To Ankle-Biter, from Necrosis

FUELING SAFETY: Graphic descriptions and mild language


I hear you are called Ebola.  First I will pay you the only compliment you will receive from me: you have gained my attention.  Since retirement, rarely does a flamboyant young pestilence in his glory days – like you, Mr. Ebola – have the stuff it takes to even turn my head.  But you’ve caused a real ruckus.  I hear from my old pal, Influenza (the inbred with all those mutated bastard children; you know the man I mean), that people are dropping dead in the east, and running rampantly terrified in the west.  I’m tempted to commend you for inspiring enough fear to make a nation question its loyalty to its citizens: do we bring our man home to treat him, or abandon him on foreign soil to avoid introducing this Ebola into our country?  What a thrilling division.  It makes me remember what a rush it is to be a disease.


But, of course, when I think of how many divisions I caused in my prime; how I rotted humankind from the inside out, until their fingernails were like tar, falling off, and bulbous sores sprouted in places no human knew sores could grow; how I cut down a third of one of the greatest countries of the world, brought slaves and rulers alike to their knees, and made man question the nature of his God, all by sending mere fleas to carry my pestilence; when I call to mind how for centuries, fear rushed to the heart of any who dared breathe just one of my infamous, harrowing names, I can’t help but be underwhelmed by you.  Because really, ankle-biter, at the end of your day, are you anything when compared to me?

It’s as the Jews sang in the book of Samuel: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”  The families will remember you, and maybe the philanthropists.  But will the world?  Will the books?  You have slain the thousands, and I have slain the millions.  I have come crawling on the backs of rats, oozing through the pus of men, wafting on the inescapable stench of death which was my kingdom’s crier.  I am not defeated; I am retired.  I live still, prepared to slaughter any who say I’ve lost my touch.  I am the Plague, the Great Pestilence, the Black Death.  I am ashes, and pockets full of posies.  I am a thousand years of screaming in the night, corpses in the street, and hopelessness in hearts.  I am necrosis.  And you?  You, my boy, are but a waste of death.