Two weeks

A 2021 call and response

Two weeks was written in September 2021 in response to a piece posted on Facebook on September 22, 2021. I have included the piece I was responding to after mine. I wrote the response because language shapes reality.

Two weeks to determine fatality, they said.
With held our breath and acquiesced,
And then they said no,
It will be longer.

The air shifted, as before a storm,
And a chill descended.
The steady thrum of debate ceased,
Replaced by whispers.
Students of history took note.

The laptop class retreated,
Sent the poor out front,
First to test the waters,
And then as proxies to build immunity for the herd.

They set to visioning:
Masks, distance, isolation.
They turned livelihoods to dust,
No questions asked.
Show us the data, we said.
Silence! you said.

The poor became more poor.
Children stopped learning.
Once-coursing cities slowed and pooled.
And always: the cases, the cases, the cases.

You were weary, I know,
But we were keeping watch,
For we knew about the manufacture of consent, about agency capture, about what happens when a people are frightened.

Then your dawn came—
Deliverance is here, you said!
The end is coming!

Wait! we said.
Be wary.
Remember radium, DDT, Thalidomide.
Remember Hippocrates, Tuskegee, Nuremberg.
It’s SCIENCE! you said.
All you must do is believe!

People of conscience stepped forward:
Professors, researchers, doctors.
But dissent was not permitted.
And you, believing yourselves champions of truth rather than its executioner,
Wielded the fourth estate against them
And cheered as their words were obliterated.

The implementation began,
Shot by shot by shot.
Why not treatment? we asked.
Take the shot, you said.
It’s killing people, we said.
Not so many, you said.
How many is too many? we said.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! you said.

Please, we pleaded,
At least spare the young—
They are in no danger.
Their lives are ahead of them…
But it was futile,
For the machine, once in motion,
Has its own volition.

The good ones began stepping down,
Regulators, ethicists, more,
The better angels of our institutions.
As they left, wisdom left with them,
And behind them, as if by an abrupt wind,
The doors slammed shut.

You may yet win.
There are more of you than us.
And human folly is as old as time.
One day, people will marvel at our story,
As at an ancient monument,
A testament to a time when people lost their minds.
So strange, they’ll say, how people once were.

*********************************************************************

The following is from a September 22, 2021, post on Facebook’s The Other 98% page (writer unknown):

We wanted to help people
We were smart and driven
We loved science and physiology, humans and disease
So we made a commitment
We signed up
It was an honor
We read thousands of pages
Attended hundreds of lectures
Pulled all-nighters
Took more exams than we thought possible
Finals week felt insurmountable
But it didn’t break us
It made us stronger
We learned statistics and biochemistry
Immunology and pathophysiology
We mastered genetics, virology and pharmacology
We read scientific papers and learned how to dissect them
Papers, not videos
It was an honor
We came running when you needed us
Literally, running down the hallway
To the ICU, the trauma bay, labor and delivery
I need help, you said
We can help, we said
It was an honor
There were moments that we thought would break us
Moments that drove us to journaling, to therapy, to nightmares
Broken babies.
Paralyzed children.
Dead pregnant mothers with three kids at home.
The wail of a mother whose son just died.
We bent but we did not break
We returned because you needed us
And we could help
It was an honor
Then there was fear
Fear of walking into our place of work
Fear that we’d be killed by going to work
Fear that we’d kill a loved one because of our work
There were tears and sleepless nights and anti-anxiety medications
But you banged your pots and pans
You sent us pizzas and called us heroes
You needed us
We could help
So we wore our masks, and our gowns, and our gloves, and our goggles
We decontaminated ourselves before going home and isolated ourselves from our families
We almost broke
It was an honor
How quickly the joy turned to defeat
Elation to rage
You’ve learned to do your own research now
You know better than we do
Gaslighting is your language
Your selfishness is astounding
You don’t want our help when we ask you to stay healthy
Yet you arrive at our doors begging for help at the end
You stole our resources
You hobbled our ability to help those who did what they were supposed to do
You killed our patients by filling our beds and using up our ventilators
We can’t help any more
You broke us
There is no more honor