Defiantly you marched into the supermarket, without a mask in an era of Covid-19.  No governor, no social pressure, no concern of neighbor would force you to wear a mask.  No sanitizing wipes will you use on the shopping cart.  No extra washing of hands will you tolerate.  Walking down the produce isle, watching people avoid you, getting out of your way, no 6 foot rule will you abide?   Does that make you feel powerful?  If others insist, let them scramble out of your path, “I am free, no one my motions to restrict” is your motto.  Standing by the meat isle as the masked 74 year old woman walks past, she trying to avoid you, and you oblivious to the risk you present, dare SARS-CoV-2 to infect her.  She has a better chance of surviving a game of Russian roulette than your infectious glance.   But that is her problem, not yours?  Like Cain in Genesis, the murderer, you ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Of course the answer is yes, you just don’t get it yet.  You ignore the question.

How am I to think of you?  Perhaps you cannot afford a mask, but then, your confident stance, your defiant attitude seems to make this unlikely.  If you asked I would give you one.  Perhaps you have a psychological disorder that makes wearing a mask a generator of trauma.  But you stance is defiant, not concerned.  Your defiant stance, your cavalier attitude that we are all fools and you are the one who knows best, seems to argue against rational explanations.   All the experts are wrong, you are right, there is no risk, it is a conspiracy of the left.  Absorbed in your self-confined world, you accept no limitations of your own ego, I know best for everyone, seems to be your motto.  Yet that little piece of RNA we call SARS-CoV-2 knows none of this.  It has no brain, it has no intention, it has no purpose, it will infect all who absorb enough of it.  And you, oh mightily self-sufficient manly “ I will not wear a mask” soul, are nothing more than the transfer vehicle for an a hunk of RNA from yourself to an innocent person who just happened to be near you.  You are nothing but the vehicle for a microscopic piece of RNA, which has outwitted you.

Your refusal to accept the situation makes it more likely that you have the virus; you just don’t know it yet.   In the final accounting, how many lives will you be responsible for ending?  Is that a matter of pride for you?  If this is your attitude? I must assume you are affected.  Perhaps you are not, but since you are not taking precautions, you have a higher probability of being a carrier than that 74 year old woman you just condemned to death.

I tried to avoid you, but you made that difficult, was that deliberate?  Perhaps when you face St. Peter you will be faced with all the people you infected, and especially those you killed.  Perhaps I may be among them.  Do you feel powerful?  You are, we are, all of us are, we are also powerless.  The question we all face in this era is about our relationship to others.  Is it all about me?  Is my freedom worth other people’s lives? 

The choice:  wear a mask, or the 74 year old woman passing you by dies.  What is your answer?  Your answer says a lot about who you are.

(This was stimulated by my experience within a food store. It however conflates several instances that occurred during the same visit, but one make unmasked individual, whom I do not know…)

David A. Larrabee 5/14/2020