The Reverse Kingdom

A very old children’s song —barely known to most of people as it is not on the Internet— says that “in the Reverse Kingdom, the bird swims and the fish flies.”

Suffice to read the news to ask ourselves if we have traveled back to Argentine María Elena Walsh’s Reverse Kingdom, back in the 1960s.

It turns out that a US rapper, Lil Uzi Vert, has just tattooed a 10-carat pink diamond in his forehead, worth 24 million of US dollars.

He posted so in his Instagram profile where he wrote: “Beauty is pain.”

But I am pretty sure that the surgical maneuver fell short compared to the pain of those dying worldwide due to the lack of medical assistance or starvation.

And yes, it is painful to do the math and find out how many lives he could have saved with those $24 million, now in his forehead. It is true that you do with your money as you please, but keeping your head up is sometimes hard, even though you have a 10-carat pink diamond on it.

In this Reverse Kingdom, a market located in South Florida, encouraged people not to wear face masks. There, buyers and sellers wander unprotected while a sign at the entry reminds employees in Oakes Farm not to reprimand those not wearing face masks as they have the right not to do so.

Alfie Oakes, the owner, said to NBC that face masks are not working and he believed “the virus has not killed 400,000 people in the country. That’s a nonsense!”

Meanwhile, the US is averaging 3,000+ deaths per day in the last week and a new and more contagious strain of the coronavirus is spreading fast. We are referring to the B1.1.7 strain, spotted in the UK initially, which may prevail in Florida and also South California in a couple of weeks, according to the US CDC.

“Let’s see how the Reverse Kingdom is,” invites the song. Let’s hope that we, together, may put this world in the right direction.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff