La Tempête

Lyrics

Patient Zero-Seven-Three.
Admitted Tuesday.
Diagnosis: an excess of zeal.
A misplaced sense of duty.

The initial report was trivial.
A foreign protein. A spider on the wall of the left lung.
The sentinels did their job, of course.
They flagged the intruder.
They called for backup.
A measured response. Proportional.
We noted the low-grade fever and moved on.
We have other beds to see.

But the generals panicked.
They saw an invasion in a single strand of code.
So they called in the firebombing run.
This is not a defense. This is a tantrum.
This is burning down the house to kill the spider.
This is the cytokine storm. And the rain is fire.

The CT scan came back this morning.
Lungs like ground glass. Frosted windows on a burning cathedral.
The young and the strong, they burn the brightest.
It was the same in 1918.
The most robust immune systems... the most spectacular pyres.
Kidneys are failing. Liver, shutting down.
The spider is long since vaporized.
But the firemen keep spraying gasoline.

The generals have panicked.
They see an invasion in every loyal cell.
So they keep the firebombing run.
This is not a defense. This is a temper tantrum.
This is burning down the house to kill the spider.
This is the cytokine storm. And the rain is fire.

So now we intervene.
We try to talk the system down.
A little Dexamethasone to calm the nerves.
Tocilizumab to block the messengers of rage.
It is, as Dr. Cron observed,
like pressing the accelerator and the brake at the exact same time.
Trying to reason with a flood.
Trying to tell a fire it has made its point.

The chart notes read: multi-organ failure.
Cause of death: friendly fire.
The house is gone.
The spider is gone.
The tenant is... quiet.