising him to lay constant kisses on his stomach, whispering loving words to then give Feliciano kisses upon his lips.

Feliciano had to admit…he did miss those warm caresses Ludwig would give to his bump, as if tracing a message of love for their coming baby, a special kind of union every night that didn’t even let them sleep, wanting instead gazes into their eyes, of ever love and devotion.

A sonogram later, once again Feliciano held another image of the growing human in his stomach, gender and type told, which had Feliciano bouncing and with such a want to dance. He was currently comparing the images of Heinrich and Alessandro’s with this new one, trying to find similarities, if not the differences, still thinking if he should put them together on a wall or separate in other rooms.

Ludwig and him had just finished painting the new baby’s room into white, since Feliciano had ideas to paint over it and was already quite excited to start. Just last week they had finished with adding proper electricity to the room as well as getting a new glass for the window. Ludwig knew he would have to get started on making a new crib, as well as cabinets and sitting places, while Feliciano would start with making clothing, blankets and other fabrics they might need.

They had just washed away the sweat and force of the day, Heinrich and Alessandro tucked into bed, hoping that their ‘monster repelling’ night light would help them sleep for the night, to be able to calm as they made themselves comfortable in their bed, the dim of the lamp just enough as Ludwig read a book about caring for omega babies. He bought it that morning as soon as he found out that his next child was going to be an omega, a girl, news that had Feliciano shrilling, already thinking about all the kinds of dresses, bows, hairstyles and even little shoes he would place on her. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off from the sonogram, smiling away even in the share of their bed.

Ludwig finished a chapter, placing it on the bedside desk to a halt, shutting the lamp, coming close to Feliciano and easing a hand around him to pull him close, both nuzzling and cuddling and preparing for rest. There was still a well enough moonlight coming through one of the windows, still making the sonogram glow, still not making Feliciano dispatch himself from it, now letting Ludwig intertwine his hand with his as they laid them both above his stomach.

“Yes, Feliciano, it’s a girl,” Ludwig repeated, laying a kiss of assurance on his head.

“I’m still so smiley,” he laughed, blushing and cuddling ever closer into the hideaway of his collarbone.

“Mrs. Natale told me she might be due on February,” Ludwig told just in case, since he knew Feliciano had been so ecstatic with the news he probably hadn't heard anything else the doctor said.

“Wouldn’t it be so cute if she was born a valentine’s day?” Feliciano dreamed, putting the sonogram well between them so Ludwig could have his gazes as well.

“Wouldn’t it be annoying? What if she doesn’t like valentine’s day."

“Then we’ll make it her day!” Feliciano proclaimed. “It shall be…” and then he realized, “…what name should we give her?”

“You want to decide that now?” Ludwig raised an eyebrow, rather tired at the moment to think of names.

“Of course! So I can sew it on all her clothes and you can already carve it to her crib,” Feliciano pouted as he laid himself upon his chest how he could with his growing bump.

“But…I don’t have any names…”

“At least we’re only choosing one this time."

“It was easier to choose two,” Ludwig had realized.

“Come on! There has to be something." He fell upon the bed once again as he stared to the ceiling in thought. “Um…Rina,” Feliciano started, but it didn’t hold the right spark.

“Feliciana?” Ludwig suggested, but even he sounded unconvinced, more so as Feliciano gave him quite the glare.

“No, hmm…Viola?”

“Theresa?”

“Graziella?”

“Dina?”

After surely the hundredth name they gave up, their minds tired and wanting nothing more than to sleep.

“This reminds me of something…” Ludwig suddenly remembered, earning a curious gaze from Feliciano as he settled back into his side. “My great aunt was a writer, and she had a knack with names and knew just the perfect one to say that would have one picking in the first mention. She knew well their importance and how they can set the path for one’s life and suggested the ones that she knew would hold meaning to my other family members. Most of us were named after names she had suggested, even I was. It was obvious what to pick for me when she knew about my mother’s liking to Beethoven.”

Feliciano chuckled. “Do you think if we called her she would tell us?”

“No…I don’t think so…”

“…Is it because…?”

“Oh no, she’s dead right now.”

“Oh…” And Feliciano eased, consoling Ludwig with a trace of his fingers on his chest. “I’m sorry,” he saddened.

Ludwig chuckled, placing a kiss on the top of his head in assurance. “It’s all right, I was really young, barely remember her own funeral, but her stories were repeated throughout the family, I even read some of her books, she was an amazing writer.”

“That’s really cool, do you have any of her books there?”

Ludwig leaned out to check through his mini library at the bottom of the floor since they haven’t properly built or placed a bookshelf. He took out one with a cover of a regency era woman looking into the growing field, a beautiful array of flowers in the hold of her hand. The tittle read ‘Libertà’ by Analiese Beilschmidt.

“She set this one in Italy, a woman living through the rise of Napoleon and how she stands against the expectations of her family to take her father’s business once he dies.”

Feliciano’s eyes widened as he took it, instant interest to the idea, the cover a beautiful painting, tracing his hands as if he could feel the flowers, but what caught his attention the most was the beautiful name of the author.

“Oh, Ludwig, she had such a pretty name herself, I like it so much,” he caressed the name, a wanting, a choosing, already he could imagine himself calling a little Analiese, sewing and carving it, kissing and hugging her, smiling as he brought a hand to trace his stomach.

“You do?” Ludwig raised his eyes, starting to realize that yes…for their own coming daughter…it would be perfect.

“Mhm, really, really, really much…” he began to tap his fingers, a decision as he gazed to Ludwig, the blond smiling back to his brunet lover with that very decision.

“Analiese it is.”

They sealed it with a last kiss for the night.

Analiese was born a February 15…just after valentine’s day, in fact, Feliciano had broken water just when they were heading out of Vash and Lili’s place for the night after they enjoyed from a small exchange and drinks between friends they knew. The boys had just turned three, that night remaining with Vash and Lili as Ludwig and Feliciano hurried to the hospital for another birthing process. Like for Heinrich and Alessandro, Ludwig had been there, holding his hands, assuring him with countless words and kisses until finally they could hold their newest addition, a gorgeous little girl that had a great similarity to Feliciano. When Lovino saw her the first time, he felt himself transported in time, like he was holding a little Feliciano once again. Heinrich and Alessandro had first been introduced to her four days later when they returned from the hospital, both curiously looking down to her, poking and pushing to play, but there was nothing the little newborn could do but wobble, cry and reach for her parents.

This was not the new playmate they were expecting and were rather disappointed, even more so when their parents started giving her more attention as she was a mere baby. It resulted in them forming tantrums, shouting, screaming, even banging items unto the floor until Ludwig and Feliciano could find some play time, or they were grounded, pouting and crying the rest of the day in their room. It was hurting, neither had wished it would come to this and so Feliciano, who was the one who spent the most in the house since Ludwig was off working, spent most of the time trying to find new activities where he could include now all three of his children. He guessed the best way to do this was by using the art room, a place he had made enough memories and fun with both his twins and surely this new daughter would find her own in the future.

He brought the three of them that morning with excitement for a surprise, both his twins jumping and running while his baby girl was well tucked in his arms, looking curiously about the room, occasionally letting her hands flap in intrigue as she saw a painting she particularly liked.

“We want to see the surprise!” Alessandro already shouted not being able to take the waiting any longer.

“Of course, my dears, come with me.” And so he brought them all to an area which he completely covered in white paper, from floor to ceiling, all kinds of paints already presented to them in the center. The boys were still rather confused, wondering why their father created a squared space of only paper, but one idea made them imagine, made them hope to climb every corner and paint it in purples, blues and yellows.

“I want the three of you-” and Feliciano placed Analiese on the ground, who by this time was already five months old and was still a learning crawler- “to paint all of this, completely!” He presented, extending his arms to mean all the complete available space covered in white. He was asking something so rare that the twins still looked on confused around them, perhaps thinking still if indeed it was possible, that they could really do it, that there wouldn’t be shouts or angry glares, that they could actually paint all of this.

“Everything?” Heinrich questioned, as Alessandro neared to get a red jar, while Analiese was taking a purple one to test her holding and then shake.

“Yes, everything you want, as long as it’s this space here,” he pointed to where the paper ended to make it clear. “But you have to let me join, as well as your little sister. Can you let us?” He kneeled towards them with a playful smile and the twins laughed, jumping and nodding.

“Can we help her?” Alessandro wondered, already coming down to help Analiese open that purple jar, dipping a finger to create his first stroke.

“Of course, and teach her as many things as you want, but be careful with her, after all, she’s just a baby," he said it as Analiese just decided to dip her whole hand in the jar, ecstatic at the colors, waving around and already letting drops fall on the paper.

After this activity, no part of themselves was left free from the spray of color. All kinds were splashed throughout themselves or either the papers, with countless of free designs that depicted all around different things. Analiese’s was just a mess of trails as she crawled around, of testing handprints that she moved across to create her own waves, the ones she did on the wall done with the help of Heinrich carrying her how he best could. The twins’ took a better formation of houses, cars, trees, the sun, moon, stars, rivers and even flowers, or sometimes just a random mixing as they simply enjoyed from the coolness of the paint and trying out new colors. Feliciano was the only one that held a paintbrush, filling in some beautiful more intricate details into already present things. Sometimes he would throw it all away and just jump and dance along his children, creating equal messes and soaking himself in all different kinds of colors.

They found themselves in this world for the majority of the day, only to break when the twins heard a very familiar car approach.

“Vatti! Vatti! Vatti!” They shouted, not caring at all, drenched in fresh color as they ran away from the line of the paper, into the wood of the floors of not just the room, but also of the halls and stairs.

“Heinrich! Alessandro! No!” He shouted, but it was already too late.

He heard the creek of the door opening, of the boys’ laughter and Ludwig’s German “What in the world?”

Feliciano groaned, knowing surely the scold he was going to get. He gazed down to Analiese, who was beginning to crawl away from the space of the paper wanting to follow her older brother’s, but Feliciano wasn’t going to worsen the mess they already created.

“No, not you, come on, we have to say hi to vatti,” he prepared as he picked her up, a tight hold as he walked and saw the colored footsteps printed across the floors, the walls, the stairs, and as he came down, Ludwig.

The boys didn’t care about the paint they wore, they only cared about receiving proper attention from their alpha father, and so they hugged and kissed him, drenching his suit in colors. The look on his face was strained as it tried to hide a shout, his ultimate fury, but at the same time a smile and a chuckle to the loving welcome of his sons.

When he looked up, he had to hold himself from doubling over as he saw his own mate and baby daughter stained just the same way as his twins.

“I…thought it was a good idea,” Feliciano excused, and surprisingly it earned a laugh from Ludwig, ending it with a deep sigh, swallowing all anger to instead focus on the sweetness and endearments.

This was the family life he now had.

“Clearly only you could come up with something like this,” Ludwig rolled his eyes, but offered his arm, wanting his greeting from his daughter now.

Feliciano was slightly hesitant as Analiese was still drenched in her own paint, but Ludwig’s suit was ruined enough, any add from his little girl couldn’t do anymore damage. So Feliciano offered her, much to the excitement of the baby, who began fluttering and even laughing, quickly accepted into her alpha parent’s embrace, and the first thing she decided was to wrap herself around…his face. She laughed and cuddled away, staining Ludwig’s expression in all the colors of her own, of course not minding, in fact, she even began to spread her hand around his cheeks and jaws, his face her canvas now. Feliciano and the twins joined in the laughter this time, and Ludwig could do nothing but remain with his eyes and mouth shut so Analiese wouldn’t paint those too.

In one of the walls leading to the terrace, Feliciano hanged pictures of that day they were all colored to completion. There was one they had Lili take of all of them together at their living room, one of Alessandro and Heinrich holding a baby Analiese, the three timed perfectly to smile at the picture, and then one of a younger Feliciano staining Ludwig’s cheek the more with his kiss.

“-and look what we have here!” Analiese shouted, Isabella moving the camera in her direction as she proudly presented the mantle of the table they had prepared outside for the night.

The very mantle was that drawing the four had made long ago, now covered in plastic to hold and use as a decoration but also as a token of remembrance.

“Okay, that, but now…look at this!” And she presented the decorations and plates that were presented.

Flowers and tea sets galore in pinks, whites and browns that spoke of fairy elegance. The dimming of the lights were just enough, organized to eloquence, the free night behind them giving a freshness that somehow made everything more cozy and magical.

As Isabella taped, she already wanted to take her seating, to join from the food and sweets they had prepared.

“Wow, this is actually amazing,” Isabella complimented, honest wonder in her voice.

“I know, I did it, so it should be obvious,” Analiese smirked with a proud gleam.

How haughty was her sister. If only Isabella could show to the camera the roll of her eyes.

She showed the rest, helping in preparations, bringing in plates, settling bouquets around, all with their flower crowns still proudly on their heads.

“He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” Giovanna shouted, running back to the terrace.

“All right! Come on guys, come on!” Analiese fretted as she brought everyone to organize themselves, making sure everyone’s flower crown was perfectly balanced, especially Friedrich’s, laying one last kiss of completion to his little head.

They all silenced as they focused instead to the sounds of their omega father entering, dropping the keys in a near counter, hesitant steps as he surely wondered where the rest of his family was in. He found himself following a beautiful glow, and indeed what a beauty he had met.

“Ta-da!” They all shouted together, even Ludwig joined in, with a smile to match the rest.

Feliciano laughed and ogled so hard that he was almost left breathless. “Ooohhh, you all look so gorgeous!” He complimented, nearing Aldrich and letting his hand trace one of the petals of his crown as he smiled in greeting to him before placing a kiss on his head. “Like-like…fairies!” He even flapped his hands like one and earned a chuckle around them all.

“And papa! Look at Friedrich!” Giovanna wanted to point out.

That’s when Ludwig presented him forward, the youngest child with his own flower crown and dressed in a light pink footsie. Feliciano almost cried from how adorable he looked, cooing so harshly it was barely understandable as he held him, bringing him close to gaze on at how enchanted he looked.

“Oooohhh, Il bambino più adorabile di questo mondo!” He brought him close to rub their noses together, then taking him into a tight embrace, letting him feel all his warmth and welcome. “But wait? Is there something special today? Don’t tell me it was one of your birthdays?” He showed worry.

“Na’, we just felt like it,” Alessandro assured.

“I found my old flowers crowns and I thought it be nice to do something different,” Analiese said.

“It’s very nice, I really like it. We should do something like this more often,” Feliciano smiled as he rocked Friedrich on his chest, letting his eyes wander around every detail they gave, the flowers, the crystals, plates, cups, utensils, and of course the mantel of such special meaning.

“But, we cannot let you pass until we add one more detail,” Analiese reminded, just as Heinrich gave her the golden flower crown, which she presented with an epitome of grace to Feliciano, bowing even like she was showcasing to an array of distinguished guests.

“Sir Feliciano of the Larath, a most important guest I would want in my party, bow to receive your crown, a well deserve gift of my loyalty,” Analiese proclaimed.

Feliciano chuckled, but very dutifully did he bow in the preparations he used to make back when Analiese was a child.

“This is a crown of peace, for your feats in stopping the war of Karsa, with nothing but kindness, understanding and even bravery.”

Feliciano smiled in proud earnest, just as Analiese placed it on his hair in perfect match, admitting that it went really well with her omega father.

“A splendorous party you have prepared, your highness, indeed what an honor it is to be here. You have my loyalty and command,” Feliciano smiled, still kneeling in his position.

“Arise powerful prince, arise and show yourself proudly!” Feliciano did so, with movements of elegance, yet such a vivid expression that betrayed the orderly way he raised.

"What a chance! What a wish! This crown shall show how indebted I am to you princess Analiese. Long live the princess! Long may she reign on the beautiful fairy kingdom!” And they all burst out laughing, but not without joining in applauds as Feliciano bowed like he had just performed before an adoring crowd.

“Come on, I’m hungry and I want to eat!” Aldrich announced, all agreeing and finally taking their chairs.

They passed around plates and bowls of salmon, steak, lentil salad, pastitsio, cookies, trifle, pudding and meringue roulades. No such thing as silence was given to them in the table, all kinds of conversations were instantly shared around them, a small little feast of laughter, talks and union, just the right thing for Isabella to tape lastly.

“Hey, we didn’t talk about how you came,” Analiese suddenly reminded.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it the next one, right now I just want to eat and focus on talking to you guys,” she smiled before she shut the camera to instead enjoy from the moment.

< Video 3.1 Video 4 >

#Good Luck Friedrich #GLF #gerita #gerita fanfiction #gerita fic #gerita fanfic #gerita omegaverse

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gymblogs · 4 years ago

Text

“SatNav” - A Covid-19 story

“SatNav”

“Proceed on the current road”.

The satnav voice was getting to be very repetitive.

The windscreen wipers slapped determinedly back and forth, fighting the driving snowfall to provide even the briefest of glimpses of the narrow road ahead.

“I can barely see the road”, said Grace, peering through the white haze.

“Road! I’d like it to be a road. More like a bloody farm track. I never should have tried to avoid that traffic on the main route”, said Roy in mounting, worried frustration.

“I did tell you. If you had a bit of patience, we could have waited it out in the queues.” Grace was getting deeply concerned as well. The arrow on the satnav screen was travelling along a white line on an otherwise featureless grey screen, as it had been for some time. “We were about an hour from the cottage, but now we’ve been going nowhere for nearly twice that and we have no idea where we are.”

“Hang on a second; that damn thing (he briefly waved a hand at the satnav screen, returning it quickly to control the squirming car) showed a cross-country route that was supposed to add thirty minutes to our journey at the most. I didn’t make it up!”

Roy and Grace, like millions of others – hence the horrendous traffic jams – had been taking advantage of the slight second easing of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions to travel to their small country cottage. Roy shared it with his small coterie of staff as a company benefit, but this was their own turn. They had stopped at a superstore on the way, queuing patiently in compliance with the ever-more annoying social-distancing to stock up on supplies for their long weekend. That in itself was luxury, there only really having been the option of their small local shop, which had been bravely and gamely serving their village.

It was January 2021, the initial outbreak of the Corona Virus in the early part of 2020 seemed a lifetime ago. Yet again, Covid-19 Britain was not a great place to be, but there were signs of relief. There had been a period of easing of the restrictions on people and businesses heading into the summer; that had been an unmitigated disaster. Mixed messages from an internally-riven government had combined with sheer incompetence to let the virus run out of control again. The much-feared “second spike” of the virus had become the reality, even sooner than feared, in August. After catastrophic misjudgement of the nation’s mood and its tolerance for what had been blatantly revealed as the “Do as I say; not as I do” attitude from the ruling elite, the public’s outrage had made the situation worse. Even the most compliant and sensible had released themselves from months of enforced house-arrest in a fit of pique. The government’s much-touted appreciation of their personal sacrifices had been revealed as a hollow sham. There was hardly a household that did not react with disgust and by doing so, throw just a little too much caution to the wind.

Thousands more had died; the Nightingale pop-up hospitals had to be reopened to cope with the new wave of infection; thousands more businesses – large and small – collapsed as the severest restrictions were re-imposed and the multi-billion-pound support packages had to be redrawn and then withdrawn. “Furloughed” staff were made summarily redundant as reality bit deep both in businesses that had thought they could survive and in those zombie companies who had staggered on only because they had secured their share of the mountains of public money. Whole industries – entertainment and leisure; airlines and holiday companies; car manufacturing; the financial services sector and more teetered on the edge of oblivion or were in their death throes. Rebellious and politically-motivated unions had prevented some willing workers, like many teachers, from returning to their vital work. The government had completely lost control of the actions of the three smaller nations, each of which blundered through their own reactions to the crisis. The discredited “Prime Minister of England” (as he was being called by the press), his arrogant, Svengali-like chief adviser and the blundering Health Minister had all been forced to resign. “Being led by the science” had lost all credibility as the scientific community began to turn in on itself, arguing over every aspect of the pandemic. The failed “Track and Trace” initiative was the final straw. It had called upon “civic duty” from a population that had stoically shown just that and been betrayed for it. One of the Chief Scientific Advisers was appointed to lead the health brief, despite not being a member of either House of Parliament. The bland, clever but charisma-free Deputy PM had been handed the poisoned chalice of the leadership role as a matter of urgency, slotted into it without any semblance of party democracy. An angry, impatient but chastened citizenry had been battered into “Lockdown Two”.

After months of further life-restricting agonies, along with increasingly prevalent personal and family tragedies, there was some second sign of hope. By the end of the year all of the numbers relentlessly paraded in government broadcasts had slowly gone in the right direction again. The late but – finally - effective implementation of mass testing had happened. Added to this, the revelatory discovery and incredibly fast distribution of treatment for the disease had combined to bring the country to another point of “release” from the ever-more stringent laws on “staying at home”. A vaccine was once more promised within weeks. “Easing Two” was being gingerly but eagerly seized upon by almost everyone in the country, all of whom had endured a miserable, “socially-distanced” Christmas period. The new Health Secretary was now facing another, more muted wave of “It’s too early” calls on the second easing of lockdown, as hundreds of new cases persisted in appearing each day. “Being led by the science” was already a discredited mantra. What was “safe” and what was not? Again, scientists disagreed. Confusion reigned.

It still was going ahead. As fate would have it, the release of “The Great British Public” from further house-arrest coincided with the worst January weather for decades. Blasting winds, freezing temperatures, and latterly, extremely heavy snowfall had begun on the very day of the announcement. Still, intrepid escapees were on the roads and rails and trying to pull their lives back to some sort of acceptable compromise between what was and what now had to be. Altruism, selflessness and neighbourly generosity had eroded as a more desperate “everyone for themselves” ethos began to take over.

Grace and Roy had, like so many, begun to envisage a world where much was permanently changed: a cold and cheerless, anti-social world, where no one ever shook hands again; where grandparents saw their grandchildren only on screens; where masked people scurrying or queueing in the streets had given up any hope of that atmospheric meal out or that thrill of being part of the huge, roaring, cheering crowd of sports fans.

The “Easing Two” announcement had raised spirits. The couple had overspent massively on not so much the quantity as the quality of the food and clothes, some household goods, DIY gear, assorted non-essentials. It felt like a justifiable splurge, after months of restraint and confinement, despite their worries over their reducing income and dwindling savings. They were the lucky ones. They had each suffered a few days of Covid-19, but their symptoms had been mild. Grace had been treated callously by her airline employer of twenty years, and like so many other cabin crew, was now laid off permanently. Roy had struggled to keep himself and his small team working on their building projects, losing a number of the most lucrative ones. He had become a victim of the small business Catch-22 effect. His customers were worried that his business could not stay afloat long enough to finish the job, so cancelled his contracts, hastening that very result. With strenuous efforts, he had gained a number of small jobs and projects to keep his men and himself in funds, though much reduced. He had become a newly-expert marketer of his own skills and services, using digital marketing techniques for the first time, helped by the youngest in his team. Like everyone else, their family and social lives had been reduced to sterile and unsatisfying videoconferencing, telephone calls and online communication.

“Look out!”, screamed Grace, pointing ahead.

The BMW slithered sideways – the ABS stuttering the brakes as Roy slammed his foot down. The impact was loud and hard enough to jolt them both violently into their seat belts; the airbags did not deploy as the crunching of metal and the shattering of glass subsided. Roy stopped the engine running, looked to his left at Grace and put the arm that he had automatically put across her front, around her shoulders.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes. No damage, Pet.”

“Well not to us, but I don’t think we can say the same about the car. Thank God you saw ahead and shouted. I didn’t see that coming” He unclipped his seat belt, opened the door and stepped out into the fallen and falling snow.

“You can’t get out in the middle of the road!”

“There is only the middle. This track is not much wider than the car!”, he shouted back through the door. He trudged the few feet to the front of the car. An enormous pile of felled trees had been dislodged from the side of the road and rolled across it, from the weight of the snow, he assumed. “Bloody marvellous. Bloody, sodding marvellous!”, he hissed through clenched teeth. The car – luckily not travelling very fast – had hit the pile of trees at an angle of around thirty degrees as it skidded on the snowy road. The off-side lights were smashed and the front wing had been crushed back onto the wheel. Roy assumed that the angle of the impact had prevented the airbags from being activated. He struggled back into the car.

“Well, that’s the end of this wondrous joyride”, he announced sarcastically. “Even if I could wrench the wing back, clear of the wheel, those trees are far too big and too many for us to move out of our way and there’s no turning room for us here. Can I take a hammer to that damn satnav now?” There was an enormous gust of wind that splattered a heavy flurry of snow across one side of the car. “Still no phone signal. This is not looking good.” Roy grabbed his coat from the rear seat and wrestled it on. “I’m going to scramble up the side of the road, here, so that I can see past the trees. If I can see the lights on the main road, we may be able to get to it on foot.”

“We certainly can’t just sit here, that’s for certain”, said Grace, beginning to worry. “Take the big torch and for goodness’ sake be careful”. Roy flipped the boot catch, trudged to the rear of the car and picked up the big torch. He grabbed the blanket from on top of the large pile of food shopping slammed the boot lid and threw it inside to Grace as he passed back along the side of the car. He saw a gap in the trees up the steeply banked side of the road and headed for that. After a struggle and two face-first, swearing plunges into the snow, he reached the ridge and looked out across the white expanse that confronted him. He could see no stream of car lights, but there was what looked like a single, large bright light and what he thought were the roofs of buildings, about half a mile away, though the distance was difficult to judge in the dark and the swirling snowfall. He made his way back to the car.

“Are you OK?” Grace nodded; the blanket pulled tight around her. “I can see a place across what I assume is a field. No idea what it is, but it’s lit up and there are definitely some buildings there. Anything is better than sitting here and freezing to death, right?”

“Right. Let’s go.” The snow was so deep now that Grace could not open her door so she clambered across to the other side and out of the driver’s door. The wind slammed snow immediately into her face. “Christ” We need to get to that place, fast!”, she spluttered. They put some food and snacks into her rucksack and set off.

It took them about twenty minutes to get across what was a mercifully flat field, high-stepping through three feet of snow, sometimes laughing near-hysterically. They reached the light that had guided them. It illuminated a narrow road through a high metal fence that they could see ran off into the distance in both directions. There was a sign on the open gate: “Welcome Holiday Camp”. They tramped on through the gate and up to the large double doors of a sizeable, log-cabin-style building. It was unlit inside. A security light came on above the door.

“I know this isn’t very friendly of me, but needs must”, said Roy. He used the solid battery-pack end of the heavy torch to break the window in the half-glazed door. Knocking out the jagged glass, he reached inside and flicked the snib of the lock. He pushed down on the handle and the door opened. They both tumbled in; Roy shut the door. The relief from the driving, stinging, freezing snow and the howl of the wind was immediate and welcome. They leaned jointly back against the door and caught their breath. Roy flicked the light switch. Nothing. “There’s obviously no one here, so I expect the power’s off”, he said, pulling down his snow-soaked hood. “Stay here a sec, Grace”. He shone the torch ahead and walked into the half-light. Grace dropped her hood and took off the rucksack, dropping it to the floor. The lights came on. “That’s better”, said Roy, emerging from behind what Grace could now see was a plush timber reception desk. “Bloody Hell! Still no mobile signal”, he cursed. They began to look around what was a large, spacious reception area and welcoming lounge full of plush grey leather sofas.

The Maserati Levante was making a good effort. It was riding high and quite fast over and through the snow. Silvio had fallen for its sleek, shiny black exterior and soft, sumptuous, charcoal-coloured leather seats in an instant. A year on Premier League wages had encouraged him to over-indulge. He loved it; he and his three fellow footballers used it a lot when it was new; less so, of course, since the lockdown came into place in March. They were en-route to an indoor training facility that they had never used before. They had kept their own regular evening training sessions going as well as the sporadic and annoying social-distanced ones run by the club. They had each had Covid-19 and recovered from it quickly, so trained normally together when it was just the four of them in their own rented place. It was a fun semblance of their previous lives.

Robbo was being driven mad by the lack of phone signal. N’Golo was lost in the stored music from his phone, through his headphones. He loved his R’n’B. Patricio was just bored, trying to peer out of the window through the snow.

“Where is this place, Silvio, man? You said we were nearly there twenty minutes ago.”

“The satnav is acting up a bit, but don’t worry, Patricio, mate, I’ll soon be taking the ball and running rings around you”. Robbo laughed loudly.

“Funny guy; funny guy”, said Patricio, laughing at his own expense.

From the passenger seat, Robbo, pointing at the large satnav screen, said:

“I know this is supposed to be taking us there, Silvio, but this seems to be saying it’s on the left, where I see nothing at all, but on the right, I see a light and some buildings. What d’you all say we head for that?” he addressed the rear seats.

“Phew, yeah, man, I’m game. I can hardly see a thing, here. I’ll take the next right towards that light.” In two minutes, he took the right. The Maserati ploughed its way along the approach road to the same holiday camp where – unbeknown to the footballers - Roy and Grace had just broken in. Taking off his headphones, N’Golo said he had the feeling they weren’t in Kansas anymore. One blank stare; two laughs. He thought they might be getting in, but not getting out again, as they entered through the gate. “It’s an all-nighter for us, then!”, said Silvio, trying to cover his frustration with an upbeat tone. “There’s no one there – I’ve got the keycode – but I’m hoping for a drinks machine, at least”. He turned the increasingly struggling SUV sharp left into “Car park 1”, as the sign told them. They struggled into their coats and out of the vehicle.

“This does not look like a sports centre”, spluttered Robbo through the snow. They all took their bags with them. They noticed two trails through the snow, looking at one another warily. Reaching the door – the “Reception” sign was lit above it and all the inside lights were on – they saw the broken window. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this”, said Robbo. “Shall I?”. He put his hand on the handle.

“Go for it; I’m dying of the cold out here”, shivered N’Golo. They walked in and were greeted – after a few seconds’ hesitation – by a soaked and shivering couple. Robbo was right: this was not the sports centre. Half an hour later, two of the footballers were on their way back across the field on a mission to find the immobilised BMW and to gather its supplies. They had insisted that the bedraggled Roy and Grace stay inside to get warm and dry.

Yvette had managed to slither the red Tesla model X silently into the camp car park. Its all-wheel-drive had done its job in getting them there, just. They, too had decided that any port in this storm would be a welcome one. The kids had certainly had enough of the journey, especially since their precious phone signals had cut out, miles earlier.

“Thank Christ for the four-wheel-drive”, she said “Though God knows where we really are. That satnav is not my favourite, right now. Whatever is the problem with it, Den?”

Your car, darling; I have no idea.”

“Mmmh; mine when it goes wrong, but ours when its being electric is saving us a fortune in fuel, right?” Tempers were generally fraying in the car.

The kids – Brigitte and Donald – were putting on their coats and pulling unsuccessfully at the locked door handles.

“Oh, come on, Mum and Dad. Let’s get out. Please.” Brie (16) and her brother (14) would rather have been in the snow than the car. I need the loo (“Me, too”, added Donnie) and I’m fed up of being in the car.”

“Well, I’d rather be in the middle of nowhere than not get out of the damn house for a while, wouldn’t you?” Dennis thought he had started to go stir-crazy during the second lockdown.

“I suppose so, but what a day we chose. I’ve never seen so much snow fall and stick around in a single day. Crazy!”

“Mum, please open the doors!” chorused the teenagers. The massive cantilevered “falcon-wing” rear doors swung upward, the car immediately starting to fill with snow.

They all got out of the car into the teeth of the snowy wind. The doors seemed to close agonisingly slowly to shut out the snow. The kids were already on their way, pushing on through the deepening snow to the main building.

“Thank goodness someone’s in”, said Donni. “I thought there might be, with those other cars in the car park. They’re buried in snow, so they’ve been here a while”. They shuffled their way across the threshold, to be greeted by a group of surprised faces. “Hi! We’re the Grissoms” announced Donni.

They were greeted warmly – at a distance - but after sharing their post-Covid-19 infection status and learning that everyone else in the big, bright, open room was the same, they relaxed into the group. There was an agreement that social distancing was suspended for what Roy immediately had dubbed “the snowbounders”. That was a relief all round, followed by a flurry of much-missed handshakes. The two footballers – N’Golo and Silvio, and a warmed and dried-out Roy and Grace had been joined by Tony and Cherie, with their son Gavin. Yet another satnav-misdirected carload, drawn by the Welcome Camp light. Again, an all-wheel-drive Jaguar F-Pace SUV had got them this far, but they felt they could go no further.

They all settled into the plush grey leather sofas with a variety of hot and cold drinks, “liberated” from the reception bar, though studiously accounted for. Everyone was particularly grateful for Roy’s firing up and fuelling of the large wood-burner in the end wall. The big door slammed open yet again, the storm still keen to join them in the building. It was the returning Robbo and Patricio, soaked and bedraggled, laughing crazily, with bagsful of supplies from Roy’s crashed and abandoned car on the other side of the field. The “snowbounders” group of thirteen souls who were to spend two nights together was now complete.

The group collectively agreed that they would make the best of the single location, leaving any exploration of the rest of the place until the morning. The picture map on the wall, showing the layout of the camp, intrigued everyone. There was no ‘phone signal on anyone’s mobile, but Roy was convinced that there would be some wi-fi that everyone could use when he’d found where to switch it on. The same with the large TV on the wall. There was some tetchy attitude around and a few harsh words were exchanged and then apologised for, as they manipulated the furniture to give everyone room to bed down. There was a small bedroom suite at one end of the big cabin building and some spare linen and blankets to share around. They managed. The reception building was soon dark and quiet, just as it had previously been for months, but with the addition of thirteen sleeping figures.

There was a lull in the snowstorm the next morning. Dennis, Roy and Tony were quick to volunteer to be the investigative team and were out in the deep snow by 8.30am, beginning to look around the site. In truth, they were relieved to be away from the awkwardness of waking up in close forced proximity to a small crowd of complete strangers, no matter how good the level of bonhomie. Everyone there knew how fortunate they had been to be there on that dreadful, storm-lashed night. Coffee, tea and improvised breakfasts flowed, generously provided by Roy and Grace’s shopping. Roy had found the central network router and (to applause from the others!) switched on the broadband connection and wi-fi. They had left a feverishly screen-tapping crowd. Each of the men was reasonably well-equipped for the conditions, with a warm coat, boots and gloves. It was bitterly cold, still with a biting wind, but it was not snowing, with a fairly clear and bright sky, save for some ominous-looking dark clouds on the horizon to the north. More snow looked inevitable.

Having studied the picture map in the reception, the intrepid trio knew what was there, under the deep snow. It was a nearly circular layout of twenty-five large, sturdy log cabins, arranged either side of an access road. A broad path dissecting the circle horizontally had four shops on one side and three other large buildings on the other. It looked – as far as they could tell in the snow – well-maintained. Tony carried with him what appeared to be the complete set of keys for the camp buildings. They high-stepped their way to the nearest cabin, number 25. Tony found the keylock card with all of the codes on it and punched it into the security door lock. The door opened – thankfully, inwardly, not having to be opened against the snow, two feet of which tumbled inward ahead of him. They all went in and closed the door. The cabin had a large central lounge space, a small open kitchen / dining area and three double bedrooms, two with twin beds. Sealed bags of bed linen were on each one. It smelt of new wood; everything was antique pine, including the floor. Tony noticed large rugs rolled up and standing against the wall in each room. They were unsealed; obviously unused.

“Wow! This is very upmarket, isn’t it?” Dennis was impressed. He opened cupboards. “Well-equipped kitchen, too. My guess is that this would cost a fair amount of money to stay in, though it looks like no one ever has. Tragic, really. There must be a story behind this.”

They left the cabin and moved on to one of the larger buildings on the central path. The sign above its front door read “Everyone Theatre”. Tony sorted through the keys and found the right one. He opened the door and they all went in, rubbing their hands against the cold. It was dark inside and the light switch made nothing happen. Roy put on his torch and moved off to the left and through another door. The others groped slowly forward to what was the rear row of seats. The lights flickered on.

“Separate mains power on each building”, said Roy.

“Wow!”. Dennis was immediately impressed. “This place is definitely punching above its weight for a shed in the middle of nowhere!”

“Harsh!”, said Tony. “But yes, wow! I really like it. It’s like a miniature version of the Pantages art deco theatre in L.A.”

“Ooh, travel-name-dropping”, laughed Roy. There had been a brief “who’s-been-where” session over the group breakfast that morning. “But yes, I agree; impressive work. I couldn’t have done better myself”, he laughed”, stroking the gilded, fluted wooden pillars. “This was obviously a labour-of-love by a classic film fan. It has a decent-sized orchestra pit and stage, as well, though, look; it’s certainly a live performance venue as well as a cinema” The theatre was an art deco extravaganza of red velvet, gold paint and brocade, with around a hundred matching, comfortable-looking seats. The rear end had what was obviously a projection and control room and the lighting rig above the stage looked high-tech and comprehensively-equipped.

“I love it. Cherie would certainly spend every night in here watching something in black and white that would bore me to tears”. Roy and Dennis joined Tony’s laughter and nodded their understanding of the comment. “Come on guys, let’s get to the other buildings before that storm gets started again.” Tony led them back outside into the ominously increasing wind and locked the door behind them. “We’ll leave the mains switched on so that the others can easily take a look if they want to”.

They pushed through the deep snowfall along the central path to the next large building. Dennis – the shorter of the three – mumbled that he was feeling cold, wet and in need of some caffeine. Two heads nodded in agreement. This time they entered the building labelled “The Club”. The door on this one opened outward, so they had to struggle to clear snow with their hands to open it enough to sidle in. A dead light switch again.

“This kind of place has to have its own isolators for each main building unit, to meet the regulations”, said Roy, after he had done his power-finding routine again and got the lights on.

“I knew a builder would have his uses, that’s why I invited you to join us on this holiday camp break”, intoned Dennis with fake pomposity, laughing. He got a jokey flash of two fingers from Roy in response. It was another large building. It smelled a lot of leather. There were groups of plush black semi-circular chairs around low, glass and chrome tables, running all the way the length of the room. Against the far wall was an elaborately mirrored and apparently well-stocked bar.

“This really a bit spooky, now. It’s as if the clientele vanished instantly as the place opened. And we’re making a mess of a very plush carpet”, said Dennis, realising that he had shaken the slushy snow off his boots as a reflex action when he’d come in.

“Well, unless we’ve found ourselves in a Twilight Zone episode, I reckon that’s almost what did happen, but it happened before any visitors had a chance to check in”, Roy responded. “I’m beginning to see that this place was all set up to be opened to the public when the bloody plague hit. All the lockdown rules scuppered that plan altogether. Such a shame. This, again, is quite a set-up. I could certainly spend time in here, with a bit of cool jazz coming across the room.” He pointed towards the small central stage and the small, circular, immaculately-polished wooden dance floor. “I might even be tempted!”. There was understanding laughter from his two companions.

“The Club” had been furnished to a very upmarket, Las-Vegas-style, blingy cocktail-lounge standard. Tony had that comparison on the tip of his tongue, but suppressed it, so as not to invite the same name-dropping jibe as before from his new acquaintances. He and Cherie had visited Vegas many times. Like the “Everyone Theatre”, this was plainly aimed at an expectedly affluent and demanding audience, but this time with a sleek, modern look and feel, rather than a retro one. It was sumptuous but simple; expensive but tasteful. It looked as if it would be exciting and entertaining without being intimidating, for around a hundred people.

Roy switched off the lights. “Let’s move on”. He led the others in squeezing out of the half-snow-blocked door. “Let’s have a look at one of these”, he said, beginning to forge a way through the snow, across what they knew was the central path, towards one of the shops. They were all shuttered and locked. The one they opened and looked into was fitted out as a clothing shop. The hanging rails and shelves were empty.

“The picture-map on the reception wall showed the other three as being a sporting goods shop, a food and general supplies shop with a pharmacy and a gift shop”, observed Tony. The wind swirled around them and the sky began to darken from the north. “I’m inclined to get some warmth and caffeine, guys, what about you? We’re hardly going to be going anywhere, so we can look at the other big place later”. The others agreed; they started back towards the reception building.

The three men had not seen Donnie and Brie Beck make their way from the reception building, around the road from the other direction and onto the central path to the third large wooden structure, labelled “Fun and Games” on the picture-map. They had persuaded their mother to let them explore it and had found a second set of keys. The door opened inward, allowing a pile of snow to cascade through and onto the tiled floor. It was pitch black inside; the windows were covered by heavy blinds. Brie felt along the wall, found the light switch and flicked it repeatedly, to no effect.

“Let’s try this”, Donnie suggested, pulling on the cords for the first blind. It went up smoothly and allowed in the dwindling sunlight. “Hooray!” he moved along the wall and did the same to two more window blinds. “Oh, yeah. Neat!”. He was pleased with what he saw. At the far end of the room was a transparent wall with “KidZone” signwritten on it in three-feet-high yellow lettering. They could see an assortment of climbing frames and soft play gear in there. All along one wall was a succession of electronic games and arcade-type machines. “Wow! These really are the latest!”, he shouted over his shoulder to Brie, who was walking to the other end of the building. He continued his inspection, calling out the titles of the games. “Yum!” was his next delighted comment, as the line of electronics was interrupted by an elaborately-equipped coffee and juice bar. “I am definitely liking this place”, he said. Brie was parading the other side of the room, naming snooker, air hockey, table football, and more, as she discovered them.

She reached the KidZone wall and noticed a door next to it. It was darker at this end, but she could see a sign above the door that read “Bowls and Bowling”. She went through it. Separated by a dividing wall, another large area contained a three-lane bowling alley and a carpet bowls pitch. Everything was pristine; obviously unused.

“Wow! Mum and Dad would love this bit”, said Donnie, hurrying in to the room.

“Are the games good, then?”

“Brilliant! The very latest and with VR headsets and everything!”. A violent gust of wind made the big wooden building creak. “Ooh. Feels like maybe we should be getting back”. Brie agreed. It took them twenty minutes – the snow now falling again – to return to the reception building. They stumbled, laughing and soaking, through the door.

It was their second night at the camp. The overhead heaters were glowing; the wine flowing; the conversation growing in variety and volume. The disparate group was coming together in their enforced proximity. Nine months of pandemic lockdown provided them all with a wealth of mostly unwanted anecdotes and a wide-ranging spread of opinions, all cascading out in a welcome torrent of long-denied face-to-face conversation. Each member was acutely aware of the facial and other mannerisms of their fellows, each relearning the art of human interaction, so much missed. This distinctly middle-class crowd knew that they were not – by far – the most badly affected of the UK’s or the world’s populations; so many more had been left literally destitute. On this second evening, they had gathered in the comfortable “Club Lounge”.

The first night had been a somewhat fraught and tetchy affair – an occasionally ill-tempered sharing of a haven from the storm. This was more like a social evening that they had chosen to participate in. That was illusory; there was no choice about their remaining there as the storm continued to rage. After a brief respite that morning, the heavy snowfall had returned, continuing to keep the “snowbounders” trapped in the camp. The forecast was that the storm would subside the next day and that an unseasonably warm weather front would hasten the disappearance of the ice and snow.

Their collective relief that they had all suffered and recovered from theCovid-19 virus led them to relax in one another’s company; their “social distancing” was forgotten. Personal experiences of the pandemic and its effects on business and personal lives were being shared expansively and candidly.

Yvette and Grace were getting on well. “I used to really enjoy my tennis. I told myself that I was at the club regularly to keep myself fit and to improve my game, but I realised after being restricted to non-socialising singles games that it was the social side that was most important to me”, said Yvette.

“I’ve really missed going to the gym for the same reason, Yvette. I know exactly what you mean. The whole crew used to use the same gym at the airport”. Grace had been cabin crew for an airline.

“I read that after meeting family and friends properly again, people’s priorities were playing sport and having a haircut”, said Donni, joining his mum’s conversation. Everyone in the room who heard his comment self-consciously ran a hand through their generally over-long hair.

Gavin and Dennis were discussing wine, gin and general drinking habits. N’Golo joked that he’d read that it would be wise to limit locked down drinking to one drink per day, “And I’ve been doing that: I’m up to January 10th 2022!” There was a ripple of laughter, but an exchange of uncomfortable looks between his fellow footballers, who knew there was a problem there, behind the joke. They were bemoaning their situation.

“In truth, none of us was having a great last season, anyway”, said Robbo, “but the complete cancellation of the Championship after the failed restart in the Premier League was the killer. Oops, sorry!”. He looked sheepishly around as some breath was sucked in through pursed lips, realising that his comment was inappropriate, especially since they knew that two of the families in the room had lost loved ones to the disease. The other three sportsmen sighed and nodded agreement. Returning from the bar, Silvio handed his colleagues a beer each, sitting down at their table.

“They haven’t said it yet, I know, but I reckon the club is preparing to fold altogether, guys. I just don’t see us getting back to playing and bringing in any money for the business soon enough to stop that happening, do you?”

“Oh, great. Cheer us up, why don’t you?!”, said Silvio. They all laughed, ruefully. “I know you’re right, though, mate. It’s made bloody worse by not being able to use the time off to see my family in Madrid; and that’s for nearly a year, now. Ridiculously depressing for us all, although I’m the only one who actually got the damn bug, I’m glad to say.” The on-again, off-again, totally confused travel and quarantining restrictions had left everyone increasingly bemused and frustrated. “I could fly there in my own damn ‘plane, but still can’t go”, added Silvio. “OK, flash monkey”; “Oh, here we go!”, and other derisory comments ran around the group at this reminder of the player’s other prized possession after his Maserati. His travel frustrations were shared by many. No one thought it was unjustified when the new Prime Minister had sacked the hapless Transport Minister, who had completely failed to negotiate or communicate a coherent policy amidst what was an international mess not all of his making. Every country had made a unilateral decision on what travel was allowed for its own citizens and visitors. Any semblance of international coordination on the issue had quickly evaporated, as had many airlines and travel companies, as a result.

“I’ve really missed working with the youth team. I get a lot of joy seeing those young players improving and knowing that I’ve helped them”, said N’Golo. He coached the club’s local school team, as well; it was clearly his vocation. Whenever he returned to his native Belgium, he never failed to visit his old school and play out the role of inspirational “Old Boy” sportsman. Unable to do any of this or to see his parents and extended family in even harder-virus-hit Belgium, he had begun to succumb to a bout of depression that had markedly blunted his sunny demeanour, causing him to put on weight and, his colleagues suspected, drink too much. Robbo admitted that he had become increasingly irritated and dismissive of “being guided by the science” and incompetent football officials into ruination of his career, social life, physical wellbeing and finances. He – as sometime team captain when not bench-warming through recurrent injury - had pushed hard for a return to playing last season. “Social common sense” had been his mantra until he had been forced to swallow his words as the deadly virus resurgence came about. Try as he might to keep his own and his friends’ spirits up, he knew that his future as a footballer now looked bleak.

Both Cherie and Grace had been in the front line of the Corona Virus effect. Cherie was a nursing sister in a private hospital. Grace had been briefly furloughed and then made redundant. She had caught and recovered from Covid-19 and gone back to work, only to then be rewarded with dismissal. The airline she had worked with for twenty years had pressured for and got a government bailout, but had downsized the business considerably, closing some airport operations, cutting back on routes, selling of a large proportion of its fleet and firing a third of its staff. She had been devastated, but had come to terms with it, now helping out Roy with his building firm where she could.

Cherie had been one of the first of the volunteers to staff the London Nightingale hospital. She managed the recruitment and training of other incoming staff, being very familiar with the array of technologies that was installed there. Her private hospital was very well equipped with the latest medical machinery, so she was familiar with its use. She had found the work tiring but satisfying. When the Nightingale was mothballed in May, she had returned to her regular job as a nursing sister at the private hospital, which had been specifically reorganised to exclude Covid-19 cases to concentrate on helping the catch-up of the many previously cancelled serious but routine health checks and operations.

Having settled back into that for the summer, she had then been urgently redeployed to the London Nightingale when the “second wave” of the pandemic hit and the admissions of new cases soared. Stressed and exhausted, she was taking a well-earned fortnight’s break as the “curve” of infections once again headed downwards and the pressure on the hospital eased a little.

Tony and Dennis had not been in the convivial huddle in the Club lounge. They had been going through the paperwork in the camp office behind reception. They had made a discovery and returned to the group to share it. Crashing in from the storm outside in the now-expected fashion, Tony took off his coat and boots and stood in the middle of the room.

“Well, everyone”, he began.

“Snowbounders!”, shouted Donni, who liked the gang-name.

“Well, Snowbounders”, Tony began again, attracting everyone’s attention and muting the animated conversations. “We’ve some news”. He looked across at a smiling Dennis, settling into a chair beside Yvette. Tony remained standing, a sheaf of papers and folders in his hand. “We owe our storm salvation, here, to Mr and Mrs. Rocklaz, the owners of this property. Unfortunately (he paused) they have sadly died of Corona Virus; may they rest in peace”. Mumbled commiserations went around the seated group. “This correspondence (he waved the papers) is a series of exchanges between the local Church Commissioners and their solicitor.”

“Why on earth are you going through their private papers?”, asked Yvette. “And how did you get hold of them?”

Tony continued “Strangely, they were in an unlocked filing cabinet and we wanted to find out to whom exactly we owe this hospitality, even if they don’t know about it.”

“And we were particularly curious to find out why everything is pristine and unused”, added Dennis.

Sitting down, Tony laid out the whole story to the fascinated “Snowbounders”. Through contracts, accounts, printed emails, notes, written correspondence and some local newspaper cuttings, they had pieced together the story behind the abandoned camp that had become their refuge.

An elderly Polish couple – Nina and Jakub Rocklaz – had been resident in the UK since arriving as children, fleeing the Nazi persecution in their own country at the beginning of World War Two. They had decided, after retiring from what had been a very successful garden centre business, to build a holiday camp. Not unduly wealthy but with significant assets from the sale of their business, the still-energetic couple had wanted to benefit their beloved church and the needy in the local community. The Church Commission charity arm had invested part of the capital to fund the construction, but had been allocated in the contract a full 25% of all profits, in perpetuity. To ensure the ongoing local benefit was continuous, the charity would be paid these profits on a quarterly basis, not having to wait for annual accounts. They played no part in the running of the business, the Rocklazs having full control through a Board of their choosing. They knew what they wanted and what they wanted to achieve.

The result was the upmarket and prestigiously-equipped camp that the thirteen now found themselves in. It had been constructed in record time, the elderly couple having anticipated the renewed, post-pandemic demand for UK holidays early on and negotiated hard to allow construction to go ahead within the restrictions. Certainly not primarily aimed at the impecunious locals, the couple had ambitions to attract the affluent holidaymakers who would otherwise have been flying abroad to spend their money. It had been ready to open by August 2020, one week before those ambitions were thwarted by the second peak of the virus and the subsequent second lockdown. Camp Welcome – as they had named it - had never opened its doors to the public. Tragically, ten days after the lockdown, the couple both caught the vicious virus and died from it, just days later.

“I’d like you to have a look at the contracts and the wills, Yvette. Dennis told me that you’re a solicitor with real expertise on this stuff”. He handed the papers to Yvette. “I can see that they have built in to the agreements an assurance that whatever happens, the Church Charity and the community get the benefit they intended. Whoever takes it on as a business has to abide by the original agreement. It looks like the land cannot be resold for any other development, including the piece the same size again as the whole camp – to the north – that was a provision for expansion. If it was a phenomenal success, it could be literally doubled in size.” Yvette, intrigued now, put on her glasses, moved to another table and spread out the papers to examine them in detail.

“Wow! Great story, but let’s face it, it’s far too ambitious a project for out here in the middle of nowhere”, laughed Cherie. “Who would come?”

“Everyone who would have been spending that same holiday overseas, I reckon. Now doubly so, after five more months of bloody house-arrest!”. Roy was one who had certainly had enough of that. “If it was genuinely a non-Covid bubble, we’d be there, wouldn’t we, Grace?”.

“We are there, Roy!”, she responded. Everyone laughed. “Yes, it would be a better option than the company cottage, because of the facilities. Even if we could find them open near the cottage, I’d be nervous of their safety aspect.”

“Can we buy it, then?” chorused Brie and Donni. “It would be sooo cool”. “We couldn’t actually live here, Donni”, said Brie.

“Someone has to, don’t they? In that place in the reception building.”

“I couldn’t see us moving in, kids, but it certainly would be a Hell of a project”, said their father.

The room went quiet. The members of each group looked at one another, trying to gauge one another’s reaction to what they had heard. This was a group of accomplished, clever and resourceful people, each of whom had in some way been battered by the pandemic and its effects on their world. Gradually, the hubbub of conversation returned. The precocious teenager Brie pleaded for a banned list of pandemic jargon:

She wanted “unprecedented”, “the great British Public”, “the British People”, “our marvellous NHS”, “the new normal”, “ramping up”, “at pace”, “going forward”, “at scale”, “social distancing”, “flattening the curve”, “the R-number”, “Wuhan”, “distance-learning”, WFH (Working From Home), “Zooming”, “contactless delivery” and many other newly-minted and overused jargon terms to be banned from the discussion. This produced laughter but not a lot of adherence to the request, to her dismay.

“I could write that business plan”. Gavin was the first to speak out loud. “Dad, you might even be a bit of help with it!”, he laughed towards Tony.

“Cheeky sod!” was the smiling response. A knowing look passed between them. Yes, they could write that plan. Roy and Dennis were deep in conversation; N’Golo and Robbo, too. Yvette addressed the room:

“Oooh, an interesting clause in here, everyone. There’s a commitment to keep five of the cabins primarily available for the benefit of any emergency workers resident in the local community and for the residents of the local care home, specifically. Another nod to the generosity of the couple, of course, but that does take out 20% of the saleable capacity of the camp, when it’s requested.”

“Do they get that for nothing?”, asked Dennis.

“No, it’s “at an advantageous and affordable rate”, replied Yvette.

“Great piece of brand value, there. Committed not only to safety, but to generous altruism, too”, offered Tony. “I like it” His wife shot him a scornful look. “For all the right reasons, of course”, he quickly added.

Patricio suddenly shouted:

“Hey, hold on a moment. Surely the poor couple had family to will this all to? Family must come first”.

Yvette had the answer to that. “Sadly, it looks as if they outlived their two sons, Patricio. Each of them died relatively young and neither had a family of his own. It’s all in the solicitor’s letters. He obviously had the same thought as you.” They all resumed their conversations.

N’Golo turned to Silvio:

“The plan on the reception wall shows that between the central path and the outer road there’s a five-a-side pitch, a tennis court and another big green space, none of which we can see under the snow, at the moment. I was imagining how we could run that whole section like a sports training school, Silvio. You were a schoolboy tennis champ, weren’t you, and you still play regularly, right? I heard you can play football a bit, too!” Silvio gave him a substantial thump on the arm, laughing.

“Yes, I was and, yes I can, man. And you might just remember my all-conquering five-a-side team on the club summer break the season before last”, he gloated.

“O.K., sure. I’m winding you up, of course, bruv, but I know that putting smiles on the faces of holidaymakers here – released at last from lockdown – would be a heck of a lot more satisfying for me than warming the bench during matches in an empty stadium. And that’s if there’s still a club to pay for. And a bench!”

“Be serious, guys”. Robbo chimed in. Neither of you two could cover your clothes bill, let alone live on what you’d make doing that.”

“We all appreciate you arranging these training sessions, Robbo, mate, and we’ve appreciated them, but you’re delusional if you think there’s more than half a chance that any of us has a professional career left. Guys like us have to figure out what to do with the next thirty years of our working lives. If Pat went back to Milan, me to Brussels and Silvio to Madrid, the situation there is not going to be any better. This crazy project might be worth a shot, and if it’s successful, there could be proper money involved, later”. They all got up to get another beer, still talking animatedly.

“We’ve never considered running anything like this kind of operation, or even being a part of it, Grace”, said Roy. Their minds had raced ahead on the possibilities, since the earlier announcement.

“I have been part of the holiday leisure industry for over twenty years, you know. Of course, this is different, but it’s still all about giving people a good holiday. Remember that project you quoted for in the summer, to get an equestrian centre back up and running? You built in some great anti-virus facilities to that one. You could do the same here”. Grace was feeling positive about the camp.

“Yeah. I really liked the look of that one and my guys surprised me with their inventive suggestions for it. Didn’t get the job, though, did I?”

“Exactly. The future for small building firms is going to be a struggle and my airline – as was – is talking about four more years of reduced operations, so there’s no chance of my getting reemployed, either. Why not change tack and make our expertise work for us in a different way? We’d even be doing some community good, based on what the old couple have built into the plan.”

“There’d be financial commitment, too”, Roy said with a worried frown.

“I can’t see the odds on this bet being any worse than our status quo”, said Grace. “This might just be the way to rise with the tide when it comes back in”

“Sorry, but I overheard you”, Tony and Cherie leaned in from behind them. “If it really could be made zero-risk and convincingly sold as such, it could really work. I know it’s in the middle of bloody nowhere, as all our satnavs would testify, but that would work in its favour, surely. Luxurious isolation. It could be the answer to that question people like us are asking – “Where are you going on your holidays? Answer: Nowhere!”. Actually, I could do things with that name (he turned towards the room). How about Camp Nowhere, everyone?”. He shouted. The rest of them rolled their eyes exaggeratedly, some laughing, but liking the suggestion. The conversations continued.

Dennis didn’t hold back on expressing his opinions on pandemic-riven UK.

“Just because we all had a period of happy-clappy, front-line worker hero-worship, doesn’t mean that what was a bloated, chronically-inefficient, self-rewarding behemoth will be any different after all this”, he said. “I mean the NHS, of course. Has everyone forgotten the people lying in corridors; the day-long waits in A&E; the disgraceful waiting periods for GP appointments and the cancelled operations? Nothing has changed, as far as I can see, to stop it reverting to the same. Anonymous wasters in so-called “Trusts” will still be slapping one another on the back, taking six-figure salaries and covering one another’s arses when they get found out.” Yvette nudged him heavily in the ribs. “It’s true! The same people are still in charge; the same anachronistic systems are still in place. Nothing will have changed, no matter how dedicated the doctors and nurses have been throughout the pandemic”.

“Perhaps you should go and work there and change it from the inside, then”, a tetchy Cherie said.

“You work in a private hospital, right?”, an indignant Dennis flashed back.

Tony saw a need for a little peace-making and stepped in:

“What I’d like to see is some better articulation of the need to bring society together. I know that sounds a bit wet, but really, our country’s schisms and inequalities have really been exposed, haven’t they? I get really irritated when our useless politicians and so-called commentators use what amounts to demographic astrology to look at things and assign rules, regulations and different levels of assistance to people, based simply on age, gender or race.”

“Did you hear about the statisticians who were broken down by age and sex?”, offered a smirking Dennis, to a ripple of embarrassed laughter.

Much was agreed upon, but much argued about as the evening wore on, fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol. There was general tiredness and frustration because of the disruption they had all suffered, many seeing the permanent end to their professional lives as they had been and two families present having suffered the agonies of bereavements that could not properly be grieved over. There was no doubt that a general appetite for life-changing responses in reaction to the pandemic’s effects permeated the thinking of the people in the room. Tony, the management consultant had cancelled a lucrative contract with an airline, that expected him to do the impossible and defend the indefensible way it had treated its customers. He did not want to be associated with a brand that had frustrated and manipulated its customers, causing them financial hardship and stress whilst using their money to stay afloat. Looking for other sources of income for himself, he had been frustrated by the mass giving-away of advice and guidance in written, audio and video form that made it virtually impossible to make a living from his marketing experience and advice. “It’s damn difficult to remove a label that says “free” from anything, once it’s attached, he had said”. Another victim of Corona Virus disillusionment was his son, Gavin, who no longer felt that his massively expensive post-graduate education was worth the money or the effort. The lack of quality time spent with his professors and international alumni had become ever more frustrating for him. He had begun – reluctantly at first and then with increasing enthusiasm - to spend an increasing amount of time on developing his already considerable technology expertise.

The two teenaged Grissom children had been cast adrift from their friends and busy social lives, becoming social-media-sated and terminally bored with remote home-schooling. Brie had experienced a chaotic introduction to her first sixth form year and Donni’s exam results had been compromised. A critical period of their education has been compromised, and continued to be so. Both highly tech-savvy, they were excitedly discussing the possibilities for automating the entire holiday camp for the safety and benefit of the potential new breed of holidaymaker. Gavin saw possibilities beyond what he saw as the initial potential automation installation in this camp. He was thinking of much grander plans for the technology. Dennis, the management accountant increasingly frustrated by the lockdown and now fearing for the longevity of his own employer, felt that he would go insane if subjected to even one more day of continual videoconferences. He had begun to truly hate his job and to realise that his tendency to be short-tempered was worsening.

Much later, they all battled their way back through the snow to the temporary communal sleeping area in the reception building. There was an almost audible buzz of whirring braincells.

Next morning, having eaten virtually the last of Roy and Grace’s supplies for breakfast, everyone was glad to see and to read online that the storm had blown itself out. By mid-morning, rapid thawing was much in evidence all around them and the blessed relief of the absence of wind and falling snow saw everyone in the group venture out to look around the buildings in the camp. They had agreed to meet back in reception for a farewell at 1.00pm. They all gathered punctually.

Tony, Dennis, Gavin and Yvette had spent the morning writing up a selection of all the ideas from the night before. Dennis had managed to exchange emails with the Church Commissioners and to arrange a meeting later that week.

“Well Dennis, where would you like to go on holiday this year?”

“I certainly won’t be flying abroad or leaving the country any other way, Tony. So, I suppose I’ll be going Nowhere!” he emphasised the final word, theatrically. The others, sat around them, appreciated their little performance.

“Is that Camp Nowhere, you mean, Dennis? Gavin, could you tell us about this place?” He indicated Gavin with a flourish, who stood.

“Certainly, ladies and gents. Camp Nowhere is designed as the ultimate safe refuge from the risk and restrictions of the pandemic. When you arrive at the camp, after taking the instant Covid-19 test in your car, at the gatehouse, you will be able to drive directly to your allocated cabin to unload, before parking your car in your personal parking space, back in one of the car parks. You’ll find your pre-programmed medallions in the lock-box on the wall of your cabin, which you’ll open by using the code already sent to you. These medallions (Roy and Grace acknowledge this idea as one they got from a Princess Cruise ship) are your electronic friends. You have the option to wear them as a medallion, clip badge, on a bracelet or simply in your pocket. They open doors, recognise your preferences and accept charges to your account from anywhere in the camp. Guaranteed hassle-free, contact-free, Covid-19 – free and so stress-free.” Gavin was pleased to detect a little ripple of approval run through the audience.

“Your cabin will have been sanitised using the very latest electrostatic disinfectant sprayers; your personal sealed packs of bed linen will be on every bed, and your sealed food pack – as you specified on your booking – will be in your kitchen. Your own mobile devices – or the one that you ordered, which would be in your cabin – will automatically be connected to the central system as you enter the cabin. The system will ask you when you would like to schedule the sanitation service for the next day. This will trigger the non-contact air conditioning to operate automatically on a super-high level and to thoroughly clean your room. A comprehensive, sealed cleaning kit is available for your use, as no one but yourselves will enter your cabin for the duration of your stay.

If you are completely self-catering during your visit, you can add to your initial supplies pack whenever you wish, by ordering through the system. There is a wide variety of options, including complete take-away meals of all kinds from our approved vendors. Anything you order will arrive at the delivery point at the main gate from where you can collect it, or have our own staff bring it to your door. That way, no one other than our fully-trained staff will have to enter the camp or approach your cabin. In good weather, you can order a picnic to be delivered to your designated, socially-distanced outdoor space in the same way.

You can use our system to order anything from any of the four shops on the site – the sports kit and equipment shop; the casual clothes shop; the gift shop or the general store, and its pharmacy. If you prefer to have a traditional shopping experience, you can book an access time for any or all of them, where you and any members of your group will simply walk to the door, without queueing, and gain automatic access from your medallions, which will have stored your booking. It will for that time, be your own personal shop. The clean-up team will be automatically allocated to thoroughly sanitise the premises between visits. There are no retail staff. Any items that you remove from the shop will be recognised and automatically charged to your account. It’s even more contactless than contactless! The whole shopping experience is completely contact-free and totally personalised. If your family group wish to do this together with another group, this can be handled by the system, and there is a fully-stocked PPE vending machine between shops two and three if you want to take extra precautions.”

Roy whispered to Gavin, as he finished his description:

“Isn’t all of that automation going to cost a fortune to install, Gavin?”

“No, Roy. Yes, there’ll be some cost to it, but the networking infrastructure already exists in the camp and the usual bulk of the cost – the time and expertise to do it – is coming gratis from me”. Roy patted him on the shoulder.

Dennis took over the description:

“At Camp Nowhere you have a wide range of entertainment options. In addition to your wide-screen TV with hundreds of channels, your cabin has a PlayStation Four with four controllers and access to a wide variety of games. (There was a suppressed “Yes!” from Donni, forgetting that he was unlikely to be a guest himself.) The previously frequent and now long-frustrated regular theatre and cinema-goers amongst you will be pleased to hear that we have the sumptuously-appointed, socially-distanced Everyone theatre running a varied programme of films and live shows, twelve hours a day. Thirty patrons can enjoy a performance in comfort, in a space originally housing one hundred. Each seat is as you would expect to find in the first-class cabin on an aeroplane; they are in pairs, with moveable, plexiglass screens between those pairs. There is a two-metre gap between the other paired seats in the row and between the rows in front and behind. Booking is via the central system and staggered arrival times given to avoid any queueing. You can order food and drinks when you book your seat and these will be on your seat when you arrive, having been prepared and put there by our highly-trained staff. We did have a suggestion of putting cardboard cut-outs of film stars in the gaps, but we thought that would just be spooky!”.

“That was me!”, whispered Yvette to Grace. Gavin continued his pitch.

“We found it a challenge to get the Fun and Games building up to standard, but we have figured it out. Each of the games will have its own plexiglass enclosure. (“This was my bit”, stage-whispered Donni to his sister, to a ripple of laughter) The central booking system will allow any player to book their slot to play and again – like the retail units – this will alert the cleaning team to swoop in and sanitise it before the next player arrives. Your medallion will automatically register your score on the electronic games and you can enter the ones from the traditional games from your own device, if you wish. If you want to play competitively, there will be a league table that you and your chosen competitors can access at any time through your own devices.

“Nice, Donni”, said Brie to her brother, giving him a hug.

“I already hacked a couple of them to get the latest upgrades, as well”, whispered Donni”, with a cheeky laugh.

“Don’t tell anyone that!”, said an exaggeratedly shocked, but unsurprised Brie. Gavin continued:

“The bowls and tenpin bowling will be given their own separate entrances and again can be booked through the system by any cabin group for a specified time. The same cleaning regime will apply and there will be additional wipes and hand sanitiser stations in there. All players on both games will put their balls in electrostatic cleaning machines as they leave”

“Ouch!”, said Roy. More laughter from the crew paying close attention, now.

Gavin went on to describe how, once inside the camp, reassured that not a single infected person could get in or would randomly enter at any point, the Camp Nowhere residents could relax as they slept, ate, played and exercised in a safe but relatively unrestricted environment. They could have confidence that the virus was excluded and avoided to the greatest possible degree.

The provision for the “community” cabins had been hotly debated, especially by Dennis, the management accountant. He was concerned that the profit margins would be severely impacted. He was persuaded otherwise. The residents of those five cabins – numbers 1 to 5 would be allocated for the purpose, closest to the main facilities – would be responsible for providing their own extra care where needed. Any carers would face the same rigorous anti-virus procedures as every other guest and be required either to stay with them or to go through the instant test each time they entered the camp. They would not be allowed to compromise the sanitisation standards in any way. Dennis again railed against the extent of some of the measures and the expense of providing them “to protect against the same level of risk as being hit by a bolt of lightning”, as he put it. Again, the others’ insistence on the need for a completely uncompromised, sealed environment won over his protests.

Gavin reiterated to his audience that the already high standards of fitting-out that the Rocklazs had put in place would not be compromised. Roy said that his building and upgrading work would not be marred by any “pleblon” additions, making a Jeremy Clarkson reference. There had been much discussion about using the additional large field as a camping and caravanning area, but the positive financial implications were overshadowed by the impossibilities of enforcing the same standard of anti-virus protection for other people’s tents and vehicles as for the cabins. Tony advocated “focus”, avoiding the temptation to dilute the key message in any way and the concentration on getting the existing offering right, establishing “Nowhere” as the place to go for a safe and secure, upmarket holiday.

Gavin handed over to Robbo, who described how he and his footballing colleagues would provide a robust and challenging sports calendar for their visitors, while observing all the anti-virus protection measures. It was a major task to run competitive sport and training sessions, but the four of them had some experience in doing so and a determination to make it work. They felt that they could learn from the successes of some sports over the last few months and the failures of others.

Yvette presented the financial plan, in brief. This furrowed some brows as the reality of taking over and investing in a business was explained.

“This will, or would, take us about two years to break even with moderate bookings”, she explained. “Of course, we may just be surprised by the level of success we can achieve. This is to be a seven-days-a-week, all-year-round, all-weather, operation – hopefully not with weather often as bad as this!”, she gestured out of the window at what was now, in fact a blue and welcoming sky. “From day one, we will be premium-priced, but hopefully our branding and promotion based on our unique positioning will justify the cost of a holiday to Nowhere in the minds of our target audience”

“I trained her well, you know”, laughed Tony, the marketing consultant, to a half-smiling look from Yvette, as hearty applause ended the session.

All-round farewells began. Roy and Grace had managed to arrange to get a motoring rescue service to agree to come to their abandoned car that afternoon by paying an insulting premium price. The others all began preparing their vehicles to go home, removing snow from them and digging a path out of the car park. There was a rapid thawing, streams of glistening water beginning to drip from the buildings. Roy had temporarily repaired and secured the broken window in the door to the reception building long before. Dennis had agreed with the Church Commissioners that he would bring the keys with him to their meeting in a couple of days. The teenagers had again high-stepped their way back through the snow to the outbuildings, switched their power supplies off and relocked the doors.

Each family group travelled home almost in silence. Everyone had liked Gavin’s sign-off from the “presentation” of the plan:

“In the words of Stephen Hawking: “Be brave, be curious, be determined; overcome the odds. It can be done.” “

Two miles out from the camp, all the satnavs revived themselves and showed them their routes home. In the artificially-collegiate atmosphere of the “snowbounders”, they had all imagined reconstructing their pandemic-disrupted lives. Were they just imagining that new way of living, pivoting away from what they had struggled to maintain as normality? Were they serious? They had agreed to the inevitable “snowbounders” Zoom videoconference the day after Dennis’s meeting with the Church Commissioners, to get the final word on what could be agreed and on what was possible, based on their outline plan.

Would they all be there or would there be a reluctance to follow through on the project idea? Dennis expected some drop-outs. Would it work if half of the “snowbounders” decided not to participate?

Was the exciting new enterprise a way to salvation for these battered lives in uncertain times? Would the familiar, despite its current uncertainty hold some of them back from a daring new path?

Would they rely on those “personal satnavs” again, going back to their uncertain individual journeys in a Covid-19-dominated world?

Or would they all take the uncharted road to “Nowhere”?

Inspired by “Road To Nowhere”, by Talking Heads

"Soundtracks" Track 9 on Spotify

#covid-19 #newnormal #lockdown #easing

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