Randi and Shane listen to the first letter, from Shane’s father. The coronavirus is infecting and killing black Americans at an alarmingly high rateCastRandi Halle MillienShane Mark MillienSFX and Music ContributorsSFXQ Tone [Query]Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.orgQ Tone [Response]Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.orgCheersMy bourbon by Me of MeMusicDesmond’s First LetterPG-Sunshining by PaulGuanez of looperman.comCreated by Mark and Halle MillienCover Art by Halle MillienWritten, Directed and Produced by Mark MillienSpecial thank you to Puppy Pals for keeping our eldest dead-eyed and limp enough for us to get this podcast out.GlossaryIRIS: Independent Retinal Immersive Scanner; a passive laser suite integrated into various bits of everyday tech that interprets your eye’s movements and translates them into digital action. Effective for drifting on the Q, inputing textual commands, communicating wordlessly and interacting with eleventh generation tech in an almost seamless way. It would appear like telepathy to people of today.vam: slang for videogram.Desmond’s First Letter:Shane. I’m sitting across from you feeling guilty. The TV, as I type this, has drained your soul away. You are a husk of your normal self, deadeyed and limp. I try not to take your surplus of energy for granted. I try to marvel, in every moment, the mechanics of your limbs, the buoyancy of your spirit. I’m practicing staying present. One of the many lifehacks I’ve adopted culled from emails, newsletters and instagram posts from the perpetually zen. But right now I’m so thankful for your stillness and silence that I’m giddy. These two tribes of beasts that have become our Quarantine children. I made you all peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today with that thick Trader Joe’s bread. We’re running out. Dr. Birx recommended that this week, these next two weeks in particular, that we should all stay home. We’ve been sheltering in place together with the Morgans for weeks now, but this was different. She said trips to the grocery store and pharmacy should only be taken in emergencies. We’ve been watching the rest of the world suffocate, praying for Italy and praying to not to become Italy and now it feels like it’s our turn to choke. The prime minister of Britain is in intensive care. Each day there are more people with masks when we take our walks, even here in Dallas. We politely cross the street half a block away from our neighbors who have become potential carriers, well meaning and innocent threats. Your mom is doing better with it all than I am. At least I think she is. It’s hard to tell. She’s constantly moving. She has a job and she can do that job from home. Which would make us aristocrats in the new scheme of things but I don’t have a laptop job. I bought her three bottles of wine the last time I went out to the store. I peeled off the labels so that she could just enjoy whatever was in her glass without worrying about the price. It’s hardest for Helen, with Roderick gone all the time. I tasked you kids with picking her some flowers from the backyard. Flowering weeds, really. They’re dying in a plastic cup a couple of feet away from where I’m typing this. I don’t think she’s noticed them. Even here, it’s hard for me to talk about Roderick. I don’t know what to say except that when he’s gone the sun can’t quite reach beyond the panes and we wait for him in unwanted shade. There was a report today that said black people are being infected and dying disproportionately to other groups. At the beginning of this there was an internet rumor that metastasized into colloquial pseudo wisdom that we were somehow immune. Seems like it was so long ago that we were so proud of being so stupid. Majority black counties are dying at six times the rate of majority white counties. And we are just at the beginning. Before you were born I tried to reconcile the dangers that would stalk you in your life. I thought that I had been adequately paranoid and thoughtful. I was wrong. I never considered this. I never knew to be terrified of this new thing, waiting for you to grow, so that it could strangle the life out of you or leave you without a community of elders to nurture and guide you. But I saw something amazing today Shane. There was an election today in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Another family, like ours, stood in a scattered line, under a sky that dumped rain and ice, for hours, so that they could vote. The only reason they were there, were because a group of cynical people gave them a choice. Vote or stay home, thinking that the less people turned out, the greater advantage it would give them. I don’t know how most of those people voted, just like I don’t know what tomorrow will bring into our home. But they risked their lives today and I’m hopeful that they did so in defiance of the cynics and not in support of them. I’m probably wrong, but for the sake of the world I want for you, I...
