“I Could Have Been a Contender”
Reading up on current events, I am reminded of the tumultuous century before my birth. It was in that century that a ship of panic-stricken merchants sailed into the Mediterranean, carrying a payload of plague-bearing rats, poised to rain death down upon Europe, and tear asunder the very fabric of civilization. For a time, the whole of Europe lived in absolute terror. But Medieval folk were a tough lot – and easily amused to boot. So it was only a matter of time until they all got a good laugh from a set of exploding lymph nodes. They would even go so far as sing cute little children’s songs about it, and dance in circles until they fell on their bubos-ridden asses. And by the time I was born, the Black Plague transformed into the Great Whoopie Cushion of our times. And like the whoopie cushion, it never got old. Oh, I must have punk’d the Sultan and his armies a thousand times by paying plague victims to wander into his camps along the Danube.
Those were the good old days.
500 years on, and once again the world watches in paralytic horror as it encounters a new plague on the block. A plague so frightening…so horrifying…so devastating…and so slightly inconvenient. Helplessly, we watch, eyes glued to CNN and Fox News as an alarming number of cases of moderately ill people come flooding in. And those are the lucky ones. For there have even been reports of people not recovering for nearly, almost a week. To date, over 300 adults have succumbed to this modern scourge in the United States alone. But the stricken are not the only ones who have been affected by what the experts dub H1N1 (or what laymen call Ms. Piggy’s VD). Since the beginning of fall – and concurrent with a spike in Swine Flu cases – a growing number of people have reported that social websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have been running like shit, surely bogged down by somewhat ill assholes that have nothing better to do than tweet us about some antiviral medication they took while watching Drew Carey make an utter ass of himself on “The New Price is Right”. And so, like a horde zombies (if zombies were a bunch of pussies who went into a frenzied panic about a slight temperature), they infect us all.
Jesus Wept!
What is wrong with you people? In my day, if an infection took only 300 people to the Jaws of Hades, it was considered another day at the office. We wouldn’t even bat an eyelid. In fact, we would be nothing if not relieved that only 300 friggin’ people died in one day, let alone one year. We Medieval folk appreciated what a proper scourge of humanity was. If an infection killed over a million people in 50 years, then it would be passed on to a Death Panel for consideration. And only after several years of deliberation, would it then be voted as a scourge. But now…Now it seems that it just takes one asshole feeling slightly off for everyone to fly off the handle, and run to the hills toward stockpiles of faulty vaccines.
A Proper Plague.
The Black Plague was a proper scourge. It killed 50-70 million people, and paved the way for entirely new economic systems, such as capitalism and communism. It moulded the world in a way not possible during most of human history. And you people dare treat the swine flu as if it was in the same class of illnesses? As English footballers say, the swine flu isn’t fit to lace the Bubonic Plague’s boots.
That said, I do understand where you are all coming from. I understand that everyone loves an upstart. A challenger. An underdog. I mean, who wasn’t rooting for Frank Bruno to beat Mike Tyson in 1996? We all hoped. We all prayed. We all even bigged Bruno up as a real contender who would give that rabid madman a beating. But in truth, in the core of our very hearts, we knew that he was utter crap, and that Tyson would paint the canvas with his blood. And so this is what we have with the Swine Flu. Everyone is hoping for the next Great Black Hope. But sadly, my friends, we will have to wait a little longer, for the Swine Flu is nothing if not the Frank Bruno of pathogens.
Vlad's Principality 
