A Dilemma, with Apologies to Hamlet

To mask, or not to mask. That is the question.

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The jeers and side eye of a thousand randos,

Or to take arms against a sea of pathogens,

And cease opposing, invite them. To respire, to

Breathe deep once more. And by to breathe deep we

Mean to risk the thousand natural shocks

That lungs are are heir to. (Get it? Heir/Air?)

‘Tis a consolation devoutly to be wished. To

Fog glasses, to smell thy stank breath no more.

For in that freedom of face what things may come?

There’s the respect that makes calamity

Of so long COVID. For who would bear the

Depression and is’lation of lock-down,

The lost months, the lack of vaccinations,

That weird month where everyone was into

Tiger King, when they themselves could resume

Their normal lives with uncovered airways?

Who would grunt and sweat in the summer heat

Upon retreat of ‘nother variant,

But for dread of some subvariant that

We know not of? Thus conscience does make a

Maskerade of us anxious people yet.

And the hue of our lower faces are

Sicklied o’er with the pale resolution

Of a masked tanline, and lose the name of

Hot Vax Summer.