“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
Untitled
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.
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