That’s so far in the rearview that I can’t remember. I’m thinking about the next one. It’ll be here before you know it.
I’m not quite sure what to do about it now that the CDC guidelines are to drink a shot of bleach each morning for the germs and take one bath in raw sewage before bedtime each evening for a robust immune system.
Sweet Tooth, Vol. 4: Endangered Species by Jeff Lemire
Remember the days
when you dreaded
a scratch at the back
of your throat --
harbinger of a cough
that you thought
would get you rushed off
to quarantine.
Or, at least, get a footlong swab
shoved through your nasal cavity.
Best case, it would put all eyes upon you,
as the public wondered whether
you were their Typhoid Mary --
(Except Mary was asymptomatic,
and - clearly - you were not.)
We all learned that the one cough
that one can never suppress
is the one that you desperately
wish to.
That cough won't be silenced.
A grouchy nitwit wrote a polemic
about how Yetis had caused the Pandemic.
The Yetis protested,
and kindly requested
the man ponder head-in-ass hygienics.
Pandemic street art
lingers on the walls —
just like its grounds
I A young man set his ex-fiancé on fire. (Or, so the story goes. [He claims she self-immolated.]) She succumbed to third-degree burns... but not right away. She lived long enough to know the agony of third-degree burns. They'd met in college, both studying to be engineers -- I mention that because at the heart of the issue was caste. It seems absurd enough to murder a fiancé over some imaginary mark of superiority, but even more so when one considers that they would have had the same qualification -- possibly similar jobs -- but for the boy's bigoted parents, who insisted he call off the engagement, and the boy, himself, who took things that extra murderous mile. So, it wasn't even about who the couple were, it was about what their grandfathers did for a living. What a world. II The war is still burning. Among the latest questions are: Will Belarus be forced to join in the fighting? & If so, will having another set of soldiers who are completely uninterested in the war -- other than as a trial to be survived, that is -- help or hurt Putin's position? A related question is whether Putin would rather watch the world burn than to lose face? What a world. III The Pandemic said, "Psyche!" This means America will roll the odometer on COVID deaths. We had things almost back to normal, and then the virus caught its breath, got it's footing,... whatever viruses do. What a world. *** I think I'll check the news, again, maybe sometime next year.
We heard the sound, distant rumbling. We watched the castles fall, crumbling. The choice of running to the rubble, or staying safe in our bubble. But either way, someway it'd hurt with either hands or head in dirt. Some tragedies are too galactic, and words just sing anticlimactic.
With mazy movement, I stagger through my days, my stops and starts are dull and purposeless. My stops and starts are glum and purposeless. With mazy motion, I stagger through my days. Earth 's circled sun since last I was unfazed, but I can't say what has encircled us. With mazy movement, I stagger through my days, my stops and starts are sour and purposeless. My life before seems like a febrile craze. How goes the flow of time? It's merciless, but leaves slim chunks of time for nervousness -- too staccato a rhythm for a true malaise. With mazy movement, I stagger through my days, my stops and starts are grim and purposeless. My stops and starts are dim and purposeless. With mazy motion, I stagger through my days.
The Fall, Volume 1 by Jared Muralt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Out: March 17, 2021
I’m really curious about how this book will do. On the one hand, the writer / artist does an incredible job of creating a visceral and gripping reading experience. On the other hand, I suspect the reaction will be a resounding: “too soon.” The story is essentially the worst-case scenario of our current, pandemic-dominated, world. What would happen if the fatalities became so disruptive that governance and economic production faltered and then collapsed? In the marketing materials, the publisher makes a comparison to Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and “The Fall” does share with that literary masterpiece the idea that there’s virtually nobody left that one wants to run into – i.e. everybody left is looking out for number one, and is, thus, untrustworthy. While that’s not strictly true, it’s true enough that one has to treat everyone with suspicion and with a finger on the trigger (literally or figuratively, as one’s state of armament allows.) Looking at the matter from the other direction, everyone left has done (or will end up doing) something of which they aren’t proud.
The story is built around a blue-collar family. The father and two children (a teenaged daughter and pre-teen boy) had one of the early variants of the flu, giving them adaptive immunity with a less lethal strain. The mother, a health-care worker, succumbs to the highly lethal evolved variant, leaving the three to survive in a rapidly escalating apocalyptic scenario.
At first, the family tries to survive in the city, but the father discovers that there is no food left and there are dangerous elements about. The trio then heads to stay with relatives in the countryside, not without running into challenges. They end up in a town that is allowing “tourists” to stay (with all the fatalities, housing is the only necessity that’s not lacking,) but there is not enough food or medicine for everyone. The characters are repeatedly pressed up against the kinds of challenging scenarios one might expect in a post-apocalyptic winter wonderland. Most pressingly, the father suffers an infection that seems like it may have him on his deathbed.
This is an intense read. As I say, I’m not sure everybody’s ready for it. If you have anxiety about where we are presently, I wouldn’t recommend it as it might take you to dire places that you wouldn’t have imagined yourself. That said, for readers of horror, dark stories, dystopian and post-apocalyptic wasteland stories, it’s a strong entry.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 