{"id":89241,"date":"2021-10-11T08:24:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T12:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=89241"},"modified":"2021-10-11T08:37:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T12:37:33","slug":"89241","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=89241","title":{"rendered":"<b>DAYS OF PANDEMIC<\/b>: A Short Story from &#8220;Exceptional Ideas About Humanity&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-89254 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/31Yny-sQA5L._SX331_BO1204203200_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/31Yny-sQA5L._SX331_BO1204203200_.jpg 333w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/31Yny-sQA5L._SX331_BO1204203200_-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" \/><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Days of Pandemic\u00a0<\/b><\/h1>\n<p><b>By Jonathan Bluestein<br \/>\n<\/b>Submitted as a Guest Post<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was a very calm and blue day, to be experiencing a clumped\u00a0 streak of neuroticism in the broad skies of Canada. Some two hundred human beings were up there on that day, crammed into\u00a0 a metal bird, flying above frozen wastelands. So rapid was their\u00a0 advance, that the number of meters attained in a second exceeded the count of useful thoughts most of these passengers would have in a year. In this future of some history, a journey as\u00a0 such had become mundane&#8230; almost boring. Ordinarily, the logisticians of aerial necessities would have been busy answering with fake smiles to the annoying and often obscene demands of the morally degraded, may they be richer or poorer, their lips being adjusted appropriately.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet in this special time and during that most extraordinary of occasions, the clerical germs inside the gut of the giant vessel\u00a0 were elated. For due to causes they did not clearly understand, fate has bestowed upon them a noble goal: the protection of the\u00a0 public&#8217;s health and safety. They were deemed \u2018essential\u00a0 workers\u2019, while others were designated as redundant. This\u00a0 convergence of circumstances had gifted them with White &#8211; the color of priests, and an authority over those with a spiritual\u00a0 inclination to Death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was on that day that Dwight, a meritorious servant of his sky services company since long ago, had one of those rare, meaningful thoughts. With a sudden streak of blatant genius\u00a0 inspiration, Dwight had come to realize, that he was no longer a\u00a0 mere little screw in the greater system, distributing toxic meals <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and catering for petty emotions. Rather, he was now a full-time serviceable saviour of mankind. Which meant, as fate would\u00a0 have it, that now they and them aboard, would have to listen to him solemnly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overjoyed with this revelation, Dwight went to work that day with the enthusiasm of a true zealot. Neither salary nor promotion, formerly of importance to him, seemed now to\u00a0 matter. For Dwight has been reborn! His old materialist mind has receded and surrendered to a higher cause\u2026 which Dwight overheard was some kind of menace. But the details mattered\u00a0 little, as long as the sheep in the hovering haul were unusually\u00a0 attentive, and he could now wield the staff of fear to direct them at will. Armed with a silly piece of cotton to cover his human emotions, gloves in the color of royalty to avoid touching the impure, and a flimsy outfit in the spectrum most reflective of\u00a0 light, Dwight now felt aligned with the priests of old, and undoubtedly as wise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Things were made easy for Dwight in advance. Powerful forces have fed his \u2018truth\u2019 to the masses already, and it has infiltrated their bodily tissues to the utmost, causing their blood to bubble.\u00a0 Even those temporarily inhabiting the aviating bus who have\u00a0 come to think of such ideas as distasteful or unpleasant, were\u00a0 usually too thoroughly invested in the social pretense to make a scene by acts of rebellion. For traitors as such were marked as progenitors of disease and mayhem, to be shunned by their\u00a0 peers and even family members. All of this, much to the advantage and satisfaction of Dwight, whose rank and esteem as the keeper of order and civility was thus raised among the\u00a0 people. In the era of utmost alienation, the bureaucrat is king.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On that same flight with the evangelical Dwight, resided Wallace &#8211; a retired senior micro-biologist from a prestigious academic production line of even more prestigious characters. Wallace <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">had made a career for himself looking at very small things, which has earned him the favour of society, as no one else\u00a0 thought it interesting or meaningful to do the same. The\u00a0 government of some timely Empire also very much decorated and adorned Wallace with words and symbols, as his efforts were\u00a0 instrumental in the importation of Freedom into an enemy nation, by means of freeing 10% of the population of the other 90%, using some of Wallace&#8217;s miniature critters. Sadly, so focused was Wallace on the things unseen by the naked eye, that he had lost vision of his own gregarious mouth and inflating abdomen, earning him a diseased body. Now, he was hard of breathing, and stiffer still with his common sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That Dwight could see that this fellow Wallace was sitting in his domain whilst neglecting to adorn a mask, was as attractive as a golden fortune which tempts greed. Recruiting the muscles of his forehead and eyebrows to their utmost, Dwight initiated the\u00a0 usual litany about a sinner\u2019s fate, and need for repentance. The\u00a0 sacred cloth must protect the front \u2013 so was the common belief\u00a0 in those times. But Wallace, an old bulldog of stern demeanor, neither flinched at nor indulged in Dwight\u2019s routine. Countering the young enthusiast\u2019s dogma, Wallace heretically suggested\u00a0 that this whole ordeal with the concealment of bodily features and distancing of people from their brethren, had been a careful plot, brilliantly though viciously orchestrated by the fellows\u00a0 who were paying his retirement funds. Besides, Wallace added bitterly, the mask was making his already weak breathing uneasy, and contributed to his exacerbating panic-attacks. Upon hearing this, Dwight became all-the-more swayed by his inner fires, and sought the continuation of their verbal conflict.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The result of that frivolous encounter, which lasted several\u00a0 minutes, were soon forgotten by the witnesses. Even Dwight could not well recall that man\u2019s name the day after, as he was telling his girlfriend of that \u201cold, pesky passenger whom he had <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">definitely saved from the dangers of the raging virus\u201d.\u00a0 A tad more memorable was Wallace\u2019s funeral, a week later, after his heart had succumbed to the final penetrating pressures of conflict, following a life of strife over trifles. He was otherwise free of disease at the time of his passing, or so the doctors said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Never has a human invention captivated the repressed terror of the masses as well as the airplane. Like worms in the belly of the feathered fowl or sardines in a tin can, they are asked to be the allegories of food and occupy a celestial layer in which they have\u00a0 no chance to survive as individuals, bound by the mercy of hostile guardians. Throughout their journey in the clouds, all they yearn for is the quick release out the mouth of the beast into which they have been inhaled, bidding parts of their soul\u00a0 for distractions from the perils of their own imagination, as ignited by anonymous forces. The aircraft indeed is the temple of Self-sacrifice, whose iconography and symbolism are by themselves sufficient to inflict dominance by fear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-89243 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-11-at-8.14.31-AM-239x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"239\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-11-at-8.14.31-AM-239x300.png 239w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-11-at-8.14.31-AM.png 291w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px\" \/>Shifu Jonathan Bluestein, LL.B, is a\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">best-selling author, and the head of\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blue Jade Martial Arts International.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He is an interdisciplinary <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">researcher, writing about diverse <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">topics such as Feng Shui, Traditional <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Martial Arts, Jungian Psychology, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sociology, Political Science and Law.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As of the year 2021, he has published\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">8 books, all of which are available on <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon. His latest book, from which <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">this article was borrowed, is\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018<\/span><b><i>Exceptional Ideas About Humanity<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h5>*All rights of this book are reserved to Jonathan Bluestein \u00a9 2021. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or\u00a0 mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission, in writing, from Jonathan Bluestein.<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}