The Siege of the Worshippers of Mammon

Under the terms of lockdown dictated by the virus all remain quietly indoors, craving no more than a return of all the world to that blessed state of normalcy that erstwhile prevailed. We pine for a return to normalcy, that neurotic state of universal victimhood in which every man was for himself, the weakest be damned, but at least people walked the streets and mixed freely.

The media has attained unprecedented heights of relevance with the level of attention focused on them. "How many cases? How many dead? Sanitize! Isolate! Should there be a lockdown?"


Restrictions on movement and speech multiply. Trade suffers, commerce languishes, transport grinds to a halt. Traffic jams? What traffic jams? The economic juggernaut is brought to it's knees.  The money is dried up in an effort to dehydrate the pandemic. Tension mounts, no word of a cure.

Every day freedom recedes into the realm of idealism, a hazy horizontal mirage, a throwback to the glorious days of normalcy, in which the dollar answered all things, and reigned supreme. But now its supplicants are perplexed.

Boxed in and nostalgic, in fear for their lives and livelihoods, the people eventually give up their rights and liberties. With the dearth of liquidity, with the money addict's supply choked to a trickle, one by one he relinquishes his hard-won heritage to secure the drug. "It is an emergency,"' he tells himself, "When this is all over I'll get it all back." All sacrifices to a god that answers not.

The dealer having cultivated the addiction has withdrawn the supply. After a long enough period, withdrawal symptoms lay waste his customer's resolve. Composure is entirely lost, and dignity abdicates in hunger's favor. The customer, totally drained of resources and driven mad by desperation, offers himself, mind soul and body, in exchange for sweet release from the torment of hunger and privation.

Suddenly with clarion blasts the brazen gates of bounty are thrown open to the starving. Behold your hero, your dealer. Behold your god, Mammon. They are received joyfully, with open arms.