In which a science denier denies herself out of existence.
The Karendemic
Descartes famously wrote “I think therefore I am” and became immortal. Karen, by not thinking at all, eventually vanished forever.
Not that anyone misses her, mind you. Most of us got tired of enduring her endless rants and raves, and are relieved to see her go.
“Everything you read is a lie!” Karen would shout across the table, her friends and family rolling their eyes, trying to change the subject.
Anything could trigger her, and something always did. The phoney pandemic. The communist governor. The rigged election. The riots. Data.
“The government is controlling us,” she’d say one moment. “Facebook is too powerful and needs to be broken up,” she’d say the next.
Karen showed us plandemic and anti-vaxxer videos. She explained how the virus is a hoax, syringes implant microchips, and masks don’t work.
“More people died last year than this year,” Karen said the CDC said. “All statistics are a sham,” she immediately added, counting on her fingers.
We had known Karen for years, and, well, Karen was just being Karen. If nothing else, she reminded us what half the country still believed.
But when conspiracy theories and science denial began to blend into her suspicion and rejection of all Reality, we started losing her…
Triggered Newton
The Universe, after all, seems to obey physical laws. Every time you drop a fork, the fork falls to the floor. Try it. Try it again. See?
People have measured forks falling, then applied math equations that do a terrific job of describing and even predicting how forks fall.
Experts have debated for centuries what’s actually going on, and why the math works. But it does. Without fail. Every, single, time.
These consistently observable and repeating patterns not only help us make sense of the world, but make our world possible — and arguably inevitable.
Otherwise things would just happen, with no connection between one moment and the next. The Universe would instantly begin and end.
Whether Karen liked it or not, “truth” is founded on the scientific method, and demands our ability and willingness to differentiate fact from fiction.
Central to the success of science is skepticism. But what Karen didn’t realize is that calling bullshit on everything, all the time, can have dire consequences.
Karen’s shift from denying facts to disappearing altogether was gradual, but accelerated rapidly as she got more and more passionate about it.
“Do you know anyone who’s died from COVID-19?” Karen would ask without a wisp of irony. “I don’t! And you know what that means? Nobody has!”
Winning Strategies
Such a statement sounded comical, except for Karen actually believing it. Her experiences and her feelings were all that ever mattered to her.
The pandemic and the election upset her, so she effortlessly invalidated both. Objective reality was an oxymoron. Only her opinions were true.
When Karen was young something terrible happened, and by sheer force of will she made it go away. That skill became ingrained, and she turned pro.
As an adult, a phone tap or hair flip could make a global health crisis or democracy go away, too. She had full control. She had all the answers.
Why stop there? Her husband was unfaithful. The hidden texts? The mysterious expenses? The business trips? Ignoring them made it not so.
Saving her marriage, she turned to cooking her books. Marked down and trumped up, losses turned to profits with every lie added to the ledger.
On a roll, she reshaped more and more of the world to her liking by ignoring or denying everything she disliked, and hating anybody who disagreed.
Doing us all a big favor, she put herself at the center of every conversation, had the first and last word, was always right and never wrong. Perfection.
Karen got so good at it she insisted everyone believe what she believed, do what she had done. Others left for Parler. Our Karen left all of Reality.
Infinitely Karen
Endlessly determined, Karen solved all the world’s problems and her own by simultaneously denying their existence and blaming her enemies for them.
“This is just the beginning of what they’re going to do to us all,” she said one moment. “I don’t believe a thing I’m seeing and hearing,” she said the next.
The more sceptical she got, the less we saw her. Literally. Karen began to fade away. Barely perceptible at first, then more obvious, until we lost her entirely.
“Stop being afraid!” Karen advised us, and none too soon. The planet was getting COVID fatigue, and we were well into our own Karen exhaustion.
Her disappearance was mysterious. Some speculate that the evidence of her senses was no longer sufficient for her to stay connected to this world.
By dismissing all information as fake news, Karen had to forfeit her life within a Universe of cause and effect, action and reaction, truth and falsehood.
Karen had complained to the Manager so frequently that he finally offered her a full refund. That morning she woke within a Wonderland that suited her.
Denying physical law, physical law denied her. Each instant lasted forever, and forever flashed in the blink of an eye. She was everywhere and nowhere.
“You’re all a bunch of sheeple!” echoed her words through eternity. Karen became the Universe, and the Universe became Karen. She finally got what she wanted.
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