The mask came back,
they thought he was a goner,
but the mask came back…

Blazing Reader,

But the mask came back the very next year
The mask came back, they thought he was a goner
But the mask came back, it just couldn't stay away
Away, away

My son and I recently joined a musical. No, the above lyrics aren’t from one of the songs we’ll be singing.

At least, I hope not.

The first rehearsal was two Sundays ago. No one was wearing masks that day… except the vocal director for the singers 15 and under. While he seems relatively harmless, I highly doubt that (pre-COVID) most parents would have let their little kids be led into a room alone with a man wearing a black face mask.

Now, for some reason, it’s considered… safe.

Anyway, before the second rehearsal (last Sunday)  the producer sent out an email saying that many people were down with the flu and would not be attending. Then she added that the rest of us, who aren’t sick, should wear a duck-billed singer’s mask, as it was the “least we could do for each other.”

I thought she was joking.

Of the 30 or so people who attended the rehearsal, about 25 took her seriously.

No pressure was put on the five of us not wearing masks. And, by the end, I saw others ripping off their germ collectors.

The next day, I visited my mother at her retirement home, where the staff had been masked up for a month after the Ontario public “health” officer released a… memo. Yes, a memo. Not a regulation, not an order, not a letter. A memo. And a rather secretive memo at that, as I can find no copies available online.

This memo (according to the CBC) said staff needed to be masked, while it is "strongly recommended" that visitors wear masks in public areas (but not in residents' rooms, one-on-one).

Well… a memo from a man with thousands of vaccine deaths on his hands didn’t change my behaviour at all. I’ve been continuing to visit without a mask and received no backlash. But after the mask mania at the Sunday rehearsal, I was prepared for the nursing home to be more confrontational.

Instead, to my shock, when my son and I walked in on Monday, none of the staff were wearing any masks. Not a single one. We were there for 90 minutes and didn’t see anybody — staff, volunteers, guests or residents — wearing a mask.

I heard that the residents are sick of looking at masked faces. And the staff are tired of wearing them. Did they rebel? Whatever happened, I was happy to see so many faces set free.

But the irony: Here I was on Sunday in a room full of healthy young adults, teens and kids who were all wearing masks to protect themselves from each other; then the next day I’m at a nursing home with 60 elderly residents (who to say the least aren’t in the best of health) and not a single person is wearing a face diaper.

The next day I sent our producer a polite email asking why a bunch of healthy young people were performing a musical wearing medical masks and linked to my article 20 Reasons Mandatory Face Masks are Unsafe, Ineffective and Immoral.

I might follow up with a copy of my novel, Much Ado About Corona —  as chapter one opens with Vince walking into Moosehead’s new bakery, wearing a bright green mask, and being told by Stefanie, “No face, no service.” If you haven’t read it yet, you can check out the preview.

—John C.A. Manley

PS In case you were wondering, the musical my son and I are in is Anne of Green Gables. I’m a baritone singer, but maybe I’ll woke them up and insist on identifying as a soprano.

PPS And if you have already read Much Ado About Corona, why not order copies for family and friends this Christmas? Because the mask isn’t a goner yet — just like the rest of the pandemic propaganda. If you want to avoid a tyrannical future, we need to change the culture now. Stories are a time-tested way to do that.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/