You don’t need a weather forecaster to tell you which way the wind is blowing. And when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. (As so often, I’ve no idea what Hamlet was talking about, but then he was, by all accounts, as nutty as a fruitcake left over from a wedding feast.)
My point is, I feel it in my bones when something significant is lurking on the horizon. Also when I’ve forgotten to take my medication, but let’s not go into that now, or ever. The chances of my predictions coming true aren’t usually so high they’d make you dizzy, but let’s give it a whirl anyway.
Living in the Coronavirus Casino has made us all impulsive and impetuous, in some way or another — playing roulette rather than blackjack, or attempting to play chess. (By the time I learned pawns could be promoted to bishops, knights, rooks or queens if they reached the far side of the chessboard, I was ready to bet everything on Black.)
Viruses don’t travel well except with us as hosts, so let’s not invite them along. But those of you with a cooler head have probably realized we are going to have to move if we want to throw the virus off our scent. The alarming fact is that five and a half billion years from now, our sun will expand and become a swollen star called a red giant. I’m sorry to say our present orbit isn’t going to be a very pleasant place by that time.
The enlarged sun will eventually engulf and destroy Earth, so we should be thinking of relocating to a different neighborhood. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the solar system, is how I look at it. There is no point waiting until the last possible moment, take the first possible chance to start packing. Prepare for all climates, to be on the safe side, which is where we’ll all end up, I hope.
Life has woven itself into the fabric of our planet so thoroughly that the virus probably suspects nothing, but even so, let’s not announce that we are going. We’ll smile as we wave it goodbye, but our smiles will be masked, like our true feelings.
No doubt the traditional naysayers and anti-vaxxers will want to stay behind and take their chances, and we should save a few seats for them in case they repent before lift-off. We aren’t monsters after all; we’re trying to leave the monster behind. Our future is in the stars.
There is always a point in human development when we have to react to danger by either fleeing or fighting. Fortunately for me, nature has equipped me with sprinter’s legs and a sense of impending danger unmatched by the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
We ought to create a vacuum as we flee from the virus, leaving nothing behind but dust for it to bite. Or some vaccine for it to hoover up. The biter bitten!
