My friend and former high school mate, Michael, sent me a WhatsApp message entitled “The Hoarse Whisperer on Twitter” yesterday morning. 

It got my immediate attention. 

It was clearly a play on The Horse Whisperer – the movie in which Robert Redford plays a sympathetic horse trainer – and meant to be funny. I wasn’t disappointed: it showed a guy – presumably the old HW playing Trump – delivering an Easter message in a drop-dead Donald voice. 

“Not a lot of people know this about Easter… It was the day when Jesus and the two Corinthians met the Easter Bunny and came back from the dead.”

“It’s a beautiful story and very important for the Christians  … So I’m announcing today that I’m going to bring back the economy on Easter Sunday.”

“Because let’s be honest here… He’s a good God and a tough One but we have to be honest… His record isn’t that great … He brought only one man back from the dead and that was His son and that makes Him a little biased … But we are gonna bring back the entire economy Easter Sunday.”

In truth, Easter (April 12 this year) celebrates the resurrection of the Christ which makes it the most important and the most holy date in the Christian calendar. Therefore, the rambling Trump impersonator sounds terribly outrageous and, therefore, utterly hilarious.  

Because to quote the Hoarse Whisperer, let’s be honest here. It’s in times like these when we need some serious comic relief. When you wake up in the morning to find out on CNN that Spain is turning to ice rinks to serve as makeshift morgues because the dead are piling up faster than they can be safely disposed of. 

When the stock markets swing so wildly that commentators begin making comparisons to wealth effects “not seen since the Great Depression.” When doctors make bland comparisons between Covid-19 and the Spanish flu of 1918 which, incidentally, killed 17-50 million people worldwide.

And Heaven help the poor family under quarantine! We currently stay in a serviced apartment in Singapore where we probably will be stuck until April the 14^th at least.  Walking back this morning, however, we noticed a maid in front of us place some bags outside an apartment and walk away after ringing the apartment’s bell. 

The apartment’s door opened just as we were walking past, and we saw a child’s face framed by the door just before an adult grabbed the bags. The maid explained later that the family had just arrived the night before and so had to undergo a two-week quarantine period. 

That meant they had to do their own chores – bed-making, cleaning, etc – with sheets and everything else – toilet paper, for instance – supplied by the apartment’s management. They would be watched 24/7 by closed circuit television and all meals would have to be ordered. 

And they could not step out on pain of punishment. That was strict quarantine for you, and we shuddered at the thought. Not unlike jail time if you think about it. 

I’d say that family could use some laughs.

Wouldn’t you?