Brave new world

I wish I could travel back in time and show the current Europe to the younger me. A few years ago, I would have though the world we live in now, with all its comical rules taken so seriously by so many would be good for Charlie Hebdo's front page.

A few days ago, I was heaving a heated conversation with a pretty and unmasked friend. As she spoke, a few drops of saliva landed on my hand, as it has happened so many times in the past. In the past it was something I would have ignored. It happened often enough in lecture halls when I took the front row and when various professors known for spitting took the podium. Now, I seriously thought to bring the incident to her attention, and, for a second, considered taking her to task for exposing me to her version of COVID-19. Then I thought I'd better look in the mirror before speaking. I was wearing a mask, but I have not shaved since COVID-19 started, nor cut my hair much. How many bacteria does my beard spread? I wanted to let it grow to make a statement -- but now when I look in the mirror I remember the Amish in central Pennsylvania. Only they shave the beard around their mouth for cleaness.

How do normal people, politicians and health experts interact today? It's certainly something of interest. I am vaccinated, boosted, and I test myself when there is any suspicion of COVID-19. But is that enough? How long should we continue to be afraid of each other?

Who would have thought that, in XXI century, we will have a new class division?

The upper class can ride trains, planes and, on occasions, even travel internationally.

The lower class, best known as untouchables, must sit at home most of the time, sometimes under house arrest, sometimes just advised to avoid contact with others. Yet they are the ones who work in factories, mines and fields, and feed and dress the upper class. International travel is tabu and forbidden for them most of the time, with very few exceptions. Many untouchables are darker in color and have an accent. They tend to have more children and live in crowded conditions. These untouchables cannot use the trains buses or subway. They cannot ride the tram and must use the stairs, not the lift. Untouchables cannot eat in a restaurant and cannot sleep in a hotel. When they travel illegally by train somewhere, if they make it, they must sleep with friends, or under the bridge. Friends who allow untouchables in their houses are few and far between. Such friends are hard to find, as having touched an untouchable, you can be excluded from interaction with the upper class until a cleansing ritual has been completed.

The upper class can still enjoy a luxurious life. They expect to keep a safe distance from each other and, above all from untouchables. It is common for an upper class old lady to occupy 4 seats and a table in the train and advice anyone trying to seat next to her of her desire for luxury, space and privacy. In the name of the State, the suspect untouchable should look for a seat elsewhere or stand by the door.

In XXI century Germany, only members of the upper class can use the train. For work or fun, whenever using public transport, you must demonstrate your upper class by:

-- wearing a thing over your nose. It must be government approved. Only a few brands and manufacturers are allowed.

-- have another thing in your blood. Again, must be government approved. Only a few brands and manufacturers are permitted. The list is short and varies by county.

-- carry a phone with a QR code that demonstrates you have the correct thing in your blood.

Should the phone battery die or the phone break down, get lost or stolen, you are banned from all upper class privileges. Thus, you can't using public transport, you must sleep under the bridge and cannot travel internationally, until you get a new phone and find a way to display the correct QR code. For the unskilled or inexperienced, the process can be long or impossible. I look at the old people staying in line to pay their bills in person. It's hard to tell how many of them are vaccinated or can display their QR code.

I sit in the train next to an empty table. At one station, a bunch of people join the train. Two of them look like normal upper class people. The other two are underclass. Their noses are running. They wear no masks are are ready to kill everyone with their COVID-19 viruses. Not only me, but the whole train. They jump and run and talk and spit, filling the air with the scent of death. They touch the table with their slimy hands. The train must be thoroughly disinfected after their departure. Oh, I wish the people who used my table were not such...

The worst criminals of all are children. They spend their time together. They interact with people, and, in particular, with others from the same very dangerous criminal sector. They take the freedom to spread death in trains, planes and other crowded places: a bit like rabbis wearing the Star of David and preaching the truth of the Torrah before the Holocaust. Most people dying of old age have encountered such a criminal within a month of death. It could have been a brief encounter, as most are. Sometimes, a sneeze or some crying at the other end of the bus is enough. But, almost all people who died this year encountered a child during their last month alive.

In other countries, children were jailed in the only jail that could be created large enough to hold them all -- the HOME. In Spain children were not allowed outside for any reason in a first lockdown that lasted many months. In the Philippines, they were jailed for over one year -- the thousand beaches of the Philippines were cleaned of the infantile scourge and pest. One of the few remaining freedoms bestowed upon the children by the government, through its infinite kindness and grace is the freedom to consent and submit to sexual activity, starting at the age of 12. Such activity is seen as far more reasonable and less dangerous than going to school or walking in the park.

All this happened because there is a Chinese virus going around the world. The virus is so bad that it can kill. Some of those it kills are old people. Some are also sick. Others might only get a runny nose and a sore throat. It is not only like a cold. It is a cold that sometimes kills. Genetically speaking, the virus was always a cold. Its latest version, omicron, is mild -- perhaps more like a very normal cold. It comes with runny nose, which makes it spread efficiently and no longer goes down to the lungs, which was the deadly bit. But, as the virus morphs into a regular cold, the old world remains shut. The world order has changed. We now dream of a brave new world: a world without the common cold. Perhaps, a world where people live forever and children are never born.

I dread this brave new world -- it's a scary utopia -- it's a world that choses fear and isolation over our health and that our children, and yet pretends to try to save us and do the best it can while hurting the most vulnerable. AND like most utopias it makes no sense. It's funny and sad in the same time, just the same way communism was.