It descends on you and sits on your chest like the mythological creatures of sleep paralysis lore. It is the "bear encounter in the forest" of maladies: the body knows it well enough, and the mind confirms it; better sit still and be careful with this one, this thing could really hurt me.
You can do what you can to mind your step. Eat well, drink fluids, get rest, stay calm and avoid too much stress. But as with the bear, the conditions could just be bad, who knows? The big bastard could charge anyway after you've made yourself smaller, lowered your eyes, and backed away.
Unlike the bear, at least in the built environment, the virus is everywhere. You can try to be as careful as you can, say, isolated and removed, but you can't stay in that sterilized box forever. The whip of hunger drives you out, and ultimately the whip of the wage gets you moving and agitated and spreading further.
And out there, the virus sits and waits on shiny steel knobs and gleaming counters; it rests patiently on plastic buttons and glass screens, and occasionally it even hangs silently in the air.
Here in the United States, the Masters just don't care. And headless, the body politic flails in confusion. And the human detritus from the slow motion wreckage is sent out haphazardly to strike what it will and crash into itself, and the virus spreads.
But spiritually things are very hot and charged. And they're getting hotter. What will we be?
