96
Miasma
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Sidney Grady
“It was worse for the poor. They stayed in their homes, and being without help of any kind, could not hope to escape death. They died at all hours in the streets; those who died at home were not missed by their neighbors, until they noticed the stench of their putrefying bodies. The whole city was a sepulchre.” Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
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he dead of winter gives way to lively spring. This is the way it has always been. This year, we track less mud on the sidewalks. Lights off in the office, in the classroom; doors locked at the mall, but we need to eat. We warily eye the woman next to us in the pasta aisle, stifle a cough. Empty aisles, empty shelves. It’s quiet, even here, and we do not linger long. The guy at point-of-sale will touch our canned beans and hand soap just after us — because he must — and we will imagine someone tossing him a fiver and some pocket change for his service. Anyone with a bit of luck on their side would stay home and labor through a screen in their shoebox apartments and answer another email and watch Oscar nominees sing at them in solidarity from the unused display offices in their ugly McMansions and maybe feel the claws of something rage-hot and rotting and ancient threatening to climb up out of their throats and their skin and their eyes and eat the bastards whole and answer another email and maybe take their lunch outside today, if the weather is kind. “The unfortunate husbandmen and their families, bereft of doctors’ or servants’ care, died day and night, not as men, but rather as beasts.” Disease does not discriminate — I know, I know — but the crowd of scientists shouting, “We don’t know! We don’t know why the poor are dying in higher numbers! We don’t know!” has got me thinking. The Red Death — like a thief in the night — crashed Prince Prospero’s party eventually. The ebony clock tick tick ticks for all, and so on. I know, I know, but Poe failed to consider the science of the glorious future — there is always a pill or a potion, if you can pay. “They walked around carrying flowers or fragrant herbs, which they held to their noses,thinking that it would provide some comfort against the air which reeked with the stench of the dead and dying.” A strange new holy-day ritual. Unemployment must open on Sunday for a reason. Are you working? How many hours? How much do you have? How much do you need? How many hours can you work? Why aren’t you working more? Are
