Learning from the Mad Hatter in the Year of COVID-19

Hmmm, should we step
through the looking-glass to redeem 2020?

Today is Halloween. But
there will be few trick-or-treaters at our door this year. Halloween is all but
officially cancelled in the year of COVID-19.

Daylight Savings Time
ends this weekend. We fall back and gain an hour. But we will be at loose ends
trying to figure out what to do with that hour with the restrictions in place.

Coincidentally, Facebook changed its layout this week.
Normally that annoys me to no end. But it hardly seems worth a second thought
in the current situation.

And then, right on cue, Alice Through the Looking-Glass graced
the television screen last night. Absolem
as a blue butterfly came beckoning for Alice. Alice obediently followed through
the looking-glass, stepped through a magical portal and fell into Wonderland
again.

But a pall has fallen
over Wonderland. The Mad Hatter is just not himself. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum, the White Rabbit, Princess Mirana and the Cheshire Cat are quite
concerned. Meanwhile, the Red Queen
is scheming for a way to take advantage of the situation.

Alice meets the
personification of Time and asks to turn back time to save Hatter’s lost family. Denied this request, she absconds with the Chronosphere– a glowing, spinning, metallic sphere
that allows a person to travel the Ocean of Time to the past.

The first three events
above are real life. The fourth, of course, is fantasy. But Alice Through the Looking-Glass seems
the more relevant to me at this moment.

Six months ago we fell
through the COVID-19 rabbit hole and landed in a Wonderland of shuttered stores
and social bubbles. We obediently closed our doors to flatten the curve. Tea
parties cancelled until further notice. Multi-coloured face masks the new
fashion trend. Working from home became the norm if you are fortunate enough to
be still employed.

2020 is very much Alice Through the Looking-Glass come to
life. Fantasy crossing the border of fiction and becoming reality. Our most
fervent desire is to engage the Chronosphere, turn back time and head off the
COVID-19 Jabberwocky before it takes
hold.

I am getting carried
away with this metaphor. But it seems so apt I cannot help myself. Confession:
I have always identified with the Mad
Hatter – an eccentric sort who goes his own way and finds meaning in what
others consider absurd. And the rebellious but loyal Alice is my kind of
friend.

We are in a strange year
in the unfathomable Ocean of Time. But there is much to be learned for the days
that lay ahead from the Mad Hatter, his
motley but loyal social circle and Alice’s determination to put things right
despite the odds against her.

~ Now
Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting
Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also
the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which
was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s
website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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