Quarantina

By Wayne Tatum

After a 'minor' viral type disaster from Wuhan China takes place, America shuts down daily business and all inhabitants are forced or are required in a strong fashion to self-quarantine. The Kovid family, who live somewhere in the Eastern US make the best of it through planned shopping maneuvers, family togetherness at dinner time and the TV set. Mom and Dad Kovid have three sons aged 17, 16 and 13. The middle son has a sweetheart named 'Amber', who at the beginning of the quarantine is a patient on a hospital ship, and is dying from COVID-19, when a miracle takes place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laughingcleaver Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781947704947

Book preview

Laughingcleaver Press | DonnaInk Publications, L.L.C.

United States of America

Quarantina

A picture containing shirt, drawing, person Description automatically generated

By

WAYNE TATUM

Laughingcleaver Press

An imprint of DonnaInk Publications, L.L.C.

601 McReynolds Street, Carthage, NC 28327

Publisher Since 2012

Copyright © 2020 by Comedian – Satirist Wayne Tatum.

DONNAINK PUBLICATIONS, L.L.C. supports copyright, which creates a perceptive ethos, inspires innovation of the written word, nurtures unique vision, and promotes free speech. DonnaInk appreciates your purchase of an authorized edition of this book and for copyright law compliance in not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of this book in any form without prior written permission. In so doing, you support writers and our capability to publish books for readers everywhere.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Data: 2020943228.

Name: Tatum, Wayne, author.

Title: Quarantina / Comedian – Satirist Wayne Tatum

134 p. cm.

Description: After a 'minor' viral type disaster from Wuhan China takes place . . . the Kovid family, who live somewhere in the Eastern US make the best of it through planned shopping maneuvers, family togetherness at dinner time and the TV set . . . the middle son has a sweetheart named 'Amber', who at the beginning of the quarantine is a patient on a hospital ship, and is dying from COVID-19, when a miracle takes place.

Identifiers: ISBN – 13 – 978-1-947704-95-4 (alk. Paper).

Subjects: HUM020000 HUMOR / Topic / Celebrity & Popular Culture; HUM012000 HUMOR / Topic / Men, Women & Relationships; HUM011000 HUMOR / Topic / Marriage & Family; HUM006000 HUMOR / Topic / Politics; HUM018000 HUMOR / Form / Puns & Wordplay.

Classification: LCC PN6146.5-6231; PN6157-6222.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1; 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Book design by: Ms. Donna L. Quesinberry, Founder & President, DonnaInk Publications.

Book illustrations by: Riea Naskar, M.A. English University of Calcutta, India.

Publisher’s note: this book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information contact:

DonnaInk Publications, L.L.C.

601 McReynolds St., Carthage, NC 28327

www.donnaink.com

OTHER BOOKS BY WAYNE TATUM

Illustrated Tales for the Easily Entertained

Bat Divider by AmethystManiac on DeviantArt

DEDICATION

THIS STORY IS DEDICATED to all who worked hard to fight this thing from the beginning, the poor folk who managed to hang on through the ensuing shutdown, and my wife Leidiane, whose job was also put on hold, allowing us to share more hours of our day, together, than we have been able to do in the past twenty years.

Bat Divider by AmethystManiac on DeviantArt

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OTHER BOOKS BY WAYNE TATUM

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PROLOGUE

EPIGRAPH

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

AUTHOR

CERTIFIED EDITOR

SOCIAL MEDIA

MERCHANDISE

REFERENCES

Bat Divider by AmethystManiac on DeviantArt

INTRODUCTION

IN THE COLD SILENCE of the Chinese winter, late 2019, a deadly virus is released into the population of the City of Wuhan from a laboratory located within its borders. No mention of the release of the disease is made by the Chinese government.

Some of the more vigilant world governments, after hearing about a pneumonia breakout of unknown cause in Wuhan City from the World Health Organization (WHO) (eventually named COVID-19, aka ‘The Wuhan Virus’; an easily-spread SARS-type disease) managed to lessen effects of the outbreak by quarantining citizens to stop the looming pandemic, which was stated to be worse than the Spanish flu of 1917.

The Chinese government first blamed American soldiers. Then, they blamed the Pangolin, a rare armored creature resembling an Armadillo. Eventually, the blame shifted to an escaped bat that ended up in an outdoor Wuhan meat market, not known for cleanliness or sanitary environment (Asian meat markets, that is).

Rumors leak referencing lab vials and a clumsy technician, a Harvard professor linked to the laboratory with political ties and ‘bad actor’ tendencies. One or more US universities may have supplied money to the lab under the title of ‘Bat-human virus transmission.’

Nevertheless, economies of many nations suffer because of protective quarantining for their respective populace. Lawsuits against the Chinese government continue to grow in number due to deaths resulting from the insidious man-created scourge.

The question remains among more inquisitive and possibly paranoid minds around the globe as to whether or not the outbreak was purposeful, as in ‘malice of forethought,’ and what that purpose could possibly be.

Let’s hope answers to these questions come soon, and SOMEONE is fired from their laboratory job with extreme prejudice, or at the very least, their mistake results in a very bad mark upon their resume, with extreme measures to follow.

Bat Divider by AmethystManiac on DeviantArt

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SPECIAL THANKS TO MY friends and interested folks who may have read my soap opera version on a weekly basis by way of WordPress, LinkedIn, or my publisher-sponsored Facebook Fan Page (https://www.facebook.com/authorwaynetatum).

I hope whoever reads this romantic soap opera parody, gets a real kick out of it.

Stay safe!

Bat Divider by AmethystManiac on DeviantArt

PROLOGUE

WE SEE AND HEAR A LARGE gong being struck, causing a bat of somewhat considerable size to fly out from behind it, escaping its enclosed environment through a white bio-lab door.

The creature zooms through a Chinese meat market, then dramatically soars up into the sky. It morphing from a dark brown color to red-green as a caduceus appears causing the oddly radar-free avian mammal to splatter into it. And as the