The Waking Nightmare

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Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

Like most people, I have dreams.  In this context, not the goal-oriented life-focused kind of dream, but rather the gauzy ambiguous visitor that comes in the night.  Most times, I wake up with the images rapidly fading from my mind, never to be recalled.  But once in awhile, one arrives with enough impact to stay.

In my dream, I'm out walking, something I do while awake several times per week.  The sun is shining, but suddenly a shadow passes over me.  I look up to see a hawk circling, eyeing me in a disquietingly speculative manner.  I continue to walk, but suddenly there is a whoosh just over my head.  I look up again to see the raptor banking sharply for another pass.  In my dream, I cannot run or even dodge and as the bird swoops ever closer, I begin to feel afraid.  Somehow I know that eventually the hawk will strike home, its claws sinking into the back of my neck.

Yeah, I know.  Stephen King stuff.

Now, I rarely have nightmares, as I am generally speaking a happy and upbeat kinda guy.  But this was different.  Dreams and nightmares, according to the experts, are reflections of the subconscious, mirroring the unspoken and unrecognized fears that somehow never make it to the surface.  So, for the past few days, I've ruminated over those images, and I think I figured out what birthed the unwelcome nighttime visitor.  

Like everyone else on this planet, people in the U.S. in general, here in Hawai'i in particular are feeling for the first time, a very real sense of this Pandemic.  The feelings started with dismissiveness, and elevated to discomfort, then concern, worry, and now fear.  As with most events, it started as being something that was remote; happening far away.  But as time has passed, it has come ever closer and therefore, more personal.  The precise mode of transmission from person to person is still not fully known, as well as how long the virus particles can survived in the open air and on surfaces.  Sure, we engaged in mitigating activities -- masks, social distancing, staying away from large gatherings -- but the circle of infection seems to be closing in on all of us.  And as time passes, it seems almost inevitable that we will be infected.  

Hence, the dream.  The hawk is the virus, circling in the air around me.  Like a predator, it circles ever closer.  There doesn't seem to be any place to hide; no sanctuary, no wall of protection to stand between us and the virus.  With dread certitude, it seeks us out.

But viruses, while living things, should not be anthropomorphized.  They're not evil supervillains, bent on deliberate death and destruction,  Like all organisms, simple and complex, it merely seeks to continue to live and reproduce.  That it is hostile to other lifeforms is merely coincidence.  One could make the same claim about humans.  Perhaps it is the mindless, remorseless nature of the beast that scares us so.

There is a story that exists within the Cheyenne lore of a band which had been infected with the deadly smallpox.  As the people died around them, the warriors dressed in all their battle gear, mounted their horses, and challenged the disease to come out and fight like a man.  We feel the same frustration.  It would be better, we think, if there was something we could squash, or punch.  That might be a meaningful, if visceral act of defense.  But viruses can't be shot, stabbed, struck, or squashed.  They do their thing until the rise of herd immunity eliminates potential targets.

There have been pandemics in the past.  Eventually, they burned themselves out, leaving in their wake a lot of dead humans.  Nobody knows it it will happen this time, because science still doesn't know enough about the virus and how it works.  The answers are out there, and eventually will be found.  Vaccines are edging closer to reality, albeit the speed and haste of their development could result in unintended consequences normally eliminated through years, even decades of testing and evaluation.

Fear rules the land, and the fears will continue to grow.  At one point, if you weren't north of 70 years old and beset with a host of other medical issues, there was nothing to worry about.  Now, however, infections are happening in every age, and racial demographic.  Nobody is immune (yet) and there are those stubborn idiots who insist on engaging in every activity that guarantees the spread of the virus.  

As the numbers continue to climb, governments will eventually be pushed into draconian measures, such as hard shutdowns and mandatory self-quarantines.  People won't be allowed out of their homes unless they work in critical jobs or for quick trips to the grocery stores and drug stores for necessary supplies.  National economies, already teetering on the brink, will begin to crash.  Communities will disintegrate as people's circle of concern contracts to only immediate family. Cities will become ghost towns, and in the countryside, people will take strong measures to ensure the safety of their families.

Whatever scenarios exist beyond that point are just too dark to think about.

For now, all we can do is try to keep our heads, suppress the fear.  Obey the rules, and don't think that a beach party or a social gathering is more important than our greater responsibilities toward the safety of society at large.

These are enormously difficult times.  We are walking a dark and dangerous path because its the only way to get through to the other side of this valley of death.  We can do this.  But it has to be done together, sharing the adversities of the journey and helping each other.  It is the nature of humanity to be unselfish and caring.  

This, then, becomes our test.  What kind of humans will we choose to be?