For a while nobody noticed me.
1 January 2020
On my YouTube recommended list: ‘How to protect yourself against Coronavirus’. Coronavirus? There’s a guy somewhere in China washing his hands.
I need to find out more about this Corona-thing, so I turn to my most trusted information browser — my dad.
Dad tells me that it is ‘a little sickness in China. Nothing to worry about’.
Eventually some of the humans find out about my existence
But I’ve already transmitted thousands of myself to thousands of them.
They still don’t take much notice,
so, I decide to make them take me more seriously.
30 January 2020
‘Coronavirus’ is now a word in my dictionary. And apparently, an ‘international concern’.
At first, I’d only existed in one city but there was a whole world to take over.
By now I’d travelled around a bit, becoming a part of more and more people.
I finally managed to infect someone who was trying to escape me.
The escapee flew to another country
And I took over within days.
11 March 2020
Another word is added to my dictionary: ‘Pandemic’.
Since I killed my first victim,
they haven’t been able to do anything to stop me.
16 March 2020
‘We are in a State of Emergency’, says the TV, I turn it over and it tells me again. Now I realise what’s happening: Covid is the zombie apocalypse and has infected every news channel.
People are getting worried now.
30 March 2020
Another word is added to my dictionary: ‘Lockdown’.
I was at school when it was first announced. We all added two extra tons of books, pencils, laptops to our bags and dragged them home. At home, my trusted information browser says that we’re going to have to stay here until this Coronavirus thing settles down.
I’m smiling … days and days of computer games!
8 April 2020
‘Online learning’ is added to my dictionary. I’m not quite so happy. Looks like I will make a new record of absences in a row!
Everything is working well.
I’ve caused many many people to go into lockdown and hide from me.
10 April 2020
Places like the city are ghost towns. Looking out the window just shows a road with no cars, a train with no passengers and airplanes, they are long gone.
letting the air clear and birds return to rivers and towns.
3 July 2020
We’re still locked in. Two sisters, Mum, Dad and one daily walk!
Today a host carried me along the Merri, I heard
families of fish blowing bubbles under water.
22 February 2021
This morning my information browser says, ‘things are going to return to normal soon’. I’m wondering what that means.
Right when I thought my mission was accomplished
the people have made a bloody vaccine!
2021 continues
Lockdowns. Open-ups. More lockdowns and more open-ups.
The window shows more and more cars smoking the roads, more feet standing around the street. And the skies? Yep, a few planes passed by this morning.
I have to mutate!
10 November 2021
There’s been more and more names to add to my dictionary lately, but after a year of staying 1.5 metres away from each other, the TV is telling us to ‘embrace reopening’.
Mutating – it’s a fascinatingly creative way of life.
A way of life I embrace.
20 November 2021
Everyone seems a bit confused. It like they’re trying to decide what restaurant to go to, weighing up the pros and cons. I’ll sum it up:
Say that just down the road there’s a Macers and an Italian pasta restaurant.
For most people in Thomastown, Macers is the number one most trusted fast-food restaurant. It’s never out of burgers and chips and all that other stuff – except ice cream. 90% of the time the ice cream machine is broken!
So,
there’s Macers
and
there’s the Italian pasta restaurant.
Now, it seems risky to spend money at the restaurant when Macers has become the usual.
At the restaurant, you have only hope that the pasta they give you is worth it. It could be good, or it could just scam you some dollars.
Most people are choosing the usual.
Humans!
They war like they’ve always warred.
12 December 2021
It seems the usual has become a bit unusual, and some people have decided to go eat at the restaurant instead.
They’re partying their way forward …
My multiplication and mutation possibilities are phenomenal in this environment.
1 January 2022
My most trusted information browser is not sure but today the TV said: ‘We have hit the new Covid normal’.
Humans?
They’re moving the birds and creatures on,
destroying their homes,
closing their eyes and ears,
pretending they have won a war…
This No Compass edition is supported by Multicultural Arts Victoria, as a part of the 2022 Ahead of the Curve Commissions.
