In this story of the Toulouse journalist Dominique Delpiroux … Many wanted to believe in this famous “world after”. During the long months that the vaccination campaign lasted, many voices asked the question, “and if we finally changed everything … ”
Yeh! Professor Achille Kalkaneom jumped up in his chair in front of his computer screen. In quick succession, he had just received the last three messages he was expecting. And the response was positive … it worked!
So, he put his little fingers in his mouth to part his lips and make “wheatgrass”, he bombarded his chest with King Kong style punches and walked around his chair three times, uttering cries of Indians.
Because Professor Achille Kalkaneom was a mad scientist. Not like Einstein, with his dust-collecting mustache and electrified hair. Not like Tournesol, with its eyeglasses at the bottom of the bottle. Not like Professor Raoult with his prophetic beard. No, he had a normal, rather round face, but there, with the effect of joy, he looked furiously like a frog singing in the shower.
His joy was immense, for the secret project, the one he had been cooking up for years, was on the way to succeed. He had woven his web with the help of a dozen other scientists around the world. Given the importance of the project, they too respected an order of absolute discretion. However, the evolution of the global pandemic came at a strategic moment when it was going to be able to enter the track, in majesty!
Because besides his occult works which amused him a lot, Professor Kalkaneom was a real scholar. A very great scientist, one of the greatest virologists in the world. As he was – our readers will have understood – a tad eccentric, he had not joined the big pharmaceutical groups which would have made him a golden bridge, to come and put his pipettes at home. So he had created his own laboratory a long time ago, and as he was probably crazy, but not stupid, Achille Kalkaneom was at the head of a respectable company, which supplied the whole world with great drugs, from cancer drugs. very effective, to anti-hiccup marshmallows (radicals!), to synthetic elbow grease that put an end to osteoarthritis, to banana pills to find a smile.
In those years, times were no laughing matter; since the start of the epidemic, in the face of the coronavirus and in the search for a vaccine, all laboratories have been floundering in rough cultures and capricious DNAs. Of course, several kinds of vaccines had already been developed, which had been administered to the population. Over time, we realized that these injections only protected patients for a certain time. And that, after a year or two, the disease that we had driven out the door would return through the window. With the same procession of coughing fits, half-masted sense of smell, deflated lungs and saturated hospitals.
It all ended up bringing the world economy to its knees. No country was spared: there had been a second wave, then a third, a fourth, and we were in the twelfth.
Suffice to say that the whole world was in great suffering. Poverty had exploded, the middle classes began to unscrew, too, in the precipice, following the poorest. The anger of the governed was at its height. The “magic money” released by the great powers and the supporters of finance was no longer sufficient to heal social wounds.
And then people got more and more depressed. Family units were becoming hell. The school was absorbing more and more regular children’s terrors. The distance lessons scattered the students to the four corners of the drift, delinquency, addiction, terrorism, horrible puzzle way. Already, survivalists were arming themselves, taking refuge, threatening. Every forest was stormed by Rambo from the tin can, Robinson from the conspiracy. The others felt helplessly as the ship sinking …
As soon as this damn coronavirus arrived, Professor Kalkaneom had sensed that the vaccine would be much more difficult to manufacture than what the big labs wanted to say. And that finding a cocktail that definitely protects, that was the real challenge.
So, in parallel with his secret research, he launched his teams on the development of an effective home product forever. For that, it had taken much more time, much more hindsight, and above all an infinitely longer trial period. This time he was on the right track. His vaccine solution was 99% effective again after three years, and everything suggested that this immunity was therefore acquired forever. He was the only one on the planet with the miracle formula.
Was he going to be able to save the world from this chaos that seemed inevitable? In any case, at this moment of the pandemic, all the governments of the world, learning that his work offered the ultimate hope, turned to him. His “modest” laboratory was going to have to produce in a few months in the seven billion doses, history of protecting all the inhabitants of a planet in danger.
Seven billion doses? Never mind, blurted out Professor Achille Kalkaneom. Who was jubilant inside.
Because he was going to be able to do a double blow, but that, he alone and a few initiates, his closest collaborators, who had participated in the project, knew it!
And so, we began to produce in industrial quantities, the long-awaited miracle remedy, which was to allow humanity to get rid once and for all of Covid-19 and its procession of ambulances and hearses.
What the general public did not know is that in each of the seven billion doses, something was added …
– Ah, people are right to believe in the conspiracy theory! rejoiced the hot Achilles, rubbing his plump little hands. Ah, ah, ah, if they knew what I added to their dose of anti-corona!
All the states put the package so that the population can be vaccinated, from infants to the elderly. In the meantime, given the havoc the disease had wreaked around the world, the anti-vaccines were no longer heard at all. Only a few enlightened people preferred to join the survivalists and take refuge in the woods, with stocks of dried beans, cans, toilet paper and hydroalcoholic gel.
Conversely, after this immense shock which had caused the death of millions and millions of unfortunate people, many wanted to believe in this famous “world after”. During the long months that the vaccination campaign lasted, many voices asked the question: “And if finally, we changed everything!” If we could finally be more reasonable, more tolerant, more ecological, more fraternal, finally, if we could be more human… ”
Everyone, from Vancouver to Bombay, from Moscow to Antananarivo, from Rio to Stockholm, politicians, philosophers, artists, writers, journalists, sportsmen… each one called for a different “after”. As the mortality curves fell, everyone began to dream that this time, at last, we were heading towards a better world.
In six months, thanks to the Achilles vaccine, the epidemic was stopped. Phew! And then…
First, everyone rushed to ratify the Paris climate agreement, which was dozing in the back of a drawer, and then the president of China, where the pandemic had started, signaled that his government wanted propose to the country a new constitution. On reading the text, we rubbed our eyes in all the chanceries. In North Korea, a small group of officers gently deposed the boss, and proposed a referendum for unification with South Korea. In Afghanistan, the Taliban announced that they wanted to give more place to women in their society. In India, people began to say that the caste system was most unjust and that it was urgently needed to end it. American citizens eventually admitted that walking around with guns in their pockets might not be the best thing. Eastern countries voted marriage for all; bikinis flourished in Saudi Arabia; in France, during a cabinet reshuffle, citizens felt that, for the first time, competent people were being put on in responsibilities, a real revolution since 1789. And, strangely, we no longer heard Jean-Marie Bigard…
In his office, Professor Achille Kalkaneom watched his news with a broad smile. Ah, yes, his secret vaccine, against bullshit, was really effective!
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