An Ashen Horse

©April 2, 2020, Olan L. Smith

People were well behaved at the grocery store, and I got all my medications without problems. The floors were well marked as we lined up to pay for items. They say, "Stay six feet apart," and blue labels were carefully place for our conveniences to show us how far apart six feet is. All the paper items were gone except for two rows of emaciated paper towels, and the worst looking paper napkin I've ever seen, but they will wipe my face. The driver helped me in the van and carried the groceries downstairs to my apartment, and then it was the choir of putting them away. It wasn't quite like the day humans foraged for their food, killed the mighty bison while hunting in groups; now it is a matter of purchase, trading electronic funds for actual items to feed the body, and keep it nourished.

Today, April the 2nd 2020, we learned the virus is airborne, no other fancy word for it. You can give it to someone by breathing on them. Now, there is no stopping it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. No time travel, no slipping between realities to somewhere balmy. This is the age where we leave people on cruise ships to die, where idiots run locomotives off the rails to sink mercy ships, and the crazy preacher says, "Come to the assembly let us past the collection plate," then they will all go to heaven in the rapture that doesn't come for the living.

"I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name, Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth." Revelation 6:8