Whatever He Says

On this morning's news, we saw that the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the USA stands at 9,653. My mind could only deal with that reality by looking at the last digit in the four-figure statistic--the number "three." Each of those three was a real person with a system of friends, family and co-workers affected by their death. Three voices will never be heard again, they will never again write, or sing, or call, or touch. I allow my mind to cope with more--almost ten thousand people's unique gifts left this earth with them. The ugliness and brutality of this disease's destruction shocks and breaks my heart. A giant marches the forest of earth, and humanity scatters before his feet like bugs beneath leafy loam. He doesn't care whom he crushes, what life his steps snuff out, he does not discriminate, there is no weighing of factors. But of course, we aren't quite as helpless as my imagined bugs. We know that the giant exists, and his steps aren...