The Orange Guy

🐾 Featuring a bold response to a global crisis, a very confident cat… and a plan that may or may not make any sense

This story is part of The Diary of an Orange Cat — now available as a book and as a complete 24-episode podcast series.

👉 Listen to the podcast:
The Diary of an Orange Cat

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The full visual episode of The Orange Guy is now available on YouTube.

STORY OUTLINE

Influenced by news reports and TV shows about the coronavirus pandemic, Weasley has a bizarre dream where he imagines himself as the Supreme Leader of Cats. In the dream Weasley channels his inner Trump and finds himself dealing with a cat version of the crisis. He makes grandiose speeches and implements increasingly absurd policies, parodying real-world pandemic responses. The chapter blends reality and fantasy in a humorous way, while also reflecting Weasley’s anxieties about leadership and responsibility. Upon waking, Weasley feels relieved it was just a dream but is left pondering the real-world changes happening in Diamond Harbour.

BACKGROUND

This story was first published on my website on 14 April 2020. The first cases of COVID-19 had started to be reported on New Zealand news in late February 2020. A four-tier alert level system had been introduced on 21 March 2020 to manage the outbreak within New Zealand and a two-month nationwide lockdown was imposed from 26 March to 27 May 2020.

Meanwhile in America, Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic (which he once dismissed as a hoax) was being fiercely criticised as confused and woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility. Memes about Donald Trump were rife on social media and this one doing the rounds on Facebook at the time, gave me an idea for a story about Weasley.