Once upon a time there was a young urban woman in her late 30s who found herself in a lockdown during a pandemic.
She was already making her own sourdough bread and was culturing kefir and kombucha. She was nursing a clay pot of kimchi under her sink and hadn't bought anything factory made in more than a year.
And when everyone started sewing their own face masks she decided to take things further. She got out a spindle and began spinning her own yarn from recycled cotton shavings and organically sourced hemp fiber.
What she did not know, however, was that her family had accumulated a number of curses over the course of a few centuries. They had been forgotten because for many generations encountering a spindle had been about as likely as getting hit by lightening.
So when this young woman (let's call her Rose) pricked her finger on the spindle (it was her first time spinning yarn, after all), not only did she fall asleep,
but so did the rest of the world. This curse was more contagious than SARS-CoV-2. Within hours it had engulfed the globe.
What happened next was that the virus was stopped in its tracks. With no one moving it about it could spread no further and after a few weeks of global coma it injected its RNA into a human cell for the last time
and quietly died out.
Life could have resumed, but unfortunately the curse required that our Rose be kissed by a handsome prince, otherwise she (and everyone else) would need to stay asleep for another 100 years.
She was already making her own sourdough bread and was culturing kefir and kombucha. She was nursing a clay pot of kimchi under her sink and hadn't bought anything factory made in more than a year.
And when everyone started sewing their own face masks she decided to take things further. She got out a spindle and began spinning her own yarn from recycled cotton shavings and organically sourced hemp fiber.
What she did not know, however, was that her family had accumulated a number of curses over the course of a few centuries. They had been forgotten because for many generations encountering a spindle had been about as likely as getting hit by lightening.
So when this young woman (let's call her Rose) pricked her finger on the spindle (it was her first time spinning yarn, after all), not only did she fall asleep,
but so did the rest of the world. This curse was more contagious than SARS-CoV-2. Within hours it had engulfed the globe.
What happened next was that the virus was stopped in its tracks. With no one moving it about it could spread no further and after a few weeks of global coma it injected its RNA into a human cell for the last time
and quietly died out.
Life could have resumed, but unfortunately the curse required that our Rose be kissed by a handsome prince, otherwise she (and everyone else) would need to stay asleep for another 100 years.
Dear reader, can you imagine where this prince might come from?
Or if there was one at all?
Find out in our next episode of The Sleeping Beauty solution!
to be continued