Dear Stranger,
Do you know what keeps me sane these days?
Nah. Not the undying belief in the Resistance or the hope of a Utopian world. No, Mister. Not even the presence of ‘loved ones’ in these tough times or even the temporary security of an occupation.
Nope, nope. Poor folks.
What keeps me sane is my circle of memer friends and their doses of dystopian memes.
I do believe somewhere within that pandemics can be fought with memes.
But what do you fight sycophancy with?
Or worse…
“My Lady, I am not well.” Troop YNS tells me as I prepare to launch an internal attack on Kylo’s team.
“What happened?” My voice is controlled, paced, and equipped to conceal my instinctive responses.
“The virus, my Lady. I am sorry but I can no longer serve you. I caught the virus.”
“You…you what??” I said my voice was equipped to camouflage my feelings; maybe I was wrong. “But…but how could that have happened?”
“The report came in today. I tested positive.”
I wanted to shout ‘omigod’ or ‘I am so sorry’ but I was supposed to be this tough cold badass warrior, not a softie who would melt at the mention of an illness, even if it was The Virus which had the earth in its grip of late.
“You better go into quarantine, Troop YNS. I want you to discontinue any enterprise or mission you were assigned.”
“As you say, My Lady.”
“And…errr…send me a list of all the troops- anyone at all that you were in contact with for the past two weeks. They must also be tested. You may go now.”
“Thanks, My Lady.”
I suddenly felt listless. And a little less. A little less strong? A little less confident? Overall, just a little less. I was scared now. I mean, I am not easy to scare. I am a part of the Dark Lord’s squad; so, I am not exactly a paper tiger. But the thought of someone so close actually getting afflicted made me feel weak. Helpless. Afraid. That meant anything could happen, right? Anything at all.
“I want everyone to assemble for a council right away.” I barked into my microphone. I needed to take stock of my team, my troops. I was made of my team. I was almost nothing without it.
While the team gathered, I pondered on whether I had driven the team too hard, if I had caused everyone to take too many unnecessary risks just to get ahead of Kylo or the general bigwigs on the planet. I felt a trifle guilty.
“Lead Troop A. Lead Troop TI.”
“Yes, My Lady.” They marked their attendance. My lead troops were the ones I relied on the most.
“Troop ET. WU. DI. FT. MN. Troop YNS.”
“Yes, My Lady.” They chorused together.
“As we all know, the world is in a turmoil and today, so are we…”
I informed them about YNS as was my duty and told four of them who had worked with him on certain assignments the past two weeks to go for a test. Once I had made my message clear, I dismissed them all.
“My Lady, I hadn’t really come in contact with YNS. I just frequented the same headquarters that he went to, but on another day.” That was Lead Troop A. “I don’t even have any symptoms. Do I still need to go for a test?”
“You should, ideally. But if you don’t have any symptoms, you could perhaps go for a week’s lockdown and see.”
“Sure, My Lady.”
Damn. One of my troops was down. The rest were getting themselves checked. What was I supposed to do?
Well, inform the Dark Lord, for one.
I asked for a personal council with the Dark Lord.
“My Lord.” I began. “One of my troops tested positive for the virus.”
“What??” The Dark Lord turned his rare attention to me. “Who was it?”
“Troop YNS. I think it was one of those crowded sites, which forms part of his assigned areas.”
“How stupid of him to have caught the virus!” The Dark Lord spat. “Why couldn’t he have taken proper precautions?”
For a second, I couldn’t speak. I literally had no words.
How do you fight this…this absence of logic? This stubbornness and lack of umm…practicality?
Sigh. I have only one weapon now. And that’s what I use as I flip open my datapad and start trawling through the thousand-odd memes that keep me afloat during these difficult days.
May the meme tribe grow! Amen.
Meme-ing her heart out,
The Rogue Stormtrooper
