Rapt in the Ghastly Fascinations

It’s a month of bated breath.

We strain to see what manner of beast lies past the bend, desperate to know which way the tail of the year twists.

In a normal autumn, the months are a slow exhalation of an aging year, plodding toward its terminus. Leaves and temperatures and moods drop. Vibrant colors grow muted as the days shorten.

This is a not-normal autumn in a not-normal year.

This is the year in which time stretched: slow days of crippling quiet and endless nights of bullhorn voices. Hours went missing. Months flew past, yet seemed interminable in the rearview.

Objects in the mirror cannot be trusted.

This year, we rose in immeasurable numbers. We fell in unfathomably measurable ones. We’re still falling.

Too many of us couldn’t breathe. Too many of us still can’t breathe. Too many of us are too terrified to breathe.

Yet we’re rising to be counted.

We’re rapt in the ghastly fascinations, breath held, waiting for the month, its weeks, its days to tick down.

Waiting to see which way the tail twists.

Waiting to see how the tale ends.