Wuhan Warlord Woes

It was a good year for wine and warlords. Especially in Wuhan village.

On a scale of one to ten, the Warlord of Wuhan would be a 11. The extra point was for his fashionable Personal Protection Equipment (or ‘armour’ as naive non-Wuhanians would call it). But Dread Li, our warlord, had the best and the baddest PPE, which featured a heavy metal gold c.d. – a hard metal alloy that was gold-covered & drip-dipped.

Ferociously feral and fearlessly fierce, Dread Li protected his village and his people with tooth and nail. That is, teeth and nails were extracted from enemies and displayed on the city walls to warn potential invaders that if they valued their chew-on-this dentures and macho manicures, they should follow social distancing protocols and stay the heck away from Wuhan.

But it was a brave new world, where enemies came in all shapes and sizes. One could deal with soldiers of neighboring kingdoms attempting the popular wall to wall attack (Great Wall to Wuhan Wall). But thanks to warzone lockdowns, footloose and fancy free animals ranging from ultra-small crawlies to extra-tall creepies had started thinking outside-the-bush, foraying for food and fine flesh in villages and painting towns red with blood. And the latest, most vicious and voracious wild thing to threaten the populace was a dreaded giant bat. A little contaminated food here and a little poisoned water there, and a chiroptera of colossal capaciousness had coalesced.

On wintry nights when a well behaved moon shone high in the sky, and villagers were high on well brewed moonshine, tellers of tall tales would relate the story of how their brave Warlord had slain the Behemothic Bat of Wuhan. Over the eons, fact had become fantasy, melodrama had become myth, and unbelievable hand-me-down versions filtered down through succeeding generations.

‘Beware the quiet of the night, when the air borne terror swoops from the skies with yin in one wing and yang in the other. Beware the darkest-before-dawn hour, when the big bad bat carries off farm animals as take-out dinner. Those were the good old days, when Wuhanites were agrarian vegetarians, wise in the ways of beets and bulbs, but ignorant about batty delicacies. And so they ignored this threat, with dire consequences. After years of eat meat feats and carnivore gore galore, the bat got bigger, bolder, brasher and started gate crashing through locked gates to go after bigger prey – humans. Be it cowherds or cowled villagers, it would swoop down swiftly and sink fetid fangs into tender rednecks. A day after being bitten, people would cough. And the day after that, they would drop. That’s why it came to be known as the cough’n’coffin creature.

By now, the villagers were justifiably terrified… so terrified that they went into frequent lockdowns, venturing out only for essential purchases like magic garlic and herd-curb-herbs, produces that were guaranteed to provide immunity from bats, rats and other scary pestilences. And also, the good villagers did what all humans would do when in trouble. They prayed. They prayed for a flattening of the bat bite curve. And prayed for a brave warrior to ‘bell the bat’’.
(Yes, that’s the original Wuhan expression.)

So when their hero warlord returned after a campaign of exploring the pros and cons of ‘War, What Is It Good For?’, frightened villagers pleaded with Dread to ‘Go To Bat’ for them.’
(As you see, a lot of ancient Wuhan expressions have been distorted over the years.)

‘So on a fine night fit for nefarious nocturnal nullifications, Dread went on a quest to blot out a bat. Following local hunting protocols, he tethered a decoy deer to the Wuhan whopping willow tree. Now all he had to do was hide downwind and wait for the bat to bite the bait. As you know, this tree was so named because it was a whopper of a willow, home to the birds and the bees of Wuhan, and to a few wayward bats. Now the jungle abounded with poisonous back biters and ravenous brain pickers and danger could pounce from any shadow. But Dread knew how not to bungle in the jungle, and knew about the community spread of nocturnal animals and how to keep them at a safe social distance.

The night dragged on, but nothing happened. Then finally, somewhere between alert and asleep, Dread felt it – his senses were tingling and his instincts were jingling. Though he did not hear the jittery pitter patter of scattering critters, he sensed the hushed rush of little fauna into the underbrush. And then he heard it, the light flutter of giant wings. The big bat was circling overhead, executing erratic arcs above the skittish deer. And suddenly, a large shadow fell from the night sky, ready to air lift the tethered deer. But though the bat’s flight was erratic, Dread’s aim was not.

A deft heft, a poised hoist and a power-unfurled hurl – and the spear zoomed toward its destiny. The light-flight spear passed right between the antlers of the tethered deer, struck the surprised bat in mid flight and pinioned it to the whopping willow tree. The only witness to Dread’s amazing marksmanship was the decoy deer, though it was a bit distracted by a giant bat that was trying to kill it.

And when village quaranteams ran out from lockdown to see if this terror had really been flattened, they were amazed. The spear had pierced two hearts – two hearts, bat was one…

The story of the Great Bat Hunt would be told often, and usually be followed by loud and = proud cheers, the loudness of the cheering being directly proportional to the number of cups slurped and mugs chugged. And though there are different versions of this incredible tale, all ended with the punchline, ‘two hearts, bat was one’. You see, Dread’s spear had not only bored through the bat’s heart, but also thudded into a crudely carved heart etched by an amorous teenager on the trunk of the whopping willow tree. But this proud phrase, which nutshelled the climax of the historic hunt, was later changed by irresponsible poets into ‘two hearts beat as one’.

Since there were no strict laws against plagiarizing, emboldened writers habitually distorted traditional Wuhanese phrases. For instance, the accurate throw that sailed over the head of the decoy deer to kill the giant bat was originally added to the Wuhan hunting lexicon as ‘passing the buck’. But of course now it means something entirely different.

All was peaceful and prosperous in Wuhan for a long while. But alas, one fine day, Dread Li died of a heart attack. That is, his heart was attacked by a trusted bodyguard who had been convinced by a conniving neighboring chieftain that gold was glitterier on the other side of the kingdom. The guard had been given a fine imported blade forged by Greece’s best sword craftsman, Damocles, to do the deadly deed. (In a slightly related note, Damocles’s career had been hanging by a thread till it had been revived by exports to the Orient, and in an interview to the Grecian media the happy bladesmith had said he hoped this trend of exporting merchandise to China continues well into the future.)

But by now you are probably wondering, hey, where is the reincarnation bit? As you might have guessed by now, this tale is not about dead Dread. It’s about his son, CoVid (a combination of Co-nfucius and a-vid, as his parents were big fans of the great teacher). But alas, CoVid was not warlord material. But with no other option, the unfit son inherited the role of warlord and the rule of Wuhan. And to the great disappointment of Wuhaners, CoVid turned out to be the worst warlord in the history of warlording.

And centuries later, would turn out to be the worst pandemic in the history of pandemicking.

(to be continued)oday is a lot different.