I was sitting on the subway, minding everybody else’s business (it’s an occupational hazard for a satirist), when a small voice nearby squeaked, “Hey! Are you the writer who minds everybody else’s business? Cuz I could sure use some help getting my story out!”
Nobody should have occupied the seat next to me (if social distancing meant anything in this godless universe); I shied away, expecting to be harangued by an anti-vaccine nut. What was there turned out to be worse.
The seat was empty. I peered at it, but could see nothing.
“Look closer,” the voice commanded. I took a pair of glasses out of my pocket, but even with them I couldn’t see anything.
“Closer,” the voice advised. I took a magnifying glass out of another pocket, but even with it I couldn’t see anything.
“Clooooser,” the voice coaxed. I took an electron microscope that I keep for just such occasions out of my back pocket (I was never a Boy Scout, never wanted to be a Boy Scout, never met anybody who bragged about being a Boy Scout or even saw a Boy Scout in a movie – as far as I was concerned, they were mythical creatures, like unicorns or compassionate conservatives – but I had heard somewhere that they had a motto that made sense of situations like these, so if you know it, apply it here) and searched the chair. Two stations later, I saw a tiny round blob of a creature with a lot of knobby, stick outy bits.
“Are you a…a germ?” I asked.
“Virus,” the virus huffily told me. “Why does everybody always mistake me for a germ? So insulting!” Apparently, my mistake had hit a sore spot. Who knew ger -viruses had them?
“Do you have a name?” I asked, suspicious.
“I was born Charles Oliver Vestigial Isadore Donald,” the virus informed me. “But my friends call me -”
“COVID,” I sourly interrupted. “Ha ha. Very clever. And, I suppose you’re 19 years old?”
“Actually, I was born in 2019. I’m very mature for my age. Still, good guess – it was a fifty fifty shot.” After a moment, the voice added: “Your name. Irish Republican Army?”
“Oh, yeah,” I groused. “Very clever. I’ve never hear that one before!”
“Oh, spare me the attitude!” the virus shot back (proving the old non-Boy Scout adage that it is better to give than to receive). “You think you got it tough? Son, you don’t know from suffering!”
“Un hunh,” I skepticalled.
Unfortunately, the virus misread this as encouragement and continued: “Everybody thinks I’m some big, bad, monster of a killer. But, really, if they took the time to get to know me, they would realize that all I want to do is settle down in a home I can call my own and raise a family.”
“The home being the body of a human being,” I pointed out.
“Pigs are filthy slums,” the virus didn’t exactly disagree with me. “No self-respecting self-replicating being would be caught dead in one – you should pardon the expression. Can you blame me for wanting to live in a mansion?”<.p>
“And, after you ‘move in,’ your hosts get sick and die!” Okay, I may have been a little more…intense than the situation called for. You may talk to deadly viruses all the time, but it was a new experience for me.
“Some viruses are bad tenants,” COVID allowed. “They trash their places, driving real estate prices down. But – cough! Cough! – I’m not like that! I’m a responsible virus.”
“You alright?” I asked. Quietly. The other people on the train were giving me “Am I going to have to get out the mace?” looks. To be honest, if I saw somebody talking to something they needed an electron microscope to see, I might be reaching for my mace (which I keep in the pocket between my magnifying glass and a portable defibrillator), too.
“I can’t last long in this environment,” the virus told me, coughing again. “You wouldn’t…let me live inside you, would you? Only til I can find something permanent, you understand…”
I didn’t move to take off my mask. “Absolutely not!” I vehemently hissed, an appropriate level of intensity even in hindsight. “You’ll kill me!”
“You’ve bought the lie, too?” The virus sounded sad. “Take my word for it, that’s fake news. A complete hoax to distract you people from…whatever the media doesn’t want you looking at.”
“You sound just like an anti-vaxxer!”
“What can I say?” the virus metaphorically shrugged. “They – cough! – they – cough! Cough! – they get me!”
Everything went silent for three stops. Figuring the virus had expired, I started to put the electron microscope away when I heard another small voice squeak: “Hey, Irish Republican Army! You just let my brother die! How’re you planning on making it up to the family‽”