An Open Letter from Mother Nature
Dear Woman and Man,
cc: Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, Elvis (you were always my favorite)
It’s been a while since I last got in touch. I think it was after that flood thing, or maybe the last bacteria outbreak, I think you called it the Black Death. Nice. I get so desperate I have to step in and you come up with cute names. Kids.
Anyway, you’re not going to like what I have to say this time. But first, I don’t think I ever mentioned, that moon thing was really cool. Good for you.
Anyway, I repeat, you’re not going to like what I have to say this time.
You and your technology. Will you never learn? Yes, it enables you to outpace all my other little creatures and chase them out of every corner of our nice little planet. And you trash the oceans and sky. Oh, and now you’re leaving your detritus even outside the atmosphere??? You know I have no sway up there… not my territory. Makes me wonder who you’re actually &$#@’n with up there when you trash their space. Good luck with them. I hear they have wrath.
So, you want to have 7 billion? Or is 8 enough? 10… 20? How ‘bout if you’re face-to-face in your cities with 1 square foot per person? Will you stop then? You know, I don’t literally create things like this new virus. I just made one genius invention… a molecule that clones itself and simultaneously makes sloppy copies every once in a while so things stay interesting. Brilliant, eh? It has worked pretty well for 1.2 billion years, then you come along. You were one of my proudest creations for the longest while, never mind the occasional infighting. (I heard from a peer that they have Arabs and Israelis on her planet, too. Kill each other just like here. Whatever, goes with the job.) Love your brains. Maybe my proudest moment. They say it has more connections than stars in the Milky Way or something like that. But the technology thing, you gotta get it under control.
So here’s how it works. I just make the seeds. And what grows grows. Don’t misunderstand. Molecules nearly identical to lovely little corona probably occurred countless billions of times previously. (You know there’s more viruses in your mouth than fish in the sea? I learned that in Viruses: A Very Short Introduction. We’ll get back to fish later.) You guys simply gave this latest instance the perfect conditions… lots of moist lungs practically stacked on top of one another.
Gotta admit, though, this one was special. Doesn’t show its hand until it’s found another ten or so ‘friends.’ Works at a distance. Uses some just for the ride. Keeps the kids around just to hop generations. Kills randomly but fiercely. (I should get the Novel prize! Get it?) But that part about killing in days, my system’s got nothing to do with that… it’s just the breaks. The system is just life and death; my system had nothing about misery built in, it just happens. Not my fault. I didn’t create your lungs or the little bugger that eats them… I just made the DNA thing. If you got a problem with that, you got a problem with life. Grow up. Clean up your act. Stop trashing everything. Stop spawning like frikin’ fish; haven’t you been out of the water for like a 100 million years?
If you don’t stop, maybe you should consider this: there’s no guarantee that the next one won’t be worse… it’s completely out of my hands. You think this one will go away and you’ll have peace and quiet for a while? No guarantee of that either. What if the next one has the silent infectiousness of cv but that cool — I mean horrendous — virulence of a hemmorhagic fever. Now there’s a virus to make your heart warm! I’ll bet that would get your population down fer shur.
Talk to you soon, and remember, I love all my children — humans, naked mole rats, viruses — equally.
Love,
Mom
