Is Human Life Becoming Obsolete?

A postcard from the latest apocalypse

Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

We’re allowed out again

The powers that be have decided that the risk to human health, in this particular instance, is outweighed by the risk to the economy.

So for the first time in well over a year, the wife and I went out for dinner with some friends of ours. At some mediocre restaurant — every restaurant in this town is mediocre — we were told there would be a forty-minute wait. So we went to a pub down the road.

We ate. We drank. We cracked weak jokes the young server was obliged to laugh at behind the black mask that matched her dress in the hope of a tip. Just two more depressing suburban couples running down the clock, sitting in the air conditioning waiting for the heat to die off. Spending $80 on bog-standard food and beer from cans because we don’t know what else to do.

There’s something wrong here. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. Some sharp edge in the culture, a gap I can stick my finger through. Something it sometimes seems nobody sees but me.

We want more than we can have

Sometimes, we want more than there is. We want flawless partners with tiny waists and bulbous backsides, or billionaire pretty boys with…