The Real Pandemic

Brendan O’Neill before he died in complete agony.

Much has been made of the UK’s coronavirus death toll. With almost 40,000 bodies piled up that would cause some logistical problems for the few planes in the air. These people were all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, fiancés, partners, siblings, friends and lovers. However, what we must remember is that, of all these people, none of them were important because they weren’t famous.

There is a much greater danger lurking in England, one that only seems to be attacking the finest lawyers, politicians, and journalists like myself. Ladies and gentlemen: the brain worms are now lethal.

It is an open secret that many of us have these parasites wriggling in our craniums. It all started back in the 70s when our top columnists were young and free. Between the meetups, the booze ups and the free love sessions, the enigmatic R. Shaikorth was holding it all together. Almost nothing is known about him and people are very unwilling to discuss him.

What we do know is in 1976 Shaikorth created a small festival in Hackney Downs. I could only find one person who would speak to what happened there, though they have asked to remain anonymous.

“A lot of people couldn’t handle the pace: finishing up at 5am, grabbing a shower, heading to Fleet Street and then doing it all over again, it wasn’t sustainable. But Shaikroth, he didn’t want to give it up, to give us up. He just seemed to feed on our energy, you know? At the festival he offered us all a solution. He claimed he’d a rare worm that if we let it burrow into our brains, would do our work for us while we rested. It would be a fugue state, almost like sleep, as the worms whispered through our fingers into the keyboard. Here we would find deep peace beyond even the greatest guru. And for many of us it was bliss, for a time.”

The worm enters through the ear creating severe pain as it penetrates the cochlea before burrowing to its destination in the brain stem. There it feeds on the cerebrospinal fluid and surrounding grey matter as it takes control of the host. The worm is not capable of complex thought or learning new information, it just follows the easiest pathways it can find. In short, perfectly suited to the professions of journalism and politics.

“It wasn’t meant to be used all the time, just occasionally if you were tired after a heavy night. But it was too easy and no one noticed. Of course, you’d let it slip at a dinner party and your friends would want in but we’d no way of extracting the worms or finding new ones.”

Time passed and the select few gifted the worms trundled on. Then a young Brendan O’Neill hit the scene; after finding out about the worms he became obsessed with tracking them down. He spent years sifting through helminthology books and tomes of arcane knowledge in libraries across the country. Then one day he appeared with a jar of these precious worms in hand.

At first, he inserted one but hoping to increase its power, he added another. Soon he had worms crawling out of his ear at night, it seemed they were gender fluid (ironic considering the head they inhabited) and breeding. O’Neill set about selling them around the dinner tables of London and at £100 per worm, a new craze was born.

Notably, one of the original recipients from Shaikorth all those years ago, a young politician named Tony Blair, started buying them up in large quantities: he gave them to family, friends and colleagues and soon the framework for New Labour was born.

Testimony

“It’s a faint whisper in your head. Like your inner monologue, but there is something different about it. Less clear, more like the suggestion of the thought than the actual thought.”

“The fugue state is bliss, it’s so quiescent. But now I find daily tasks become harder. Even making a cup of tea can be a struggle, you forget what milk or even a fridge is if you can’t see it. I know that I’ve read other books, at least I think I know, but all I can recall is the Harry Potter novels!”

These are some of the testimonies from those afflicted with brain worms. There is no known cure as excising the parasite would also mean removing the brain stem.

For many it was just something they had to live with, a hindrance but no more debilitating than early onset arthritis. That was until earlier this year when the worms turned deadly. A spate of grizzly deaths, all of them popular journalists and all of them riddled with brain worms, has washed over Britain from Islington to Hackney.

The deaths are excruciating, as the agonised, blood curdling screams are always heard by neighbours. When the worm reaches a certain size, over-gorging on spinal fluid, it eventually bursts, in some cases sending shards of skull through the air with such ferocity they have embedded into walls.

As the worm increases in girth the host’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. Many become obsessed with Owen Jones, start to have overwhelming sexual urges towards dogs (often termed Gove’s disease) or simply become unable to recall details of any event in their life.

Those infected with multiple worms suffered most as they bred: looking into the eyes of these victims, you could see the slithering horde moving behind the iris of the victim. At developed stages the eyes bulge and deflate as they start to consume the vitreous body.

The best we can hope for is… that the worm turns, the worm knows best. Trust the worm, love the worm. God I hate Owen Jones.

Editor’s note: Shortly after this article was submitted Frank Treves was found dead in his Hackney apartment. His upcoming book, pictured below, A History of Brainworms will be released posthumously.