Yesterday it was just a general feeling of unease, at first. It built a little to a chest-tightening anxiety as I drove home through the congested part of town. By this morning it was a full-blown panic, that made me want to spend all day curled up in a ball, moaning rhythmically to soothe myself. I didn't do that, but I sure could picture myself dropping to the cushiest rug in the house, wrapping myself in the softest plush blanket I own, and the mental image was a little comforting, to know that I had the ability and permission to do it if I chose. It's possible my anxiety has a definable external source, like the global tensions that just keep getting worse as the year progresses. It's possible that it's biologically-derived, as in yet another symptom of my autoimmune diseases that crop up every so often to remind me that I'm mortal. Or it could be triggered by nothing more than the ebb and flow of being a human with emotions and weaknesses. Whatever it was, it kept me on edge all day, and I have just been waiting for the day to end so I can go back to bed and consign this day to the dustbin of history, to be forgotten as it deserved.
When I went to the bank this afternoon, I noticed that the flags were fully raised. Wasn't it just yesterday that we lost John Glenn? If he doesn't rate a national acknowledgement of mourning, who does? I mean, if the astronaut-pioneer phase of his life (both of them, to be honest) wasn't enough, the man was a senator for multiple terms. I think he merits the recognition. Maybe that particular bank just didn't get the memo. I forgot to look by the time I got to the other stops for my errands, to see if anyone else had the flags at half-staff.
In my anxiety and funk, I took time to watch the national news, and the reports out of Aleppo just left me feeling hopeless for the fate of the world. It made me think about a certain work of Boulder-based fiction. For decades, we've referred to the population-decimating-event that will surely come as "Captain Trips," after the virus that kills all but a handful of people in Stephen King's The Stand. Some days we postulate that it's inevitable; some days we wonder whether it might just be a good thing. Today, for the first time, I stopped assuming that it would take the form of a virus. Watching the news, unable to look away from atrocities and Doomsday predictions made me wonder whether it will be brought about by the hands of men, not dressed in lab coats but dressed in bespoke suits in governmental buildings. Whatever its source, I am more confident than ever that it is coming in my lifetime.
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