A A H ME

DEADL I

HE
LAS
EACHER

ED ARDO BARRETO
Ma c 14 6 PMM
T e da e W d E ded
PART I
 The Last Teacher

If memory serves and remember the year 2020

was the beginning of the end. I .

The virus we knew then as Coronavirus, Covid-19, or whatever the hell they decided to call
it, began as what seemed like a garden-variety, flu-like virus that was only a concern of the
Eastern World. But soon, the pathogen sliced through the world like a hot knife through butter,
and it made its way to our side of the world. And once in our backyard, there was no escaping
it.

What some writers called, the original sin of the Health Care system, began - if I remember
correctly - with our collective delusion that there was no problem. We ignored the problem.
And the problem still came. I remember talk at that time about not having a test for the damn
thing, or a way to track it, hospitals with dwindling supplies and a general lack of
.G !I , ,
destroyed by the other guy.

T : -ending stream of punches. The world

economies crashed, the health-care system broke, and the combination of full hospitals and
empty public spaces .I , I
what I felt, but I remember people separated from their jobs, friends and even families. Every
aspect of our lives was disrupted; faster than 9/11, the pandemic radically changed the way
we viewed the world.

A year later, when we finally started coming out of our caves, we started to pick up the pieces
and resume normal life. Near its end, almost 2 million Americans died, with Italy and Spain
.C ,
get over all this. We were so internationally impacted by this first wave of the virus that we
even started calling those poor bastards that were either born during the chaos or too young
to have any real identity, the Gen Cor. I ,
journalists added them to the already ongoing Generation C. Except that instead of consumers
and technologically savvy, they became known as - Gen C - the generation that survived
Covid-19.

But not for long.

By the time we had all gone back to work, after pretty successfully transitioning back from
, .I
just too much, and since everything was back to normal again, I figured
worry about. So, I missed the initial signs, as I am sure others did.

As we later found out, the virus was slow, long and smart. In other words, treacherous. Those
who had recovered from the virus began to show symptoms again, this t ime more aggressive
and accelerated. I remember, in my own classroom, it began with more and more student
absences absences that later affected co-workers, and friends and family members. The
problem really was that by then we had all left the quarantine and all the measures we had
taken to protect ourselves were now forgotten. We washed our hands, sure, but we were secure
in our thinking that the hour of death had passed. This was the real silent killer.

This was what they later called the second wave of the virus. Its growth was exponential.
With less equipment, more patients, and more doctors and nurses infected, we had essentially
run out of track, but the train kept coming. Countries like China, which had manag ed to stop
the outbreak dead on its tracks, now saw a resurgence of cases in every recovered Covid -19
patient. Almost all at once, the recovered patients flooded the hospitals with new and
aggressive symptoms; added onto the regular patients and the ones still recovering from the
first wave, this tsunami swept through the world once more until it came to our shores.

Like other countries had done before, we too started playing duck duck goose with patients
all over the country to see who could be treated a .A
when things really took a turn. I , I
remember some things. The fact that the Defense Production Act was unsuccessful in the
manufacturing of medical equipment, ensured that other similar governmental band-aid
interventions dug a hole under our feet. Combined healthcare bureaucracy and a general lack
of leadership buried us in a slow, top-down, series of failed solutions. And what put the last
nail in our coffin was globalism, international travel, interconnectedness; we were just too
close for comfort, and we paid with our lives.

There was no herd immunity, like they assured us. Those who survived, only did to go back
to h , .T die with the first wave,
bought their ticket with , . The
, ind of disease you
.

F I , 20 was an abortion of civilization. I remember a headline now;

the year was 2022 ,
Christmas was death, desolation and destruction. I .
But the reality was all the same. The last name it ever received, Covid-21, was now a mutation
of its previous versions, with no functioning vaccine, and it had cut the world population by
over a quarter. In just over 3 years, every apocalyptic dream of every sci-fi writer was
becoming our nightmare. The government tried issuing indefinite quarantines as cases
, ial law without cases of
insurgence. The news fanned into flame public paranoia about resource scarcity, which
eventually led to lootings and killings, and the formation of local gangs.

It was crazy. And only the crazy survived.

Actually, as it turns out, those of us who survived, only did because we had a built -in
.W .B ;I
that out right .I now why we were
immune, since no one is left to tell us. No one that matters, anyway.
S 25, ,
were in tatters all across the nation, and the globe I guess. We, the ones who were left behind,
had no interest in sewing the world back together, I can tell you that much. Luckily, I was not
, I .F M C The Road B The Postman, every
post-apocalyptic book or movie prepared me for a tim
collapse, and every person would be left to fend for themselves. Now more than a concrete
jungle, the real jungle brought out the animal in people.

I know I already told you all of this, but I remember that one of the first things I did with my
leftover supplies was to throw a party, with the sole intent in recruiting my neighbors into
forming a gang. The only way to survive in the city is to form a gang, everybody knows that.
I put the old people in charge of patrol, and I tried to keep the kids in school, but the streets
are a much more effective teacher. There was no school anyhow, but I tried to keep teaching:
whatever English I remembered, .B of course,
you know that more than most.

The things that mattered were water, medicine, guns. Not education. So, I kept teaching, but
teaching to survive .I ;
, .I .B
only a matter of time before .I
first, the area confinements or the evacuations and relocations. What does it matter anyway,
it was all the same. Stay here. Move here. Stay again. And every time they said it was
temporary, while they found a solution. They only fooled me once, I can tell you that.

As soon as they told us to stay put, I took what I could and whomever I could and left.
Everybody else who stayed probably died. T ;
the .T .T
protect you. Only you have your best interest in mind. Only you can protect yourself. T
it. But anyway.

The in- I , . B
basically, I took what I could: building materials. Plenty of supplies. Handful of people I
could trust. And I left the city. Left and never came back. Well, never to stay. I think the time
I 27, C a and other nations where the virus had
spread out of control. Trump was still in office then;
chaos, but he only created more of his own. H , 29. I think he was only
reacting to Chinese threats of bombing New York, only a few months after they had bombed
most of England, in hopes to eradicate the virus and stop it from spreading. England was
, , .N B ,H
Kong, Wuhan and the rest, only instigated nuclear retaliation and the fallout and radiation and
. B ,
stopped ourselves -happy.

Anyway, right around that time is when we came out here and formed this community. Who
, oving to the Everglades has proven to be one of the best decisions
 , even if it is .O ,I kept returning to the
city and bad out there. A , , .

B .T I .I .
Write it all down. Tell other people. Tell them what started this whole thing and maybe we
.I .I ?I
?I I . But our community is thriving. At some point,
, ?G ?R ?I ?L ,
I 92 I 36 .W ?

But the bo couldn t count.

T 56, .I 50 .W .W .D
used to have amazing things? E .B
, .L on
the floor I I
r .I ; :I R .I .
Whatever I remember anyway. All you have to do, or whoever wants to, is to read it and put
.I , .

But the bo couldn t read.

And this story 3

weeks this story could serve as a warning, as a guide. Not just what I told you today, but
I .J get it all down, down right there on paper
or whatever you have. Just get it down and keep it, and share it with others. Just make sure
you always write it down.

But the bo couldn t rite.

T .T .W .W survive again.

And he muttered on while the boy tried to listen and understand.