Word of the Week #296:
In the winter of 2019, Covid strikes. By the following spring, the entire world has come to a standstill.
Artists, freelancers and daily wagers, like Mr. Grasshopper, are hit first and hit hard. With the entire population stuck indoor, they no longer have any money coming in.
Salarymen and office workers are not spared either. A large number of them, like Mr. Ant, lose their jobs.
Though Mr. Ant did have some savings, the future still looks bleak, as nobody knows when the pandemic would end and when—or even if—people would get their jobs back. As the stock market continues to plummet, so do a lot of Mr. Ant’s investments. Very soon, his saving do not look as reassuring as they did before the pandemic.
As bad as things are for him, Mr. Ant knows they are worse for Mr. Grasshopper.
Mr. Grasshopper never had any savings to rely on; he always spent whatever he made and only lived from one paycheque to the next. Thus, within a week or two, he would run out of money for food and rent.
One day, Mr. Ant calls Mr. Grasshopper over Zoom, the latest fad that was defining the new Covid-stricken world.
Mr. Grasshopper is initially reluctant to take the call. He is ashamed of his situation and is afraid Mr. Ant would just chastise him for not having been cautious.
However, to his surprise, Mr. Ant is compassionate and kind. They both agree that there was no way they could have predicted this calamity or prepared for it enough. Now, all they could do was find a way forward.
After spending a few minutes every day reconnecting with each other, Mr. Ant and Mr. Grasshopper start discussing the ideas they have to work together to find a way out of their financial problems.
Finally, by the end of the week, they have a plan in place. It is a risky plan, but it is the best one they have.
One month into the pandemic, Mr. Grasshopper and Mr. Ant are ready to unveil the fruit of their collaborative effort: “Bugs Just Wanna Have Fun”, a new single recorded entirely over Zoom.
As Mr. Grasshopper had been telling everyone for the past several years, he really was just a viral hit away from really making it, and he did, thanks to Mr. Ant’s friends who helped them with their technical skills and marketing acumen.
Using the money from the single, Mr. Ant and Mr. Grasshopper produce the complete album, It’s A Hard-Bug Life, featuring hits like “Sweet Pupa O’ Mine”, “Another Mite Bites the Dust”, “Born To Flutter”, and “Smells Like Larval Spirit”.
With their friendship renewed and their crises averted, Mr. Ant and Mr. Grasshopper both come out of a catastrophe stronger than they had entered.
Why? Because they come to respect their differences and appreciate what they have in common. They truly care for each other. In the toughest of times, they could trust each other.
Mr. Grasshopper can see how much Mr. Ant respects and appreciates his skills, as he is willing to invest all the time and money he has left into the album.
Mr. Ant, on the other hand, sees that his friend is not as immature as he had earlier seemed.
Together, they are strong enough to handle anything. And that is the moral of A Hard-Bug Life.
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