THE SAFROX PLAGUE
It’s difficult to make sense of the news nowadays. There have been so many scare stories recently that even the most gullible amongst us are beginning to believe that the authorities are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. There are only so many tales of doom and destruction that are credible before the public suspects that their leaders are crying wolf. The Safrox Plague is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
The Anticlock propaganda machine had been making such a song and dance about the dangers of alien forces invading the Empire, about the need to build the Great Wall to keep our foreign enemies at bay; and then nothing actually happened. The population at large grew sceptical. The word on the street was that it was just the government manipulating us with mind games to keep us under control.
I think that someone at the Anticlockwise command centre must have realised that this was happening. They decided that they needed to put on a real show to demonstrate that it wasn’t just a stream of empty words – hence the arrival of the Safrox Plague.
Now I’m not saying necessarily that the government let loose a deadly plague on its own people – not exactly. It’s just that the timing coincided miraculously with a growing sense of cynicism among the population at large, especially in Globopolis which is particularly vulnerable to conspiracy theories.
The Great Wall was an abstract concept. We never experienced it close up. It was a gigantic invisible screen in the sky above defending us against alien dangers, allegedly keeping us safe from marauding Safronikan terrorists and random meteors that might shatter our lives beyond repair.
The Plague though was different. It was real. It insinuated itself into the very fabric of our lives, slowly poisoning our minds and bodies, making us fearful of contact with our neighbours, with our friends, even with members of our own family. Cynicism rapidly disappeared. We became highly suspicious of all foreigners, all aliens who might be incubating the deadly poison in their bloodstream. Everyone became suspicious of everybody else, not knowing who might infect them with the deadly virus. We all started distancing ourselves from anybody who looked even vaguely contagious.
I wasn’t like other people though because I was alone. I only had myself to think about. All my family had been forced to flee to Safronika, so they were many miles away and safe from the plague. When you’ve only got yourself to worry about, it’s not the same. You don’t have the same sense of moral responsibility. You’re much more willing to take risks. At least, that’s what I thought until Clancy became ill. That changed everything. I hadn’t realised how fond I’d grown of Clancy until I was confronted with the idea that he might be on the verge of dying.
Clancy had woken up one morning complaining of searing migraines, coughing fits, chest pains, fever and general tiredness. I took one look at his ghostly pale face and bloodshot eyes, and suspected immediately that he was in the first stages of the Safrox Plague. By midday, he could barely speak because of the pains in his chest and his difficulty in breathing.
Olaf, our mad dog supervisor, naturally reported his illness to the authorities and Clancy was rushed into the nearest isolation unit where no visitors were allowed. Afterwards Clancy told me that he had been threatened with deportation unless he recovered within a few days. They couldn’t allow undesirables to be hanging around in Anticlockwise spreading infectious diseases indiscriminately.
I couldn’t sleep. I was terrified that I’d never see Clancy again. He was the only real friend I had in Anticlockwise other than Tia. I never cease to be amazed how death concentrates the mind. Your whole existence is suddenly focused on the fleeting nature of life when death is hovering nearby.
Fortunately, it was a false alarm. Clancy recovered after two days and was allowed to re-join us at Infinity Gateway. His lungs had miraculously cleared of inflammation. He hadn’t required intensive care. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and gradually fell back into my daily routine.
But the memory stays with me. Over the past few days I’ve been reflecting on the whole incident. Tens of thousands of people died during the Safrox Plague. Most of us are convinced that the Anticlocks deliberately unleashed the deadly virus against us, the `undesirables’, to keep us in a state of fear and to eliminate people they did not like.
It strikes me that the plague would almost certainly have been called the`Anticlock Pox’ had it been the Safronikans who had been suffering from it. Here though, in Anticlockwise, it was nicknamed the Safrox Plague because the Anticlocks needed to find a convenient scapegoat. The Safronikans, their deadly enemies, were the obvious target for linguistic assassination.
What is clear to me now is that at the heart of Anticlockwise lies fear, a deep-rooted sense of anxiety and dread that alien external forces will invade the Empire and show it up for what it is – a sham. Fear is so deeply ingrained in their psyche that they’re even prepared to murder their own citizens to ensure that all thoughts of rebellion are crushed.
Fear is a deadly motivator.
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