In this chaotic time of Coronavirus (COVID-19), how could I not be reminded of one of my most favorite books of all time, Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic novel The Stand. In this book, the world is ravaged by a disease that is dubbed the “superflu”, nicknamed Captain Trips, the world not knowing that the origin of the outbreak was a leak from a military site that worked on making biological warfare weapons. And, no, I’m not suggesting that that is the origin of this disease. This disease is just a mutation of the regular virus, a type of common virus that can infect your nose, sinuses, or upper throat. It can spread much like cold viruses. Almost everyone gets a coronavirus infection at least once in their life, most likely as a young child.

But in The Stand, as a rule, almost nobody can resist contracting this highly contagious virus which has no treatment or cure, thus being a death sentence. However, there are a surprisingly few that are immune to infection; over 90% of the world perishes. And that’s where the fun begins, for many surviving individuals are led by shared dreams to the home of a 108-year-old woman in Nebraska whom they come to see as an embodiment of good. This woman, Abagail Freemantle, who comes to be known to the survivors as “Mother Abagail”, becomes the spiritual inspiration and muse for the survivors. Once this initial core of survivors have assembled around “Mother Abagail”, she leads them to move on to westward to Boulder, Colorado where they attempt to start over.

There is, however, another group of survivors who are pulled to move on to Las Vegas by Randall Flagg, an evil supernatural being known as “The Walkin’ Dude” or “The Man in Black”. Here, this side of humanity, not just the evil ones but also the ones who have felt left out and have lost hope, try to rebuild society as they once knew it, including the militaristic side, with plans to destroy what’s considered the enemy camp, Boulder Colorado.

There, in essence, are the basics of the tale, but by no means the entirety of a fantastic journey of the imagination that only one such as King could have created. The only way to know the rest of the story is to actually read the entire book.

Ironically, there are many way that real life can inspire the basis of fictional novels, or that the fiction in novels can turn into fact in life. One such instance of fiction to fact is the book The Man, by the late Irving Wallace, released in 1964. It tells the story of the first African American to become president, though in this instance it’s in the line of succession that he achieves this position. Unfortunately, Wallace didn’t live long enough to see the fact of what he once wrote of come true, though by general election rather that succession..

But Stephen King himself has been inspired and used many instances of real life to fill the pages of his books. One of the inspirations for The Stand was an actual accidental release of a nerve gas from the an army proving grounds in Utah that caused the death of over 6,000 sheep. And prior to that, King had heard on a radio sermon the line “Once in every generation the plague will fall among them”. On hearing that, he copied it down and pinned it over his typewriter, little knowing what it would eventually inspire.

One of the strange characters in The Stand, the Kid, was loosely based on the 1950s’ spree killer Charles Starkweather. King’s inspiration for Randall Flagg, “The Walkin’ Dude”, was Donald DeFreeze, who led the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

Another interesting inspiration in King’s career was the one that led him to write The Shining. He and his wife Tabitha spent the night at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. They were the only occupants for the night for the hotel was shutting down for the season the next day. King found himself wandering the empty hotel that evening, which paved the way for his imagination to create the world that ended up inhabiting the book.

Ironically, though, I just learned today that King has declared there is no relation to The Stand and the coronavirus. Still, I couldn’t help but see the similarities, though this time around we’re not dealing with good vs. evil, but with science vs. nature. And the truth is, as a nation, we must now truly take a “Stand” and fight back so we can soon return to the life we know.