The alpha and omega of Covid

January 2022

It was an ordinary Thursday night for most of the patrons at Plato’s Pub -- a little laughter about the bar’s new Hemlock Highball, some discussion about Euclid’s new book on geometry.

Zorba stared down the shaft of his cue stick, plotting his shot to crack the triangle of balls on the worn rectangular pool table. “Where’s Euclid when you need him?” he chuckled as his friend and opponent Aristotle looked on.

“He’s probably working on his next opus now, ‘Eightballs and Eyeballs’,” Ari said. “We should invite him next time.”

But in the back room, behind a heavy wooden door, the talk was grim. Alpha, sitting at one end of a long plank table, banged his gavel and asked Omega, at the other end, to take attendance, to see if all 24 members of the Greek Alphabet Group had arrived for the group’s monthly meeting.

Beta was there, Gamma and Epsilon too. In all, 22 letters were gathered, sitting strong and upright in their sturdy wooden chairs.  But Delta and Omicron were missing.

“They’re on the way,” Kappa said. “I saw them at the pharmacy. They stopped to get some headache powder.”

“I can see why,” said Beta. “They’re taking a beating in the newspapers and on the TV. They’re getting blamed for this Covid 19 epidemic when they had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“Who decided to name the covid thing after them?” Lamda asked.

“It was the Romans,” said Sigma. “They were messing around, squeezing up some new wines. They shipped out a really bad batch of one. People all around the Mediterranean started getting sick and suspecting them and their new juice.”

She continued: “The Romans didn’t want to take the heat, so they pointed a finger at us Greeks. To make things simple, they decided to name Delta and Omicron as the culprits.”

“Ignorant imbeciles,” said Kappa. “They can’t even figure out how to make numbers. They use their letters instead. Who knows when a ‘C’ is supposed to be a ‘C’ and when it’s supposed to mean ‘one hundred’?”

Everyone nodded their heads and the room fell into a long, uneasy silence as the letterati pondered this possibility. Finally Alpha spoke.

“I’m concerned that this sets a dangerous precedent. Any one of us GAGs could be next.

“What if the Egyptians, with that river Nile of theirs, get some weird new disease and don’t want to take the blame for it,” he continued. “So they decide to point the finger at us instead.”

“That could happen,” Tau agreed.  “They haven’t done anything right since they let Moses and his people escape, taking all the papyrus presses with them.  They’ve been stirring up trouble for years because they’re in a bad mood and don’t want to go back to building pyramids.”

Just then Delta and Omicron stumbled into the room, their faces bruised and puffy, their arms and legs scratched and scabbed.  They went to their chairs and collapsed.

“Sorry,” Delta mumbled.

“We’re worn out,” said Omicron.

“No, no, no,” Zeta, Eta and Theta answered. “We understand.”

“It's not your fault, for sure, for sure, for sure,” said Phi, Chi and Psi.

Iota, who hadn’t said one single word throughout the entire discussion, spoke up.

“It’s the Romans, I’m certain, because they’re just a bunch of rowdy roughnecks who want to pillage and plunder and run the whole world. I think we should strike back, and hard.

She explained: “How about we build a big, hollow wooden horse, fill it with our best special forces soldiers and leave it on the beach at Naples. When the Romans come to look at it, our troops jump out and beat the crap out of them.”

“Great idea!”  said Omega. “That would put an end to this once and for all.”

“Or how about sending them a boatload of Plato’s Hemlock Highballs?” said Tau. “You know how they like to party. I think that stuff is poisonous.”

“That’s too crude,” said Mu.  “We’re Greeks, we’re GAGs, we’re smart, we’re sophisticated. Why not give them the wrong answers to Socrates’ tests, you know, the exams everybody uses to decide who goes to the academies. That would leave the smart ones completely confused and put the dumb ones in charge.”

“I like it!” Alpha said. “I like it a lot. Classy, very classy.”

“I like it too,” Omega agreed. “Subversive. Sneaky. No one would ever suspect us. Artificial intelligence put to a good, weaponized use.”

The room broke out in cheers, with everybody banging their fists on the table and tossing periods, commas and semicolons in the air.

The noise was so loud the pool game on the other side of the door stopped. “What’s going on in there?” Zorba asked.

“Bunch of airheads, letterheads,” said Aristotle, aiming his cue stick to drive the next shot.  “Seven in the side pocket.”

The loud crack the seven made as it flashed across the table and into the leather pouch was nearly drowned out by the roar from the back room.

“Where’s Euripides?” Zorba asked. “He’d love this.”