On my way to the bus stop for the bus which arrives once every 35 minutes (55 on weekends), a guy shouts at me out of his SUV about my mask. I flip him off. He shouts fuck a bunch and calls me a whore before speeding off. The bus pulls away as I approach the door.

I arrive at the pharmacy. A prop skeleton behind the counter is wearing a surgical mask; it is the only one with anything on its face.

It is five years from now. The second person to leak blood from every orifice on a plane dies this week; it is blamed on obesity. Teenagers convulse in coughing fits every other spoken word and extracurricular enrollments dwindle every year; parents say it’s those damn cell phones.

Whatever you do, just don’t talk about that C-word. It’s not a problem anymore, ok? It’s nothing.