And Birthday Candles
“Never show up early to a party, but don’t show up too late to be noticed” Toni used to say in the few times they went out together socially. Not that the couple was terribly anti-social, but after the last two pandemics things never really went back to the way things they were before. Everybody always spoke of “The Big One” in the same way Californian’s feared the apocalyptic mega-quake, or the super volcano that’d blow up Yosemite. Except it wasn’t a large-scale natural disaster people were afraid of, but the next virus that would indiscreetly kill whoever it got its grubby tendrils on. People were still afraid of people and the sicknesses they’d spread. It was evidenced by the tumble weeds of cloth masks and the garbage cans stuffed with mostly empty hand-sanitizer
