Muzzling Morpheus & the "COVID Games"

Blazing Reader,

"If you presented your vaccine passport to watch the reboot 4^th film, you clearly didn’t get the point of the first Matrix."

I hadn't realized there was a fourth film, but a quick search of the web confirms it came out in 2021 (after being delayed because so many people were scared of the common cold). It looks as if Lawrence Fishburne wasn't in it. That's a relief. Muzzling Morpheus with a face mask would have been unbearable to watch.

But I think Morpheus would have agreed with Steve's point. Patrons showing their slave (vax) card to gain admittance, meant they didn't understand what the film was about at all.

As Morpheus says, "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

I feel the same bafflement with Hunger Games fans. I never saw the films, but read the trilogy to my son Jonah. I was ready to stop after the first gruesome book, but he was so eager to jump back into that bloody arena I was compelled to read on. And, honestly, I'm glad I did, as the final few chapters were worth all the murderous mutant monkey scenes.

Still, where were all the Hunger Games fans when lockdowns, mask mandates and forced injections were turning our world into one big Panem nightmare? The books sold over 26 million copies. The first film sold over 50 million tickets in the US alone. Was the story's dystopian metaphor lost on its millions of fans?

When I wrote Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, I was tempted to also set it in the future, fighting some other globalist coup. A sci-fi metaphor would have helped it get past the media gatekeepers. And those duped by the corona con wouldn't have had their guards up.

But I'm glad I didn't. I set it in 2020, in Northern Canada, and didn't hold back. Everything in it is real — except for the characters and the town of Moosehead. But, even then, the characters are true (if not real). The characters were metaphors for the veritable "Katniss Everdeens" — every day people like you and me — who refused to comply with the "COVID Games." That's what Much Ado About Corona is really about. It was NOT about exposing the con, it was about exemplifying the brave citizens who picked up the bow and arrow of truth and liberty, stood their ground and fired back at the "President Snows" of the world.

Oh, on the subject of snow...

Christmas is coming. Why not order copies as gifts and help Much Ado About Corona sell 26 million copies just like The Hunger Games?

Though, frankly, a million copies would be fine — at least as a starting point.

Even half-a-million by Christmas Day.

It's up to you: MuchAdoAboutCorona.com

—John C. A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.