Harangue

The appointment was scheduled. My phone buzzed – a new prescription queued at the pharmacy. A darkly efficient counterpoint to global collapse. Antidepressants delivered with the speed and reliability once reserved for… well, anything.

And yet, the normalization of it all was breathtaking. Meetings dissolved into pajama bottoms, feline cameos, and “sorry about my dog.” Breathing itself became a public offense requiring mumbled apologies and sidelong glances. You’d overhear snippets in grocery stores: “Don—cough cough—don’t worry, just lung cancer,” accompanied by a frantic search for hand sanitizer. Fear connected us more profoundly than politeness ever did.

Intimacy reduced to contactless delivery: groceries abandoned on porches like offerings to a capricious god. The apotheosis of convenience was alcohol delivery—canned cocktails, a pre-mixed melancholy in pastel-hued aluminum, marketed with the “these are trying times” assurance that existential dread pairs well with lime. Because if the world is ending, at least it can end with a perfectly chilled gin and tonic arriving at your doorstep, brought to you by someone else’s quiet desperation.

Proof that all our technological prowess hadn’t inoculated us against being humanly vulnerable; desperately reliant on each other despite centuries spent building walls against that very truth. Our primary mode of connection shifted to engagement metrics: “Like and subscribe” across a screen, replacing “How are you?” across from another human. The sheer improbability threatened to induce existential vertigo—even Zaphod Beeblebrox would have requested a fifth Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

And a sixth didn’t help with accepting toilet paper as the new gold standard. I found myself calculating net worth in ply while simultaneously nurturing a sourdough starter named “Seriously?” An exercise in futility rivaled only by my attempts to explain the legal concept of hearsay to potato chip grease I had wiped on my shirt.

Meanwhile, the hospitality industry—ever the innovator—simply relocated its failings to the sidewalk. Patios sprouted like defiant weeds, fueled by plastic cups and a collective denial of personal space. Elsewhere in the nation, citizens waged legal battles over follicular freedom… haircuts elevated to constitutional imperatives while mourners watched funerals unfold from behind glass.

Some behind that glass spent their final days in the sterile and meticulously-sanitized room, dismissing concerns about severity as “overblown hysteria.” Tragic. Minimizing the very thing that was dismantling them from within. Final coherent acts weren’t grand confessions or heartfelt farewells; they were curses, threats, and blame. Death while demanding a dewormer—a monument to misplaced priorities. I guess the virus isn’t much worse than a cold… if you’re dead.

For others, like me, it wasn’t merely burning lungs and a stuffy nose; it was a neurological heist. The virus didn’t just block access to scent and flavor—it dismantled the receiving stations themselves. Coffee tasted like faintly warm regret, and roses offered no olfactory solace. Fundamental layers of reality had been muted, leaving behind a world rendered in shades of gray—a murderous sensory deprivation tank masquerading as a common cold. But I did eat an entire onion, and won a few bucks.

Scientists across the globe raced against exponential curves; politicians perfected synchronized swimming in quicksand—elegant flailing accompanied by increasingly elaborate explanations for why they weren’t actually in quicksand.

The colorblind leader, who only saw green, suggested internal disinfection via industrial cleaning products—a notion greeted with appropriate skepticism by medical professionals but embraced with fervent enthusiasm by a certain type. All while wielding the vaccine as a political hammer in a way only a sociopath could master. Profound dissonance: advocating poison while privately pursuing preservation—a masterclass in hypocrisy delivered with unwavering conviction.

Then came the brain fog. Not simply forgetfulness, but an erosion of cognitive architecture. Thoughts became slippery owls in a bucket as metaphors refused to coalesce. Time was as lost as your keys when you found them in the last place you looked: you couldn’t distinguish one day from the next.

It felt like my internal operating system hung while defragging… vocabulary whittled down like a… whittled down thing. With each attempt at clarity yielding only further adverb adjective noun… the cat is wearing my shoes… is Tuesday a flavor?… the houseplants are judging my eyebrows… they always grooming-shame… static… interference… purple… the castle uuuuggghhh…