Anti-Vaxxer Dies After Tragic Karaoke Mishap

Imaginary post-mortem headlines and other perils of being a conspiracy theorist.

On Saturday night, I felt a little tickle in my throat. My brother and his whole family had been sick for a week. Then my husband got it. I stayed far away from all of them, doubled down on my supplements, and meditated nightly, visualizing my shiny, pink organs fighting off microbial marauders like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.

My plan worked swimmingly, and that tickle magically disappeared.

Hahahahaha just kidding. I mean I really did do all of those things, but words cannot adequately describe how miserable I felt when I woke up on Sunday. I was so weak it took me nearly an hour to psyche myself up to fetch the glass of water I needed to actually not die. My head felt like it was in a vice, standing up made me nauseous, and I couldn’t even choke down the latte that’s my very reason for getting out of bed at the unholy hour of 4:45 a.m. most days. You guys, my hair hurt. I am not making that up.

Do you want to know what I was doing as I tossed and turned in bed, alternately sweating and shivering and willing my organs to rejuvenate themselves? Imagining the headline: “Vocal Anti-Vaxxer Dies After Brief Illness.” Because of course they’d find a way to mention that. That would be the story. Not my grieving kids or my sad, widowed husband or the bestselling anthology I was in the middle of assembling or the legacy of laughter I hope I’m leaving behind; the only reason they’d even cover my untimely demise would be because I had refused the experimental gene therapy and they could fill countless column inches with their shameless, illogical gloating.

I saw this story several weeks ago and have kept the tab open ever since, not sure what I could or would say about it.

Searching for news of this singer’s death now, stories describe how Horka intentionally exposed herself to the virus in the hopes of scoring a “recovery pass” that would enable her to bypass her country’s travel and entertainment restrictions. What’s more, even though her son openly blamed “anti-vaxxers” for her death in a now deleted Facebook post, he interestingly also let it slip that the cause of her death—while otherwise feeling fine and preparing to take a stroll—was choking.

Nevertheless, the embarrassingly lazy “media” uniformly focused on her “intentional exposure” and subsequent death. Never mind that they were apparently entirely unrelated. She was unvaccinated—and now she’s dead. Draw your own conclusions.

I’m on Day 3 of ivermectin and feeling much better so I probably won’t… but if I happen to perish anytime in the near future, I hope some of my journalist friends will cover the tragic news with any of these altogether true headlines:

“Humor Writer Dies After Driving Away from Gas Pump with Nozzle Still in Tank.”

“Conspiracy Theorist Passes Away Following Humiliating Face Plant at Disney World in Front of Entire Eighth Grade Class.”

“Anti-vaxxer Dead in the Wake of Taking the Stage at a Tahoe Piano Bar and Singing Sweet Caroline Uninvited.”

If we can’t have fun with the crushing insanity of the world, what even is the point?