Recent Work: Pandemic

Pandemic Detritus 

Pandemic 

noun 

pan*dem*ic I \ pan-de-mik \ 

Definition of pandemic (Entry 2 of 2) 

An outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population: a pandemic outbreak of a disease. 

Detritus 

noun 

de*tri*us| \ di-tri- tes 

Definition of detritus 

1. geology: Loose material( such as rock fragments or organic particles ) that results directly from disintegration 

2a: a product of disintegration, destruction or wearing away: DEBRIS 

b. miscelleaneous remnants: ODDS AND ENDS:still picking up detritus from the block party...shifting through the detritus of his childhood... 

NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 2020 

The odds and ends of a pandemic. The loose material, debris, the miscelleaneous remnants. These peripheral minutiae, disposable, have begun to litter the city, increasing by the day, like the number of confirmed cases, the ambulance sirens, and the deaths. 

So much of this pandemic is invisible, we can't see the virus or the asymptomatic carriers among us. We can't see the infected who are isolated. But the scattered gloves and masks are visible, in greater and greater numbers. They are vivid reminders of what we all are enduring...and what we have lost.