Angel Virus [ONC 2022]

Chapter 19. A Few Thoughts.

It is now two months after The Outbreak. The virus spread worldwide in a week, and then a week later it was gone. Almost every human being on the planet got infected. We all tell similar stories of seeing our loved ones in the spirit realm and, on the flip side, discovering blechths attached to ourselves and others.

So far, physicists are stumped about the nature of Photropolis and the hyper-material plane of Kezzias and his ilk. I suspect they will stay stumped. I suspect there are subtle forces at work that will keep them in the dark for the foreseeable future.

The virus sent a shock wave through the world that will take at least a generation to blunt. After people saw their parasites and felt the blechths glut on selfishness and negativity, a collective attitude shift occurred. A sort of worldwide health craze sprang up. Most of the world's billionaires became philanthropists. Stock markets went wobbly, not because of economic concerns, but because a lot of stockbrokers quit their jobs all at once. But I think the biggest change is that, all over the world, people are taking more time to care about each other instead of caring about only themselves.

This is probably starving some blechths and whatever pan-dimensional food chain they support. I've not shed a tear over that.

Will this last forever? I think not. Humans don't like to learn from history. I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but in a generation, it will occur to some snotty jock teenager to slam the nerdy kid into the locker. His blechth will bloat and grow. The cycle will begin anew.

Dr. Friel is smart lady, and she seems to have thought all of this through. But when quizzed on the topic she just smiles like Mona Lisa and deflects every question about how the angel virus worked and if it could be made to work again.

I am skilled in meditation, now, and I have added an exercise regimen to my daily routine. Trixie's legs did not shrivel and go knock-kneed again, and she can hear as well as any of us. Somehow, and I don't have a clue how, but somehow we will afford college. She'll be an astronaut. Or, if she changes her mind, she'll be that, and she'll be a terrific one, whatever it is.

Resa and I, well, that's none of your business. When and if we have something to announce, we'll announce it.

I haven't written a song good enough to properly memorialize Father Brent. Maybe I never will, but sweeping, mopping, and taking out the trash leaves time for writing poetry. And before work each day I drop by Charlie's Music and tinkle the ivories. The difference from before is that Charlie is happy to have me there.