“The plague metaphor is an essential vehicle of the most pessimistic reading of the epidemiological prospects. From classic fiction to the latest journalism, the standard plague story is of inexorability, inescapability. The unprepared are taken by surprise; those observing the recommended precautions are struck down as well.”

Susan Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphors

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The nightly announcement of cases and

deaths. The slow and costly rise multiplying

exponentially. Each day protracted

waiting to find out if I was better

or worse off. Or the same; which was as bad.

Appraising, forecasting, the hereafter.

Did you hear about so and so dying?

was answered with was it coronavirus?

Was there a pre-existing condition?

I trivialised death with a question;

shifted responsibility elsewhere.

I stopped the human, the specific, being

counted for clean figures. There was a plague

on our houses and I numbered the dead.