361 • Pandora’s Boxing Day
‘These microbes must stay in the flask!’
You begged to be given the task.
But it snowed, and you slipped
Down the steps to the crypt.
‘Will superglue mend it?’ you ask …
When tremors were rocking Qatar
My genie got out of the jar
When I bade him return
And repair his cracked urn
His answer was, ‘Ha bloody ha.’
‘Twas the day after Christmas … and we suddenly had time to try a little remembrance of things past. Back when we all assumed the pandemic was a gambit in the column-inches war. Back when we imagined rogue science might be to blame. Back when the spirit world was obviously exacting vengeance on an iniquitous civilization. But now we know better … if we do … will we predict, prepare, react better? Or have the Genies truly left the building, leaving their self-styled ‘masters’ holding the bottle (that’s ‘fiasco’ in Italian, of course) and counting the cracks?