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Question of the day: Should the elderly sacrifice themselves?
Translated from Dutch. View the original post
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We have been attacked by a virus that is quite harmless to young, healthy people, but the elderly have refused to sacrifice themselves for the common good and have again demanded that young people risk their future in order to protect vulnerable older people.”
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer hears a conversation between two men.
Like you're so young
Ilya Leonard Pfeijffer
Diary Coronavirus
I waited in line for my tobacco farmer. Before me stood a restaurant owner, whom I knew by face, even if it was only half visible above his mouth cap. He was talking to a big man wearing a hat.
“I'll tell you what it is,” said the restaurateur. “It's collective suicide.”
“It's war,” said the big man.
“In times of war, we send strong, healthy men, blasting with youth and future, to the front to give their lives for the common good. This is a situation where the elderly could have done something in return. The virus had it for them. This was their war. We have been attacked by a virus that is quite harmless to young, healthy people, but the elderly have refused to sacrifice themselves for the common good and have again demanded that young people risk their future in order to protect vulnerable older people.”
“As if you were so young,” said the big man.
“Exactly,” said the restorer. “If I had to be breathed, I would have refused. Give my place to a young person.”
“You say that now.”
“I mean it. And I don't want to say anything, but you overweight —”
“You're right,” said the big man. “Probably they wouldn't even have wanted to treat me. And I have nothing. Not even a cough escapes my lips. But everyone looks at me dirty because I look like a walking risk group and I'm a danger to the community. We recognise only one moral value, and that is public health. We live in a sanitary dictatorship. When will you open again?”
“Have you seen the instructions of the INAIL? With all the new rules, it makes no sense to open.”
Writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer lives in Genoa. In this place, he writes about the impact the coronavirus has on life there. #vraagvandedag
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer hears a conversation between two men.
Like you're so young
Ilya Leonard Pfeijffer
Diary Coronavirus
I waited in line for my tobacco farmer. Before me stood a restaurant owner, whom I knew by face, even if it was only half visible above his mouth cap. He was talking to a big man wearing a hat.
“I'll tell you what it is,” said the restaurateur. “It's collective suicide.”
“It's war,” said the big man.
“In times of war, we send strong, healthy men, blasting with youth and future, to the front to give their lives for the common good. This is a situation where the elderly could have done something in return. The virus had it for them. This was their war. We have been attacked by a virus that is quite harmless to young, healthy people, but the elderly have refused to sacrifice themselves for the common good and have again demanded that young people risk their future in order to protect vulnerable older people.”
“As if you were so young,” said the big man.
“Exactly,” said the restorer. “If I had to be breathed, I would have refused. Give my place to a young person.”
“You say that now.”
“I mean it. And I don't want to say anything, but you overweight —”
“You're right,” said the big man. “Probably they wouldn't even have wanted to treat me. And I have nothing. Not even a cough escapes my lips. But everyone looks at me dirty because I look like a walking risk group and I'm a danger to the community. We recognise only one moral value, and that is public health. We live in a sanitary dictatorship. When will you open again?”
“Have you seen the instructions of the INAIL? With all the new rules, it makes no sense to open.”
Writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer lives in Genoa. In this place, he writes about the impact the coronavirus has on life there. #vraagvandedag
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (born 17 January 1968) is a Dutch poet, classicist and writer. On 13 May 2014 he won the Libris Literature Prize for his novel La Superba and was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize 2019 with his novel Grand Hotel Europa. Pfeijffer lives in Genoa. [1]
What does it mean to be European? - The Bar and writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer go in search of answers. With Pfeijffer's bestseller Grand Hotel Europa as a starting point, we discuss the Europe where there is so much past that there seems to be no place for the future. And where mass tourism pounding hard on the doors. An evening about Europe as a museum, nostalgia and identity on the eve of Brexit and the European elections. Enter Grand Hotel Europa.
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