A permanent miracle/ Jean Genève Schubert
As usual, the gendarmes are overwhelmed. It’s a rat race up to the roundabout. The avenue is now clear, but not for long. We must zigzag, avoid holes, spare stray dogs, vendors on the side of the streets, distracted drivers, and vehicle wrecks. Gaily painted tap-taps enhance with colors the route. The traffic jam worsened at the entrance to Delmas, a popular district. Bottleneck. Gridlock. Dog bed. No traffic lights. The few remaining ones hang like bats from pylons. A cop moves like a disjointed semaphore. Drivers ignore him. Run for your life. The law of the strongest or most reckless prevails as the vital principle—a permanent miracle.
Flashes of anger/ Paul Kalanithi
The truth that you live one day at a time didn’t help: What was I supposed to do with that day? At some point, then, I began to do a little bargaining—or not exactly bargaining. More like: “God, I have read Job, and I don’t understand it, but if this is a test of faith, you now realize my faith is fairly weak, and probably leaving the spicy mustard off the pastrami sandwich would have also tested it? You didn’t have to go nuclear on me, you know…” Then, after the bargaining, came flashes of anger: “I work my whole life to get to this point, and then you give me cancer?” And now, finally, maybe I had arrived at denial. Maybe total denial. Maybe, in the absence of any certainty, we should just assume that we’re going to live a long time. Maybe that’s the only way forward.
