Day 1157, How Viruses Think 

 

If you were a virus, what would you do?

You’re used to the fact that no one likes you,

Which makes it much harder to reproduce,

Once you are let out and free to run loose.

 

If you were a virus, how would you think,

Devising new tactics that will hoodwink

A new host to make you, then to infect

Another, and so on, spreading unchecked?

 

Don’t kill your hosts quickly; that is unwise.

When rapidly fatal, everyone dies.

You’ll run out of victims, whose cells you need;

Inside living cells is where you must breed.

 

Hosts make antibodies; don’t stay too long.

You need to be coughed out and passed along.

Or exit in mucus, semen, or shit,

Or all of the fluids hosts may emit.

 

Give hosts diarrhea, or make them sneeze.

Such symptoms are helpful, spreading disease.

Don’t make your hosts ugly; hosts must get close,

Which helps the sneezers to spray a big dose.

 

If hosts recover, then they are immune.

When herds get resistant, your end will come soon.

Then you must mutate before you come back,

Like influenza, a yearly attack.

 

That’s natural selection, like Darwin said.

With no variation, you’ll wind up dead.

Hosts make antibodies; microbes mutate.

The game continues; it’s never checkmate.