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Thursday, March 28 2024
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Short Story: King Covid and Queen Covida are locked up…

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Queen Covida felt the impact of her animal lockdown. No doubt she and her family could move from one animal to another, but not to their human handlers and that irked her. In her book Humans were Animals. Besides she had been getting visions recently. Visions of being called upon to save the world from itself and she was consumed with fulfilling her duty. She did not confide in her husband King Covid fearing his skepticism, but the constant reminders made her irritable.

Her irritability showed as she complained to her husband King Covid. “its time we moved on Covid. Sticking around here will get us nowhere in our goal of expanding our kingdom. Besides, animals are prone to dying faster than humans”. He listened to her rant and thought to himself. Yes, she’s right as always. She had been his friend philosopher and guide for a long time now.

Currently, they were in a shrimp in a fish market somewhere in China. He couldn’t pinpoint the location as his host had moved around quite a bit. “Hang on honey, we have to be patient, if we are to generate more patients”, King Covid counseled. Luckily for them and their kids Corona, Sars, Mers, and Covy, they hung on for dear life when their handler latched on to the shrimp. The spikes in their crown, helped them climb down his nasal passage and reside in his throat.

Initially, they prospered, but he had the habit of drinking hot water early in the morning, and the King and his family could not bear the heat; they tried to go down further but seemed to get stuck between a rock and a hard place!

They had managed to jump onto the right bandwagon, as their host worked in the market and came into contact with a lot of “human animals”. King Covid worked fast, gathering his family and transferring residence from one to another, leaving a part of himself or his family behind.

In some, they could not get beyond their host’s throat, and in others, they could get to where they wanted to go – the lungs, where they hung on for dear life expanding with each breath until the breath no longer came. They felt sad that their host had to die, but it was not the end of their world – they were now able to jump ship even after it sank. Queen Covida was pleased – their kingdom was expanding rapidly and silently – No one even knew what was coming their way, until the King’s army hit them.

They soon realized that humans are not mere animals. They caught on fast. The Human Animals, soon found that the COVID family was a family that loves the human touch and thoracic expression – It gave them an opportunity, as cricket commentators put it, to “express themselves”. These humans were also hunters and soon found out that soap and alcohol could put an end to their dreams of expansion. For the King and Queen, these were weapons of mass destruction. They were fond of neither and afraid of both, but had to grin and bear it when confronted with these man-made menaces.

As always, King Covid and Queen Covida were ahead of the game. They decided to conquer the world; besides Queen Covida loved to travel and explore new vistas. They got on to the airplanes – no tickets required as they had already been bought by their hosts and moved on to places where they had not been before – it was a whole new world for the – people with different lifestyles, different immunities, and different interaction and hygiene patterns. They branched out to the Gulf, Europe, Asia and then the ultimate frontier – the US where they encountered Donald Trump. He was dismissive of them and their threat, and so they doubled down there especially. They combined business with the pleasure of seeing new places.

Somewhere along their journey, they found it difficult to cross the line, despite playing a good game of kabaddi. People were keeping their distance, hardly touching each other, washing their hands frequently, not going out for social gatherings or religious services and if they had a fever quickly finding out if the Queen had visited them. They also stayed away from alcohol. That was a plus thought the King sarcastically.

This will not do, thought the Queen. Again she turned to her husband. She said, “earlier we were invisible for some time and these people were not suspicious of us. Now it’s bad – they seem suspicious of everyone who has or has not come into contact with us. They have become so distant to their own kind. Those who never used to bathe, are washing their hands now. What will happen to our kingdom?”

King Covid, though was practical and wise. He said, ” Haven’t we expanded enough my Queen? We have gone to places that we had not heard of before. In fact, the whole world has now heard of us. And they are afraid. That’s what we wanted no? We should not be greedy. Nothing will happen to our kingdom. All we have to do is lie low for a while somewhere and then disguise ourselves and come out of hiding. We know the trick of staying quiet, don’t we? Besides, we have destroyed their discriminatory kingdom and established ours where all are equal. They love their money and now they have none. They are vulnerable now arent they? I think they have learned their lessons, and we have achieved our goal”, he added for what it was worth.

The Queen was inconsolable but decided that the King was right and let it go… for the time being.

Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction and must be treated as such.

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Brian Fernandes

Brian is an alumnus of Roshni Nilaya’s Post Graduate School of Social Work, HR Department and has 30 years of local and international HR and General Management experience. Journalism, poetry, and feature writing is a passion which he is now able to pursue at will. Additionally, he loves compering and hosting talk shows. He loves learning and imparting it; so, when time permits, he provides leadership facilitation and soft skills training to Postgraduate students and Corporates in Mangaluru and Bengaluru. Besides, he is an accomplished Toastmaster under the aegis of Toastamasters.org and a designated Distinguished Toast Master.

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