I put a joke poll out on Twitter a few days ago, asking people how they think 2020 will end. Here's the five responses I got:

But joke polls aside, while we really have a Happy End?

Well, as part of this second edition of the Fork, you'll get a few different endings from me! And I deliberately kept it in the near future, so that you can freely mock and ridicule this post on the 1st of January 2021, when you are enjoying your socially distanced fizz ;).

As usual, I go from pessimistic to optimistic, and throw the strange one in ... at some point :).

(1) End of Happy.

Source: *pixabay*.

2020 will end as a proper Annus Horribilis. In a nutshell:

• The vaccines turn out only to work for specifc strains of SARS-CoV2, whilst the mink industry in Europe has been helpful in ballooning the number of strains to close infinity.
• As weather gets colder in the Northern hemisphere, SARS-CoV2 goes on a massive rampage in Europe and Northern America. Christmas will be Cancelled this year.
• The stock market crashes over Christmas due to vaccine disappointments, and continued uncertainty about the US election, where election officials now are being blackmailed to further delay the transition.
• The conflict in Ethiopia will spiral further out of control.
• And specially for @aussieninja: Tesla identifies a manufacturing error in their batteries, and end up recalling all their Model 3 cars over Christmas.
• Protests erupt across the UK, as the government fails to secure a deal with the EU and splurges on missiles and warships whilst poor children are still left starving over Christmas.
• And to top it all off, Coil shuts down without prior notice.

There you go, is that bad enough for a pessimistic 2020 scenario? ;)

(2) Dark clouds with a slight silver lining

Source: Wikimedia Commons

2020 was lousy, but the final two months give hope for better times ahead:

• Trump fades into the background, but Biden gets confirmed quickly as new president, and the transition is relatively smooth due to the professionalism of the other Republicans.
• The SARS-CoV2 pandemic peaks at the end of November, but it's clear the worst is behind us by the time December has ended.
• The COVID-19 vaccine works...fairly well. It's already been used on some of the most vulnerable people by the end of the year, and it has incentivized many others to stick better to the lockdown measures now that the cavalry has arrived. The pandemic is far from over, but at least the world has found a method to the madness.
• Britain doesn't strike a deal with EU (hahahaha!), but at least Boris had the common sense to arrange a last-minute extension. Nobody is precisely sure how that was accomplished though.
• Christmas is not cancelled, only the major group events.
• The crypto hype continues into December, delivering some smiles on masses of people who otherwise had a terrible year.
• I attempt to make a video post using Cinnamon, but it turns out hilariously poor!

(3) Boom!

Source: *Needpix*.

No further ado, let's roll with the third outcome!

• Donald Trump returns to sanity, Putin steps down as president, Xi Jinping releases all the people in Xinjiang.
• Boris Johnson reaches a deal with the EU, and caves in to Marcus Rashford's demand for free school meals for poor children in the UK.
• Ripple moves to the UK and rescues the impending crash of the UK economy (ha!).
• Vaccines get rolled out all over the place. Companies are waiving patents and everyone works together to already get the first million people vaccinated by the end of 2020.
• Peace returns to Ethiopia.
• My leg actually recovers properly and I'll walk sort of normally by new year.
• #FlareNetworks decides to give the Ripple share of Spark tokens to all the poorest people in the world: the price then booms after the tokens are issued, lifting millions of people out of poverty ;).
• The Coil 2.0 blogging platform gets released, blowing everyone's expectations, and lastly.
• Someone invents a 200-seater electric passenger place!