Corona Saga: Lock Down - 13th Day

Twas the 13th Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man decided that his writing should not be left to the vacuous vagaries of Facebook policy, so he decamped to his own blog. Those who wish to follow his adventures will have to follow this blog.

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 12th Day

Twas the Twelfth Day of the Lock Down. Management theorists opined that while a team of seven was ideal for taking action, at team of twelve was ideal for analysing an issue from all angles. Individuals, Cone Man cone-sidered, could at least analyse a situation by consulting the hindsight of twelve days of experience. And if they had learned nothing in twelve days, well, as the old saying went: "There's no fool like and old fool'.

Twelve days older, Cone Man wondered if he was any the wiser. Suffering sedentary solitude, he had instituted the discipline of halving his food portions for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hopefully he would avoid becoming a fat old fool. He had also implemented a daily exercise regime involving walking or cycling so hopefully he would become a fit old fool.

Maintaining these disciplines after the end of the Lock Down would make him a trimmer fitter fool in due course, but the problem remained. Cone Man found that everyone had become and armchair expert on Coronavirus, with views ranging from cynical disbelief to near religious faith in medical experts, news reporters, and the ability of governments to deliver while presiding over shuttered economies that were multiplying unemployment claims while reducing the tax take.

Who could be believed? Who knew all the facts? Who knew what they were talking about? If they knew what they were talking about, how could you know they would not be proven wrong by some perverse event designed to make the most learned sages look silly?

Cone Man tiredly reflected that it was not really worth his while to worry about it. "After all" he admitted "whatever you suspect, you only have to wait a week or two for the evidence to emerge." That was all very well, but in accepting that, he also realised that he was no wiser for being twelve days older ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 11th Day

Twas the 11th Day of the Lock Down. Workers in the Land of the All Black Tribe were losing their jobs in tranches. During the past week hundreds of Legend Bearers and Wager Slaves had borne the wages of a legendarily sick economy. On the last day of the week 600 sky workers of the Virgin Tribe had been informed by their overlords in the Land of the Wallaby Tribe that their livelihoods had sprouted wings and flown into the sky.

Sadly, the sudden unemployment of a thousand workers in the Outer Antipodes was not world shaking news. Forty million workers in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe would be unemployed if the Lock Down in that country continued for another three months - or so was the ghastly estimate.

Strangely, some forms of employment were impervious to the Lock Down. Gambling operations bridged the physical barrier between themselves and their clientele by arranging online gambling; drug dealers delivered drugs by courier or post; and Sex Vendors reported to their guild that some of their clients continued to pressure them to supply their services.

Ironically, though human resourcefulness provided some outlets for vice, in quantum it was virtue that triumphed. Confinement to hearth and home forced the closure of nightclubs, bars, brothels, strip joints, sex shops, sports stadia, hunting and fishing grounds. Restriction of movement restricted the utility of online dating applications as well.

Unbridled Temperance was the order of the day! The virtues of Chastity, Fidelity, and Parental Supervision raged unchecked across the land. Adulterers found themselves forced to neglect their mistresses and sleep with their wives. Young warriors with no thought of paternity, commitment and responsibility, found themselves inadvertently starting families as they manfully fought in bed to bring comfort to anxious cone maidens. Teenagers found themselves under the All Seeing Eye of parents who never left the house or let them roam without supervision.

Surveying the surreal state of sexual mores prevailing amongst his contemporaries, Cone Man shook his head in disgust. "We are more virtuous than we have been in decades
and yet we still manage to lose our Virgin Tribe!" he groaned.

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 10th Day

Twas the Tenth Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man had plenty of material to write about, but the novelty was wearing off. The surreal was becoming the commonplace. Of course that which becomes common experience simultaneously ceases to be unusual experience. 3.9 billion people did not require someone to write about the experience of being under lock down because they already were experiencing lockdown.

Surviving a epic event, and recording a daily description for the benefit of posterity were not one and the same thing however. Within 20 years elderly witnesses to current events would be dead, middle aged witnesses would be elderly, the young would have a set of vivid memories of particular events and children would be twenty somethings who would have been both present and too young to understand the drama unfolding around their childhoods.

Describing an event for the benefit of unborn historians was not that easy, however. 7.8 billion people were witnesses to the events brought about by the Coronavirus Monster. Cone Man's chronicling of events was subjective, allegorical, dependent on the reliability of Legend Bearers, and cramped by the realities of being observe little personally from his man cave, in valley, on the southern peninsular, of an island, located deep in the Outer Antipodes.

Yet try he must. "I cannot explain this drama when I am senile or dead" he grimly reflected ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 9th Day

Twas the Ninth Day of the Lock Down. There were only another 19 days to go. Or were there? Cone Man had heard rumours that the Lock Down could be extended. In any event everyone knew that there would be no return to the now happy seeming world of early January 2020.

Over half of humanity was locked down along with the All Black Tribe. Over one million people had suffered the malignant bite of the Coronavirus Monster and over 50,000 lay dead. Along with Death, other riders of the Apocalypse accompanied the Beast.]

The stock market of the Stars and Stripes Tribe had lost 30 percent of its value, another 6.6 million workers had filed unemployment claims and altogether over ten million workers had lost their jobs in the Land of the Stars and Stripes Tribe within the last two weeks. Both developments were unprecedented, but the relentless borrowing of the Overlords of the Stars and Stripes Tribe, coupled with their tendency to print dollars, brought ever closer the day when the fabled 'Greenback' would suffer a catastrophic loss of value.

The Land of the All Black Tribe was not immune to this financial tsunami. Over 200 workers at the Casino in the Sky found that their career gamble had not paid off and their livelihoods were forfeit. Perchance all would return to normal, and big spending international gamblers would return, but the Wager Lords were not prepared to stake their own salaries on that particular bet.

One hundred thousand people wanted nothing more than to leave. One week after imposing the Lock Down, if finally dawned upon the chieftains of the All Black Tribe that they had prevented foreigners from travelling to airports to escape the country. Dispensation was given to the foreigners and they duly began to flee.

Viewing the global mayhem from his man cave, Cone Man dug over his vegetable plot. "Food will not get any cheaper" he shrugged ...

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 8th Day

Twas the Eighth Day of the Lock Down. Cone Man power-walked to the lookout at the crest of the Hill of the Gods. He encountered and counted 33 others walking on the same hill. Keeping his distance he hailed each fellow walker they passed him by. Some gaily returned his greeting while others strode by, indifferent to his offered bonhomie.

Unfazed by the varying reactions of his fellow walkers, Cone Man returned to his man cave and pondered the suffering of his fellow human beings. "Cold is the heart that feels nothing for the suffering of others" Cone Man cone-sidered.

Suffering was indeed multiplying. The Land of the All Black Tribe faced the prospect of 11 per cent unemployment following in the wake of the terrible Coronavirus Monster. Cone Man had last seen that level of unemployment during the Recession of 1991-1994. He had worked in a supermarket in the Land of the Aucks to survive that period.

Cone Man understandably sympathized with supermarket staff who were overworked, underpaid, endangered and abused. Their abusers apparently saw nothing wrong with continuing to eat from the very shelves that the supermarket workers stacked.

Himself an aspiring writer, he also sympathized with the hundreds of Legend Bearers who were informed that their legends would no longer required. The Paper Lords saw the catastrophic collapse in revenue from advertising and had no choice but to let the Legend Bearers bear the shock of this legendary catastrophe.

"Legend bearing may not be much of a job" Cone Man mused "but it sure beats stacking supermarket shelves for a living … "

Corona Saga: Lock Down - 7th Day

Twas the Seventh Day of the Lock Down. In happier and more frivolous times it was known as "April Fool's Day". Unhappy and less frivolous people known as accountants referred to it as The Start of the Financial Year.

Human nature, a strange phenomenon that baffled accountants, showed its irresponsible, anti-social side as many flouted the rules of the Lock Down to gather in crowds at parks and beaches. This sort of thing would prolong the tyranny of the terrible Coronavirus Monster and kill even more members of the All Black Tribe, and Cinda had very good cause to be Hard, Stern and Unamused.

Cone Man feared that the irresponsibility of the few would lead to the curtailment of the one remaining freedom of the many - leaving home for solitary exercise. Suspecting that he would not have to wait long before his worst fears were realised, Cone Man resolved to enjoy what little freedom he could while time allowed.

Cone Man set himself the regime of riding his not particularly mighty steed once every two days and 'power walking' on the days in between. In both cases he would not travel more than two kilometres from his man cave. The power walk could be a round trip to the crest of the Hill of the Gods, while the ride would involve riding to a 600 metre stretch of culvert and riding back and forth on the grass bank.

Cone Man also continued his other exercises. "Is there a problem here?" mused the pondering, pontificating, post-penning, pressing, power-walking, pedalling, planker of Parkway ...