"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."
Virtually everyday is the same now. I spend the day in a sort of ecstatic haze, doing virtually anything to avoid the growing calamity outside my flimsy wooden fence.
I garden.
I clean the kitchen.
I clean the living room.
I mow the lawn.
I play games with my kids.
I sit and drink coffee and watch the trees sway.
I eat.
I eat a little more.
I go for a walk.
I drink a beer.
Or two.
I listen to the birds chirp in the trees.
I do virtually anything I can think of to avoid the unavoidable.
Then night comes. The kids are winding down. I finally stop for a moment and I sit down on the couch. I go to Twitter. I go to Facebook. I go to the Georgia Department of Health website.
And there I hear the collective wailing of humanity coming to the realization that this will change everything. I am Obi Wan, holding tight to the couch, stupefied by the sheer scope of the suffering and the suffering that is still to come. The wailing comes in waves, broken by a cat video or a viral dance routine, a meme, and then the wailing is back louder than before.
Soon it will probably only be the wailing.
And then I suppose I'll have to just leave my phone on the counter all the time, black and blank and useless. Except for calls to friends and family, to hear their voices, to hear their stories, to hear their hope and fear and loneliness.
To hopefully hear anything other than the wailing.