- "Ten Responses to the Proposal
to Overcome the Current Plague
by Challenging It to a Duel."
"One.
Sometimes you just have to say a thing out loud
and everyone immediately hears how ridiculous it is.
If that doesn't work, two: were it truly possible
to challenge this sickness to a duel, it is not,
know that I would volunteer, pistols or knives
or bare-knuckle with the plague god,
crown of mossy bone, black talons
still stained with my siblings.
Rage would propel me to victory, were victory possible.
It is not.
I say this only to validate your rage.
I want this plan to work.
It will not.
Three.
We make gods of what matters.
Harvest is important, so a god is born.
The sun, this moon, its many oceans,
many gods, warring and whorling on,
how sickness ascends from nightmare to spirit to deity,
a laughing deep-green antlered owl
sitting atop the world as it sinks below the horizon.
What is made can be unmade,
but can you unmake fire with just your fists?
Can you unmake sickness with only strength?
Four.
You have strength, as a hero must,
but remember, the same hammer that builds a house
can be thrown at a stray cat.
What if your hands became hammers?
How would you change a bandage?
How would you hold your children?
Five.
You have courage, as a hero must,
but is it courage to saunter,
smirking, into a pit of snakes?
Is it boldness to dance atop a tall tower
during a lighting storm?
Is it leadership to say,
'If, in my fearlessness, I die, then I die,'
when during a plague, the more accurate statement is,
'If, in my fearlessness, I kill, then I kill.'
Six.
You question authority, as a hero must,
so when the village healer says the plague is serious,
you say, 'Of course she wants us to be afraid.
That's how she makes her money.'
But when your boss, who makes his money
off of your labor, says the plague is not serious,
that we should all just go back to work like normal,
your dueling pistol is suddenly empty.
You muzzle the barking dogs inside you,
stack their skulls in a shrine to the god of obedience.
Seven.
After the plague took my sister,
I punched the stone wall of her room so hard
it shattered all the bones in my right hand.
This is how the men in my family tell sad stories.
We always add a little violence.
I can be vulnerable as long as I look cool,
hat low at the funeral, back row of mourners,
leaving early to smoke, to sharpen a knife.
This is how the men in my family mourn. Like heroes.
Eight.
I'm not here to tell you that no one should ever duel anyone
or that there are no problems that violence can solve.
If a murderer threatens your family, take his head.
Just note how quick we are to kill for our families
when so many of us won't make the smallest sacrifice
to protect them, won't cover our faces during a plague,
won't ask for help when we so clearly need it.
Note how quick we are to die
for some abstract notion of freedom when...
You know, it occurs to me.
I don't know all of the gods,
but I've never heard of a god of freedom.
We have a god of war,
but not for the thing we're told everyone is fighting for,
like we have a god of death,
but not of mourning, of sadness, of letting go,
a god of thunder, but not of rain,
a god of courage, but not of care,
a god of vengeance, but not of prevention,
a god of plague, but not of dancing,
a god of wrath, but not of reflection.
We have patron deities for duelists,
soldiers, hunters, thieves, assassins,
all those professions for which chaos requires control,
even if, especially if, that control is an illusion,
a thought, a prayer.
Nine.
I'm not here to tell you that the plague is not our enemy,
just that there are things we can learn from our enemies.
We understand power as dominance,
but when a plague is too dominant,
too unstoppably bloodthirsty,
it kills too quickly, cannot spread, and burns itself out.
We understand power as purity,
but the most effective medicines
often contain small traces of sickness in them.
We understand power as individual, but plague is not a god.
It is an unfathomably large number
of unfathomably small creatures working together.
We are as gods to them, and they annihilate us regularly.
We understand power as control,
but every plague is a harbinger of the next plague,
a pattern we cannot kill, cannot control,
but can use as a reason
to adapt to change, to grow.
Ten.
Brittle victory, soft survival.
This is not a fight we can win with brute force.
This is not a fight we can win.
This is not a fight.
This is a dance, and yes, a dance can be a battle,
but never a duel, never to the death.
Instead, to life, to the circle,
to everyone we have lost, to everyone else still here,
to all the gods and spirits we don't have names for."