Remembering — A Coronavirus Fable
My daughter, Marea Goodman, recently took an online workshop with my writing mentor, Laura Davis, and one of the prompts was to write a children’s story or fable about the coronavirus. I was so charmed by this short story, that I wanted to share it with you. The lovely picture was drawn by my granddaughter, Amada Ruizquez.
Remembering —
A Coronavirus Fable
by Marea Goodman
Once upon a time, in the year 2020, a vast illness came over all the land, and everything stopped. It was as if Gods, Goddesses and the Spirits of Land and Sea pushed the pause button on the remote control of the world. Car stopped driving. Planes stopped flying. Meetings, everywhere, were canceled.
Humans, frightened and humbled, were told that they all must stay home or risk the wrath of the illness, the likes of which they had never been seen before.
With the world on pause, humans were perplexed.
“What do we do now?” they asked themselves, and each other, many times a day.
Then, one by one, city by city, country by country, humans began to remember.
They remembered a time when there was no pollution in the sky, and soil rich with earthworms surrounded their homes instead of concrete walkways and asphalt roads. They began to remember how beautiful it was to simply be together, not always rush around.
The Gods and Spirits were pleased. Because as wise, all-knowing beings, they knew that the long-term survival of all species on Earth depended on humans remembering.
For months they observed the people of the world gazing at their newborns, gardening, cooking, singing songs, sitting together, and rejoicing in their newfound love of life.
And once the Gods and Spirits were certain that enough humans had remembered to the point that they could never forget, they banished the illness to the darkest depths of the ocean.
Cautiously, with wonder and awe on their faces, humans began to leave their homes and create their lives anew.
And the world was never the same again.
Drawing by Amada Ruizquez, Marea’s daughter