Finally, ‘twas the night before X-mas, and not a creature was stirring, not even the silly tomcat or the French bulldog. I was camping for Santa behind the X-mas tree with a sledgehammer. I’ll eventually catch that old red suited white bearded bastard someday, mark my words! Give him a piece of my mind/sledge for those coals in my shoes when I was 7!

Joke aside, tomorrow is Christmas. My daughter and big mama sat down at the Christmas table. In the corner of the living room, towards the window, I had installed a Christmas tree. I don't know how long it will last this year, because Othello, the best mountain climber tomcat, has already scaled the thing twice to its peak, and was ready to tear it down. Due to his mountaineering attempts, he was exiled during the winter holidays to my room, where he lies fuming on the heat radiator. Obelix was initially very pleased that he had become the master of the living room. Yet a few hours later I found him barking sadly at the door of my room. The disappearance of the landscape climber had made him sad. He had no companions for thefts, fights and other misfortunes. The two furries seem to be the reincarnation of the most famous mobsters. All day long, I have to keep my eyes on the two tables in the kitchen and on the refrigerator. God forbid that I leave something edible on the table, because in the next second it “magically” disappears. I think the two furries were Houdini's students in a previous life. And they had been good and studious students as well. Othello, the mountaineer, climbs quickly on the tables and throws the “pray” down to the buldog with the speed of light, which he finds interesting. I laughed so hard when I found inside the washing machine among the shirts three biscuits and a dried sausage. In my opinion, this was the work of the bulldog, whom I had found a few times poking around in the basin of the washing machine between the shirts and the socks. Since then, no one starts the washing machine without first checking if one of the two furries is not asleep in it.

Two weeks ago, the hellion of Othello had jumped out of the kitchen window. Nothing bad had happened to him, because my apartment is on the 2nd floor, and the distance to the ground is only five meters, enough for a feline to “buffer” the falling damage by itself when plummeting. My mother-in-law saw him after half an hour, clashing with the barber's tomcats downstairs. The hairdresser, Elias, otherwise an extremely intelligent and kind man, owns three puffed up Persian beasts, that had been brought to him by his son from the middle east. The three prize-winning beasts roam around the neighborhood all day long. Lately, all of the small birds seem to have disappeared from the area. And this is mainly because of the three brigands, who are nothing more than serial killers.

Young Othello fought like a lion with the three murderous furry criminals and managed to keep them at bay. When she saw him through the window, my mother-in-law was about to have a heart attack. She quickly sent my daughter downstairs to retrieve the bumbling dusky beast as soon as possible. Eventually the “heroic” Othello was recovered and brought back to his home address. He had no major wounds. He only had a few scratches and tufts of fur missing. However, my daughter immediately took him to the veterinarian office for a closer examination. Poor Othello, once placed in the cage, he was screaming like a Christian in the pit of lions. Obelix, like any revolutionary French bulldog, barked with glee at the misfortune of his “enemy”. Both furries have long known that once they are put in “the cage”, the end of the trip is to the vet office. Now, the French was avenged. Although the three tomcats were his supreme enemies, he would have kissed them right now and had given them his food for a week. And that was only because they had taken out his nemesis, the sweet-couch-spot occupier, away from the circuit. But the diagnostics did not match the French barker’s expectations. After only an hour, the “enemy” returned home to my daughter. He had not required too many “repairs”. He had just been disinfected with sanitary alcohol and had received a few antibiotic pills, which were to be administered by me and my daughter for the next few days. Obelix had been amazed at the tomcat's return in such a quick manner to their “conjugal” home. The dreams of the French barker to master the apartment for an unlimited time, had gone up in smoke. There were now in the same “gut-wrenching” fights for the control of the armchairs and the sofa in the living room. But this is most often the case in the bipedal world as well. The counting of the money at home does not match the coin pouch at the fair. The two furries were going to “divide” the apartment further into a tense atmosphere. Ever since then, we were all keeping our eyes on the meowing pest, who was trying to escape away from home whenever an opportunity arose.

And with the good and the bad, we arrived on X-mas eve. But it is no longer the Christmas of my childhood. Things have changed, places have changed, people have changed. There are no carolers anymore, all traditions and customs associated with that sort of wandering long gone. It is true that I have been staying in the Capital City for almost thirty years, but the same thing happens inside the villages as well. People have “evolved”, with Youtube and Patreon replacing the carolers. In three decades, the villagers have stepped up from the plough and the horse, to the computer and the internet. The young and the able-bodied adults have moved from the East to the West, where they are paid much better for the same amount of time. In the villages, only the elders remain, for whom the traditions do not mean much anymore. The carols are for them only a wave of sadness, that reminds them of the different times from their childhood.

As a sign of supreme goodwill from the behalf of big mama, the mountaineer was released from my room, to the great “happiness” of the French barker. He is nothing else but an extra competitor for the Christmas goodies. After midnight, us three bipeds began eating. The Christmas table was full of dishes cooked by my daughter and big mama. The two furries moved beneath the table, waiting for some unexpected goodies to accidentally drop. Enchanted by the delicacies on the table, the mountain climber forgot about the Christmas tree and rubbed himself like a respectable beggar by our feet. The French barker was playing second fiddle, by glancing at us with his googly eyes. In the end, neither I nor my daughter could endure it any more, so we made portions for the two furries, much to the chagrin of big mama, who is a scrooge incarnate. Only then did we manage to get rid of them. I finished my meal after about an hour. I filled myself a glass with Cinzano on ice, then retreated to my room. Othello followed me. He was swollen like a bagpipe and immediately took over my bed, where he settled down like a rock. You must remember that cats always own, and never lend. In the eyes of the alpinist tomcat, we were all slaves and he was the master.

In the living room, Obelix the French bulldog had taken over the couch and was snoring like a tractor. And for him as well as for us bipeds, Christmas had come. But did the two furries even understand what Christmas was? I highly doubted that. They are nothing but two furry moochers who take advantage of our kindness and generosity.

I retreated back to my desk and opened my laptop. Since the death of my wife, I have canceled my cable contract. Classic Television has become outdated in my opinion. It is much more convenient and easy to watch news, movies or music on your computer. It gets rid of the useless ads that put your patience to the test, at least for the subscription based services, plus you can select which fragment of the program you want to watch. There is a lot to do with this state-of-the-art technology. For more than a year, I have been reading on the laptop all the news from the international press. And they also lie or are partial, but not to the extent of the local press. You can't compare the New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or Corriere della Sera to any other newspaper in the world. Freedom of expression has reached its peak in the civilized world. No newspaper of the size of the aforementioned allows itself to give unverified news. If they lie or try to influence the reader, then I do it in a very elegant and refined way. Sadly, today the tabloid press reigns supreme. The “newspapers” are full of nudes and commercials with fine linen. That's why I prefer to read the press on my laptop.

So far, nothing catches my eyes. Santa Claus’s presence reigns supreme on every newspaper’s headline, and in his wake, commerce thrives. And in the Americas and in Western Europe, it is the same as everywhere. In the name of Santa Claus, Père Noël, Babbo Natale or Weihnachtsmann, the bipeds of the civilized world put their hands inside of their pockets up to their elbows then buy all of the nonsense from the shops like remotely controlled drones.

As I scroll through the news, I spot an interesting article. In China, there is an epidemic caused by an unknown virus. It has recently emerged, and the Chinese are not coping all that well. This is truly a special “gift”, in the Santa Claus spirit of the season. I guess the old red jolly bearded bastard decided to upgrade from coal-in-shoes to biological-bomb-in-shoes. This would be something we could use to miss after the previous SARS and EBOLA outbreaks. A new epidemic that will put the planet on the line is bound to show up any day now. Let's hope it's just a storm in a glass of water, like the rest have been. Anyway, the Chinese don't say much. The regime of communist dictatorship that governs China does not allow too many things to transpire to the media. The fact that something happened, however insignificant they might play it off, it still means it's bad. We'll see what will happen next. I put on the fourth Symphony on my laptop, and I went to bed.

Mendelssohn Bartholdy's music is fantastic. I listen to it in stupor, thinking of an Italian summer landscape. Othello rolls under the blanket next to me. It seems that the critter also likes the Italian Symphony. Although I do not think that his brave and independent cat brain can understand music that much, yet who knows? Nowadays anything is possible. The researchers found that certain musical scores stimulate the lactation in cows. It would not surprise me that after two or three hours of classical music, Othello and the barber's tomcats might become even better hunters for sparrows and turtles. Music also has sometimes unexpected results in mammalian behavior. Slowly, I fell asleep. Othello, who is usually a night-person, also fell asleep beside me under the blanket, anesthetized by the chords of Mendelssohn Bartholdy's symphony.

Next day, I got up at ten. It was the first day of Christmas. Othello was no longer with me. From the living room, I could hear the annoying barks of Obelix. When he racks up the noise, the bulldog barks like he's plugged into an amplifier. It seems that he had some grudge to share with the tux meower. I left the room and headed for the kitchen. Here, my mother-in-law washes the dishes leftover from Christmas Eve. My daughter's coffee was waiting on the table. My mother-in-law has quit drinking coffee a long time ago. She claims to be a cardiac and that coffee causes her to palpitate. That may be so, and since she used to be a dentist, hence a medical practitioner, I won’t argue against her judgment. She knows what she knows, and trying to convince her otherwise would be a waste of time. I poured a few drops of Martell into my cup of coffee, which in the meantime had cooled down. I always liked hot coffee, but not tongue-scalding. Is how I can enjoy it better, savor the taste instead of feeling my tongue burn. I have to admit that my daughter knows how to make a great cup of coffee. Although I admit that I was never a pretentious guy in terms of coffee, since I usually drink instant-ness coffee, it’s good to see that at least someone in the household knows how to brew a decent pot of coffee. I admit that I am a comfortably numb biped, not to mention lazy, who does not have the patience to keep the coffee pot away from burning or over-spilling due to oversight.

While I was drinking my coffee, the lovable Othello appeared like a missile into the kitchen, followed like a shadow by Obelix the bulldog. In order to escape the pursuit, the feline jumped on one of the tables, much to the chagrin of big mama. In the following seconds, she picked up a broom and began to smack the two delinquent felons without any discrimination. I intervened in their defense and earned myself a broom smack over my right hand. God save you from the wrath of the great hag, for she is a very fierce woman. I put the two furries in different rooms, so the scandal ended with a drowned note. I took my coffee to my room, settled comfortably in the armchair in front of the desk, and opened my laptop again.

I finished my coffee by reading from the laptop the latest news in the world. All quiet on the western front. It seems that poor Erich Maria Remarque had been right. The Western world is busy with the Christmas holiday, Santa Claus and gifts. The Soviet bear hibernates in the Kremlin. Only the yellow Chinese virus appears to be a threat. For the moment I have no problems. China is far away from Europe. And my country is the last place where a virus, even if lethal, would like to come to. In my country, not even the virus would work properly. Even a virus has its pride. What’s there to kill here? Only some idiotic, greedy and lazy bipeds? Like any respectable virus, it prefers the developed countries of the planet. That's why I'm not surprised that he chose China. China's economy is extremely powerful and the Chinese are already overpopulated. This is a reputable delinquent virus that knows where to install itself, this new one. I wouldn't be surprised if the virus will cross the ocean and attack the lil’ Yankees next. The bipeds have grown exponentially as of late. A killer virus would be welcome, trim down some of the population, give the leftover population some more air to breathe. The resources of the planet are decreasing, and the number of idiotic bipeds keeps increasing rapidly instead. Uncle Sam is glaring knives at the Bolsheviks of Mao and Aunty Europe is fidgeting from the sidelines. The Soviet bear is in constant lethargy and no longer poses a serious threat to the bipeds of the planet, it’s fortune being the huge resources of gas and oil that Mother Russia has under its soil. Only in this way can Europe maintain the façade of respect seemingly deserved by itself, by doing nothing.

The clown Othello had managed to escape from the room where I had banished him. He is a great expert at escaping from locked rooms. He has learnt to jump on the door-knobs and open any closed doors that may stand in his way. He entered my room and set himself on my bed. From my daughter's room, Obelix continues to bark like a numbskull. He hates loneliness and as any average dog, loves the presence of a crowd. Therefore, I brought him along in the room as well and sat him down next to Othello. The pooch cesed his barking at a moment's notice and installed himself next to the tawny tomcat. I could not believe it when I saw both of the critters falling asleep only after 5-minutes, leaning on each other like they were the best of friends. This pets' solidarity leaves me thinking. It seems that they have at least learned something from their conflict with big mama. I just hope that they won't use their newfound powers of solidarity to gang up against me.

I'm searching on my laptop for the latest news about the epidemic from China. Bummer, It seems that excretory matter is hitting the fan over there. Apparently several announcements have already been released, detailing the first cases of the pandemic, which seem to be caused by this new virus called CORVID-119. I can already tell that everything is much worse than it's being depicted, because the Communist dictatorship regime from China would not allow anything to get leaked to the Press in such a way that they would get bad publicity out of it.

Even so, the Chinese have made public the first few cases of this new strand of “species interloper” virus. Seems that there is indeed something serious going on over there. I have lived under the shadow of the Communist regime for almost 30 years inside my own country, so I know first-hand that no self-respecting communist leader would allow themselves to be pictured in any bad light, which might lead to the destabilisation of the entire regime. It's because of this reason that most of the information that is coming from China makes me ponder deeply.

But the bipeds from Auntie Europe and from the United States just keep on shopping, keep worshipping Santa Claus and the Christmas celebration. They have no idea about the apparition of a new killer virus which might disturb their peace. It is the usual indolence that is so typical to the civilised world which permeates the crowds. Myself, not being a person who subscribes to the crowd mentality, I decided to contact my good friend from Beijing, Wu Li. We met 5 years ago at Biarritz in France, when I was visiting with my wife and my daughter the Museum of the Sea, housed by the famous art Deco building on the shore of the Atlantic. My pal Wu Li had come together with his family, composed of his wife and his two twin daughters, at that time still high school students.

Wu is the son of some big shot leader from China, which had been forced by the “Cultural Revolution” to live like a wildling in a cave for almost two years during his youth, alongside with all of his family. He began to tell me about the times from his childhood when he and his brothers were forced to do their homeworks under the light of a candle, because electricity was too intermittent. Those had been hard times for the entirety of China. Still, the high intellectual capacity of Old Man Wu, had made his father an extremely important leader in the Communist hierarchy of Beijing, which in turn had allowed little Wu and his brothers to finish their high school and university studies without a hitch. Wu had gone to medical school, and had become one of the most famous Chinese people who specialised in microbiology. He had married a female colleague from his university, which was now a cardiologist, and had two daughters with her, which are now medical students themselves, following in their parents footsteps. We had spent a week together on that holiday 5 years ago. Wu and his wife were very good speakers of English and French, which had amazed me, given where they were coming from. I only learned later that his speech had been polished during his 2 year stagiary period in France.

Wu is an atypical Chinaman, with many occidental tendencies. He cannot stand the Communist regime that rules his country, but is aware that without the extremely important position that his father occupied, he could not have become such a renowned researcher. He enjoys red wine and Martell cognac, just as much as a serving of foie gras with pears. He likes living it large and is a brilliant mind. He doesn't give two dimes about the current occidental society, just as much as he doesn’t give a rat's ass about the Communist regime from his own country. Of course he is big about nationalism, just like most of the intellectual Chinese people, and when he gets drunk he could eat the Japanese alive between toast bread. Besides that, he is just a well educated guy with a lot of common sense and a fantastic intelligence.

Wu’s wife Linlin is a mignonne Chinese woman, still looking pretty at her 50 years of age. Like most Chinese women, she is very shy and polite. The whole time we had been on holiday, she had been abusing the shops together with my wife, daughter and her two twins. From what I could gather, the “Cultural Revolution” had hit her hard as well. At the moment, Linlin is one of the most appreciated cardiologists in Beijing and an extremely doting mother to her two twins.

While the ladies were strolling through the shops and were draining our wallets, me and Dr. Wu were sitting under a huge umbrella of a bistro from the Atlantic Promenade, planning our conquest of the world with the glass of Martell in hand, and a croissant in mouth. Gazing our eyes full of curiosity and nostalgia upon the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, which were barely a hundred meters away from us, we began to talk about China. I learned a lot from my Chinese pal during that time. Wu began to describe to me how China had reached the “pole position” within the world's economy, and what compromises had been done under the surface. From our discussions I now knew much more about China than what I used to understand before, only by relying on reading.

In the end, I decided to send an email to my friend Wu. I was hoping that he would reply soon. Because of the timezone difference, it usually takes him a few hours to reply back. I think he will reply as soon as he will see my message. I left towards the kitchen to grab myself a cup of coffee. The two furries were still dozing on the bed. Both of them could not have cared less about Christmas or the Chinese virus. In the kitchen, my mother-in-law had finished washing the dishes. She was now in her room and she was listening to the Christmas Concerto of the National Philharmonic. For her, the Christmas concert of the National Philharmonic, as well as the New Year's show of the Philharmonic from Vienna are sacred. In the meanwhile, my daughter had left to meet up with her boyfriend in the city. She is 27 years old and is a lawyer. She is a very smart girl, but sometimes she is very full of herself. Even though she graduated at the top of her class, she doesn't give any regard to her own profession. He says that lawyers are most of the time greedy or scam their clients, even though they are a necessary evil. I generally agree with her way of thinking. God forbid that you wind up in the clutches of the justice system inside of my country, because you will not get away unscathed from the whole experience.

I poured myself half a glass of Martell and then I returned to my room. The two furry creatures are asleep on top of each other on the bed. I sat myself comfortably at my desk, laptop in hand. I could see that my buddy Wu had already replied to my email. He was already awake and both himself and his wife were packing up to leave for Wuhan, the spot where the first patients infected with CORVID-119 had shown up. Wu told me that the situation was dire and that both of them had been sent to Wuhan to join a team of big shot specialists, him in microbiology and her in cardiology. They have been sent there to unravel the structure of the virus, discover the methods of transmission and the lethal effects that might occur when humans got infected. There had already been a few hundred deaths, with most of the victims being old people which were already suffering from heart issues or diabetes. Wu was extremely frantic about the whole situation which made me weary, because he was usually such a relaxed kind of a guy about everything. His medical recommendations had got me thinking. He told me to wash my hands as often as possible, wear a face mask and keep my distance away from other people. He told me to get it out of my head that this was a China-only problem, because the infection had probably already spread to the insides of Europe and America and was already a ticking bomb, just waiting to explode. He told me that he will message me again once he got to Wuhan and got a hands-on experience with the whole ordeal. I replied back thanking him for taking his time to give me advice about my safety, and told him that I will be waiting to hear more news from his side of the globe. I closed my laptop and continued savouring my Martell. Seems like the whole thing was truly terrible, and that a new year full of disasters was waiting for us ahead. Even so, I had not paid too much heed to the warnings of my friend Wu at the time. You could never trust these damn Chinese doctors with anything. Still, I had to acknowledge the millennial wisdom that had accumulated throughout the ages inside of their country, which was above the comprehension ability of most bipeds from Europe or America. What had me worried was the distraught way in which Wu had replied to me. He is not the kind of guy that panics easily, yet everything he had told me seemed to have a very serious connotation. I washed my cognac glass in the kitchen, then cut a thin slice of Roquefort cheese on a small platter for myself. I had visited 5 years ago the South of France, and I had insisted at the time to visit the Roquefort-sur-Soulzon village, the birthplace of the famous cheese. During that time I had crossed the Millau Viaduct, which is rightfully considered the most spectacular bridge in the entire Europe. I had to admit that the famous cheese which has been made out of raw sheep milk for centuries, is indeed delicious. Combined with a shot of Martell, it leaves inside the mouth a fantastic sensation. The French cuisine has been an elitist institution for centuries, where preparing food has become a veritable science and combining tastes is an art in of itself. Only the barker Obelix does not have any discernment when it comes to what food he is receiving. Him and his meowing “enemy” accept anything given to them, as long as it’s meat or fish.

I came back to my room, sat myself in my armchair, then reopened my laptop. Among the few emails I had received in my inbox, I found a few season's greetings from my good friend Alfie and his wife Cheryl, two old friends of mine from Boston. Alfie owns a few dentist offices in Boston, and his wife Cheryl is a painter. Alfie is older than me by four years, and has stopped practicing dentistry for a couple of years. They live together comfortably in a residential area of Boston city, near Charles river. The usual seasonal banter aside, Alfie sends me a few words about the epidemic in China, which sets me thinking. Is everybody going crazy? I mean I could understand Wu worrying, because he is right in the middle of the whole crisis, but why is a yank worrying about something from across the world, which might not even affect him in any way. I tell Alfie that I do not have that much info about the whole Wuhan situation, but that I will message him back if I find something more. After wishing him and his family good fortune, I log off.

Alfred and Cheryl I had met 6 years ago during a holiday when I had visited Crete. They are a typical Jewish American family with a lot of practical sense. They are both very well read, which is slightly atypical for the common yank. Alfie has some mad piano skills and a vast musical culture. Our common tastes in music and the love for Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Schubert and Gustav Mahler had gotten us very close. The couple frequents the opera and Carnegie Hall concerts. Cheryl was the one to encourage my daughter to follow up on her passion for painting, which got her to enlist herself at the University of Arts and pursue a second degree despite her age. Those things do not matter that much for a lazy ass levantine troll like myself, even though I used to invest a lot in art albums. Art-wise, I always stuck with my first love, the impressionists and the fauvists. Contemporary art is too wonky for my tastes. The fact that even Alfie, a rather pragmatic American, is scared by the Chinese virus, had me unsettled.