War of The Worlds - 2020 ver.

Anticlimactic.

That is what I felt the ending of H.G. Wells's science fiction War of The Worlds. After the alien attack that caused chaos to the whole world started with a deafening sound in Woking, we went through the protagonist troubling times. Suddenly the sky went silent. All the tripods stopped moving. The aliens have been defeated.

All because of the unlikely hero - the pathogens. Apparently with all the planning and high tech of the aliens to conquer Earth, they forgot about this small detail.

I don't think I'm alone with this opinion. All the screen's adaptation of the fiction has neglected the original ending. Even the latest Tom Cruise's adaptation have the humans fighting lasers with the aliens.

Wells must have given a long thought to his ending though. The ending words of the novel are, "slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this Earth."

After more than 100 years, his words still struck true with the current global Covid19 pandemic.

Personally for me, this pandemic brings out the worst of us all. Humans are chaos driven. Being left alone without control, we will destroy ourselves. 

When the pandemic first started, most of us are in denial that the virus will come to our shores.

When the MCO first announced, the moronic in our genes made us did the exact opposite. Turning for the worst, social distancing's manual book had been thrown out the window with overcrowding at the TBS, panic buying at the stores, and last but not least the balik kampung crowd in the last minutes.

When the 1st stage of MCO, we still have the entitled that thinks that it would be OK for them to jog and bike on the roads and the parks. We have seen viral cases of entitled drivers even the MCO almost reached the end of the 2nd stage. Even being quarantined, we still have the audacity to show our arrogance (read stupidity). 

Some might suggest that we act this way because this is an invisible threat, but I don't think that is true. We've had the Lahad Datu experience previously. Our collective response wasn't all that great. We're divided then and we're are still divided.

Then come the beauty of Covid19. It really doesn't discriminate, isn't it?

It doesn't care if you're royalty.

It doesn't take bribe even if you're got money that can last for seven generations.

It doesn't care if you're prays to God.

It doesn't believe in racism.

And it certainly doesn't give a rat's ass whether you're young or old.

It will just smack you hard in the face (or lungs literally) once it got hold of you.

The scary part is that everyone of Earth are feeling entitled. This isn't confined geographically. Every country that countered this infection will have the same problem managing it. It is in this pandemic that we will see whether our leaders and ourselves are up to it.

I'll admit that there are some great deeds Malaysian showed during this pandemic. Well, unfortunately I'm a pessimist. I expect the worst.

The worst is yet to come.