Then I recalled a lesson from my grandmother. She raised me after my parents ODed in a local park.

She said: Honestly, you hear the songs of spring for about three months of the year. Then it becomes memory and like all memories time distorts it twisting it into something it never was. And we…we try to reconstruct those memories, but this only makes them less than they were before. We must cherish the moment when the memory is created knowing that’s all we’ll ever truly have. Before and beyond it’s like wavering red light boldly slicing up the ocean’s horizon as the sun rises and then sets.

Memories, I knew was now humanity’s best possible future.

That’s why we shoot pictures and make recordings toss selfies all over social media. We’re afraid of losing yesterdays, the fragile memories of moments, a gentle touch, a parting hug, a smile filled with meaning of love quavering at the revelation of its eventual loss.

This is a core segment of the human condition, which lets us know a few uncomfortable truths about ourselves, and others. We are basically afraid of much of life and that fear … it’s an irrefutable revelation if we let that slip.

And it slipped then for me. I walked to the river and tossed my comm-unit into its center where rapid currents would suck it into tomorrow without me, selfies and all.

Then finally after seven weeks of daily blood draws I knew I helped no one. This time being an immune meant only that I’d live until they finally drained my veins and arteries. They never revealed that truth. It revealed itself. Then I concluded that I’d die soon since they, the doctors and lab techs, decided I could let them do two draws a day.

And the reaction of people like you added to my decision. You see I made the mistake of telling trusted friends and family. “You’re an immune you must help us. You’re a coward if you leave. I don’t believe anything you say or do matters. You have to help us even if it means you die.” I decided then to never look back.

Instead of supporting the med-sci teams working to end the pandemic many chose to dance around a deranged corrupt leader like ancient pagans around a stone circle with a bonfire at its center flames reaching for heaven as an invitation to the gods of their creation longing to conjure good spirits and never understanding they chose demons instead. Demons devoted to their destruction.

The first two pargraphs

I left on the fifty-seventh day. After what I decided was one too many blood draws. At first I was glad to contribute, to keep those in my town from dying. That’s what the people in authority informed me that I had the power to do. A vial a day didn’t seem likely to cause me harm. After all I’m an immune. One of less then a hundred in the country.

After a month I began to feel weak. It’s nothing they told me. You’ll feel better after a good meal and a day or two of rest. Then while I rested in my tiny riverside house I witnessed the bodies offloaded from unmarked vans being carried to a large deep-sea fishing boat tied to a remote access dock. I stopped counting at sixty-three knowing there would be more to come.