Twenty years after Covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, a man and a woman who were quarantined together as kids question the validity of their current romantic relationship. They salvage audio recordings left by their parents during the pandemic, our present, to come to terms with their trauma. This is a fictional audio drama that points out the humanity of our fateful present and examines the future we are helping to create for our children.
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The final episode. As usual, thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters who continue to risk their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thank you to the volunteers at vaccination sites across the country getting needles into arms. Thank you to the messengers within communities acting as public health advocates. Thank you MBK. Thank you It’s All Love. Thank you moms. Thank you Knight. Thank you Sage. Halle, from the bottom of my heart, this wasn’t covered in our vows, but you showed up when you were exhausted, when you were hungry and when the last thing either of us wanted to do was wedge ourselves in that tiny closet. Thank you baby. You the best music. Dedicated to the memory of father.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad.
Bonus Pod
Saison 1
jeudi 25 mars 2021 • Durée 04:51
COVID39: Chapter 34
Saison 1 · Épisode 34
lundi 7 septembre 2020 • Durée 14:00
Randi confronts a stranger she knows.
Cast
Randi Halle Millien
Shane Mark Millien
Victor Coyotito Kelly / Mark Millien
SFX and Music Contributors
SFX
Q Tone [Query]
Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Q Tone [Response]
Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Victor Drop
thud2.wav by Topschool of freesound.org
The L
FOLEY - BODY FALL IMPACT.wav by cjosephwalker of freesound.org
Music
Marcus’ Letter Theme
Twilight Zone by MelodicMoe of looperman.com
Created by Mark and Halle Millien
Cover Art by Halle Millien
Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. To Mitch, who I originally wanted to for the role of Victor, I dedicate this to your wellness and freedom.
Glossary
ECCO: multinational corporation specializing in deep fake and catfish tech.
modulator: a voice synthesizer that mimics real voices from high quality samples.
#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #dad
Marcus’ Letter:
When your folks sent out the email for this project I was like cool, I dig time capsules. But then I was like, shit, that means I gotta type an email. I know that I could’ve left a video or audio joint, but I felt like with everything going on, I wanted to type something that I could edit and get right. That I could look at and read through, and if I read it out loud it would’ve felt like a performance, and given the moment we’re living through, I wanted to do it justice. And so it took me awhile to get it together and send this out. Your dad’s are my oldest friends, so this is humbling, I take this very personally. You aren’t too young to understand what’s going on. You’re all smart kids. I think about y’all a lot, wondering what the world will be like when you’re my age. What you’ll remember about this time we’re all surviving. I know people who have lost someone recently. Some because of COVID, some just because they were unlucky enough to die during a pandemic. I’ve heard about the awkward Zoom ceremonies. Old people not knowing to mute their feed or unaware that any noise they make centers the video away from whomever is speaking. Rambling. And the typical inappropriate speeches that go on that seem more cringey because you’re wearing a bathrobe while giving it. Today was George Floyd’s memorial. Al Sharpton was there, of course. He beseeched those in earshot, America in this case, to get your knees off our necks. I wonder what America will do with that advice. She’s always been a stubborn kind of kid, convinced of her own nobility despite evidence to the contrary. They set bail for the officers, the other three that were there when Floyd died, at $750,000. Seems like a lot, but the police unions have fairly deep pockets. Police unions. Who knew there were ANY unions left with power, much less ones holding cities hostage. We’ve learned a lot about cops lately. We, US, we always knew but now everyone is getting glimpses. Like how often and to what degree the police will blatantly lie. There was this protester in Buffalo who the police pushed over as they went to close off the area. Pushed him to the ground and left him to spasm and bleed on the pavement. He was a 75 year old white man. They said he tripped and fell when there’s clear video evidence that he was pushed. White people are getting a front row seat to how they manipulate the narrative unfairly, triggering fresh distrust in communities with calcified police resentment. It’s also an opportunity for people with no interest in the truth to tell you how they really feel. It’s...so crazy. These people think we don’t like the police because they stop us from being the criminals we were born to be. Dogwhistles are gone. Now they just say it. Honestly, I’m thankful for it, because it reconciles so many things I never really understood before. How they absentmindedly strip us of our humanity. How the tears of white women super-cede the lives of black women. It’s because they really think we foster a culture of crime that comes to us naturally, genetically. Like we’re the human version of pit bulls, prone to aggression and a physiological yearning for rigid discipline. Some of them know the history and dismiss it. How cops were always the enforcers of legal inequalities. The word systemic scares them so much that they’ve forgotten that Jim Crow refers to a set of laws, not strongly held opinions or cultural norms. Forgotten is my way of being generous. Separate but equal was always a spoonful of sugar in a barrel of poison and they knew it then and they know it now. They’ve always been talented at telling digestible lies designed to hide inconvenient truths. We want to close abortion clinics to protect the health of women. We want to support ID and signature laws to protect the integrity of elections, even though there is zero evidence of widespread voter fraud. Climate change is a hoax. Dogmatic individualism, except when it comes to a woman’s body. Guns rights, unless the cold dead hands holding them are black or brown. And on and on and on. I wonder what stories the right wing will make up about this old man. His age won’t save him, not from their machine. There’s evidence that Travis McMichael, the white man that shot Ahmaud Arbery, called him a fucking nigger, as he lay there dying. Dying because Travis shot him. I wonder how long it will be before they stand before a judge, him, his father, and their neighbor, and claim that they aren’t guilty of anything, that they did nothing wrong and that he was armed with the concrete of the road, like Trayvon’s lawyer argured. Given the tumultuous times, the president decided he wasn’t safe enough behind the walls of the White House or the men and women of the Secret Service or his military attaches and what not, so he built a wall around it, the White House, so that the protesters can’t get him. I wonder if it’ll still be up as some kind of odd monument somewhere when you hear this. Tattooed in black lives matter iconography. I look around at a lot of things and wonder if they’ll be in a museum someday. So much about now seems destined for archives and study and discussion. How did we get here? Are these the last days of the last empire? Will we be mourned? What will be left for the meek to inherit? Ex soldiers are making their way into the protests, inciting violence, a group called Boogaloo. Semi-automatic rifles and Hawaiian shirts. The feds just charged three of them as conspirators to terrorism, while Rand Paul is holding up anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. Reporters are no longer safe. They’ve been shot, beaten, sprayed, arrested, and intimidated. International Journalistic integrity organizations have expressed concerns, like we’re Saudi Arabia or something. Newspapers are having their own reckoning with the moment, the movement. On Thursday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a headline that said “Buildings Matter Too”. A couple dozen reporters called in sick. The New York Times published an op-ed written by Tom Cotton titled “Send in the Troops.” 800 staff members signed a letter in protest. No one is prepared for this. No one has the answers. Everyone is flailing, but we are still showing up. We are fighting. Right now it doesn’t feel like enough. How did they do it? Turn the other cheek? How did Dr. King have that kind of discipline for so long? But he was wrong about some things too, the preacher and the activist. At least, I don’t think it can work today. If you two are to inherit anything, my suggestion is, abandon meekness. These people are incapable of shame and there’s no longer any such thing as shared truth. The movement then was capable of persuading hearts and minds is dead. Don’t trust these allies, they are fairweather. Bored. Resentful of confinement. Trust yourselves, your family, and that America has not been subtle about her intentions.
COVID39: Chapter 33
Saison 1 · Épisode 33
mercredi 2 septembre 2020 • Durée 14:04
Shane begins to trusts Randi’s inexplicable instincts.
Sean Monterrosa
James Scurlock
David McAtee
Breonna Taylor
Dallas Protests June 2, 2020
Weathering
Cast
Randi Halle Millien
Shane Mark Millien
Mara La
SFX and Music Contributors
SFX
Q Tone [Query]
Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Q Tone [Response]
Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Gunshot
Heathers Gunshot Effect2.wav by okieactor of freesound.org
Music
Mara’s Letter Theme
My Heart Sets In The West by Planetjazzbass of looperman.com
Created by Mark and Halle Millien
Cover Art by Halle Millien
Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. Dedicated to my brother Mitchel and the future of our family.
Mara’s Letter:
I’ve had a hard time figuring out what I am supposed to be doing right now. People are feeling “called” to things, to do things in this moment. To show up. “Where and when” is how you’re supposed to respond. “Sign me up.” Less than that, and you’re not sufficiently woke. And people tend to react strongly to accusations of being complicit to the institutions of white supremacy. Your father, he doesn’t think I react strongly to anything. He’s out now. At a protest. They’ve made their way over the bridge, apparently, complying with the downtown curfew. Like everything else in this city, even the agitators are milquetoast. The crowds at the White House yesterday were gassed, right next to the famous church at Lafayette Park. One minute he’s in the Rose Garden giving a speech, evading questions, or answering them in the most selfishly convoluted ways possible. You could hear it like ambient noise as the backdrop to his rhetoric, people screaming and unnamed soldiers pressing. He called them terrorists. He said that he would call in the military if governors didn’t have the stomach to declare war on their citizens. Then he left the dais and strolled across the park, to take a picture with a bible, one he couldn’t claim as his own, and held it up like a hostage with a proof of life document, while the cameras clicked. Afterward, the Arlington police chief removed his detachment, seemingly disgusted that they’d been used to remove the protestors so that the Commander in Chief could dip his toe in militant evangelical propaganda. I’m trying to keep a grip on all the loose threads that keep slipping from my fingers and somehow I’m not doing enough, but I am exhausted. Everyday. By the time I’ve made dinner or cleaned up dinner or wrangled the mulish children towards their bedtime rituals, after a day of redundant meetings, hosted by an employer that is laying off people every few weeks, cutting the pay of those they decide to keep, and trying to solve EVERYTHING for everyone, I have nothing left. Nothing. I’m angry that I feel guilty. I’m hurt that I feel lazy. I’m frustrated that I feel frustrated. I’m anxious that I’m excited by nothing. This carousel is killing me. It’s just too much. Should I be reading more or less? Should I be speaking up at my job that is making expendable decisions or applaud any minimal effort they muster In Black life appeasement? I can’t organize a virtual walkout! I don’t work at Facebook! Am I supposed to memorize all the names? Breonna Taylor’s killers still haven’t been arrested. Sean Monterrosa is a new one. A peaceful protester who put his hands up and kneeled right before a police officer shot him five times through the windshield of his unmarked car, because of the gun he saw in his pant’s pocket that turned out to be a hammer. I should have a better handle on this, three months in. I should have adapted to this new shitty normal. I should be sponsoring teachers or composing the new black anthem or finding a cure to common idiocy. I should be finding inspiration in the “movement”. But I’m not. I don’t. It’s been a week since the protests started. The EU has weighed in, calling out American cops for appalling abuses of power. The world is watching and they’re siding with us, but you think that’s stopped them? Twenty-three states have called in the National Guard, thousands have been arrested, and they keep beating us, maiming us, killing us, while the world is watching. And not just us. Old. Young. Black. White. Asian. But mostly poor. There are wildfires in Siberia. Right now. It’s 20 degrees hotter there than on average. Siberia. We are broke. We have no savings. Where would I find another job, in this climate? Where is my hope supposed to come from? What I won’t do is put that on you two. You are coming of age in all of this. You’ll grow up suspicious of the air you breathe and the company it keeps. A white supremacist, more obvious than most, sits in the White House. I’m supposed to look to our children to save us? Am I wrong to feel like we don’t deserve to be saved? That we owed you more than this? The marching has lasted longer than I thought it would this time, I don’t know what makes it different, but am I supposed to think it will last or that it will change anything? Why am I not enough? To provide for our family? To teach you? To raise you in strength? To keep you safe? The maternal mortality rate in America is absurdly high for a first world country. Most of it is due to the rate of death from black women who are pregnant. All of the research suggests that it is not physiological or economic or any of the natural drivers of illness and susceptibility. The research indicates that it is prolonged exposure to racism. That it eats away at the core of you, forcing your body to make a choice. You, or the baby, and so many of the mothers die. A woman asked me yesterday at the store, how I was doing. I think I was supposed to know her. This white woman standing too close, eyes anchored with concern over the brim of her star-spangled mask. I think we’ve met. She seemed so genuine. I told her I was weathered. That’s the term for it. The accumulated abuse of macro and microaggressions. Weathered. She had no idea what I meant but she wanted to help me, she asked me what she could do, she was so desperate to fix it. I showed her a picture of you two, along with Randi and Harrison, on my phone from just a few days ago running inside from the backyard as the sky opened wide and an avalanche of rain funneled from bright clouds. I told her “Love them when I’m gone. I’m always gone.” I don’t know why I said that. Still. I’m not going anywhere. I couldn’t if I wanted to and there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be, but I meant it. Somehow. And she heard me. No one cries that hard unless they’re really listening.
#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #seanmonterrosa #jamesscurlock #davidmcatee #breonnataylor #dad
COVID39: Chapter 32
Saison 1 · Épisode 32
samedi 15 août 2020 • Durée 16:54
Randi and Shane disagree about next moves as they deal with the consequences of Roderick’s letter.
Cast
Randi Halle Millien
Shane Mark Millien
Helen Philips Ko Forte Sonubi
SFX and Music Contributors
SFX
Q Tone [Query]
Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Q Tone [Response]
Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Sirens
Futuristic_Alarm4.mp3 by 13NHarri
Emergency_Traffic-1.mp3 by 911elearning
Siren by maycuddlepie
Music
Helen’s Letter Theme
Trap Ballad Piano Lead Hook 128 by stalebrick of looperman.com
Created by Mark and Halle Millien
Cover Art by Halle Millien
Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. Love you Mitch.
Glossary
allocated: an arrest that exists outside of the framework of the legal system for individuals considered to be too dangerous to place in common detention frameworks, usually due to their haz status.
retro-tagged: the pejorative term for someone being assigned a lower haz status and corresponding haztag for fraudulent reasons. Many citizens consider this to be an unsubstantiated claim akin to how systemic racism was argued about in years past.
Helen’s Letter:
"But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace." First Corinthians chapter 7 verse 15. That sounded to me like absolution. Not that I needed any. My children. My babies. I substitute no one’s judgment for my own in pursuing your survival. Not your father’s. Not his surrogate’s. Not God’s. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that when I read that I felt unburdened by some of the tougher decisions I’ve made and the consequences that will come from them. Roderick is a good man but he is lying. To us. To himself. And I understand that. Selfishness sometimes requires a bit of self-deception. When I was a child, there was this commercial, I don’t remember what they were selling, but Kelly Lebrock was in it. For a fleeting tick of time, she was the most sought after woman on Earth. The only thing I remember about it was the line “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”. I’d never imagined anyone could stand so casually proud in their own skin, even if it was flawless. You could tell that she believed, KNEW, she was different, better, and made no apologies for it. An angel asking the mob for grace. I knew I was pretty as a child. It was obvious. I was 15 when I realized that I was beautiful. Happily, I can say that it didn’t come from any man’s validation. One day I simply became acutely aware of the shape of me, the songs written in the notes of my features. It gave me a voice, especially when I was silent. The space between mysterious and withdrawn is separated by beauty. At times it has allowed me to escape deeper scrutiny while remaining in the spotlight. There have been times in my life when I could shed the disadvantages charred into my syrupy skin and walk among the free folk as an honored guest. It’s never been a source of guilt. If I had been born porcelain and ivory with a mastodon’s strength, I’d persuade with menace. Instead, I was born molten honey and aromatic cocoa so I negotiate my existence through sweet intoxicants. At birth, none of us are armored or clawed and what we do not learn will surely kill us because unlike other animals we must be taught survival. My first lesson was the police. My mother’s beauty was a curse. It brought her too much attention in her time, in that place. She told me that people with small power will always use it to remind you of how small YOU are, if only to distort the size of their reflection. She taught me to run. To apologize. To bow. And to pray. When I came into my voice, I left all her lessons behind. That husk no longer suited me. Everything she taught me played to my weaknesses and not my strengths. It wasn’t her fault. You can only teach what you know, and she knew nothing else. I look at you, my two children, and have decided what will be your armor and what will be your claws. Neither of you are, or ever will be, beautiful. Not in a way that will matter. And it is an imperfect set of tools with little room for error. If I had a choice, I would have made a different one. Harrison. You are precious. Funny. The stories you read are relentlessly optimistic, promising happy endings, defeated monsters, and cheaply bought adoration. They speak to you. It would be counter to your nature to rehabilitate you to a world where your brothers are being hunted, where the monsters wear tin stars, where your naiveté is a rope they will string you from. A black man was murdered for the world to see, a blue demon smugly kneeled on his windpipe until he was beyond stillness, and today, four days later he was arrested. Jesus rose from the dead in three. And yet, we the hungry, so starved for justice, swallowed THIS as a wonder. So your claws, my featherless son, will be forged from miracles. No reason to reinvent the wheel when there are miles and miles of track already laid. You are sincere. You are just. And you are susceptible. They will believe you. Thousands of years of well tested lies will serve you just as it has served all of the prophets that have come before you. A procession of sincere and just fairytale fed innocents, or better, ruthless opportunists. You may never mature into the latter, but you can become the best version of the former. And you will live. Randi. You see everything. Every detail. Every gap. You reason your way to the end of every maze unaware that there were traps and tricks laid, not because you could not see them, but because they were prepared by such clumsy hands you assume it was part of the game to sidestep them. It sets you apart and invites loneliness. So. Your armor will grow from your spine, like the tortoise. Your father left you to fight his noble crusades. I have left you to prove that you do not need me. You do not need anyone. I am playing to your strengths. Breonna Taylor’s murderers walk free! No one has been arrested. No one has been accused. No one has been fired. No one has done anything wrong. As a black woman, you will always matter less. As a black woman, you must prepare for solitude and abandonment. Relying on yourself is your greatest gift so I have accelerated it so that you may become not only proficient in its use but prodigious. Your mind is a blade and it must stay keen my daughter. The fool in the White House said just yesterday that when the looting starts the shooting starts. It’s hunting season and everyone gets a license, an orange vest, and the blessings of his evangelical purists. No one will question. The bodies can be hidden among the diseased dead. But YOU will live. You will live. Mr. Ko could see it. He was right, about so many things. About your father leaving. About the protests. More. None of this was his fault. I do not know what his plans for you are. He wouldn’t tell me. He said he couldn’t and still have them come true. But he has plans. And I believe them. He told me what the choices were, but they were my choices. Mine. I am no pawn. I am a queen. And a queen makes sacrifices.
#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #dad
COVID39: Chapter 31
Saison 1 · Épisode 31
samedi 15 août 2020 • Durée 18:08
Roderick’s second letter has equally devastating results.
Cast
Randi Halle Millien
Shane Mark Millien
Roderick Brian Ashton Smith
SFX and Music Contributors
SFX
Q Tone [Query]
Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Q Tone [Response]
Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org
Hospital Sounds
MICU beeps_MaryWashingtonHospital_Oct2011.aif by jgeralyn of freesound.org
Music
Roderick’s Letter Theme
One and Only Choir from Apple Loops in Garageband
Created by Mark and Halle Millien
Cover Art by Halle Millien
Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thank you to CBR. Thanks dad. Love you Mitch.
Glossary
cleanse: a MIC raid into orange slums meant to display vigilance against outbreaks but considered extrajudicial and illegal for years, but they have been tied up in the courts.
comm-chain: a pirated network on the Q that allows multiple users to share the same node band, used mostly by the poor to gain Q access. Legal chained networks are expensive.
tracer barbs: a tactical grenade that discharges hooked razor shrapnel embedded with micro locator buoys. They can be painful and difficult to remove often burrowing beneath the skin.
Roderick’s Letter:
I’m in the hospital. I’m sick. My first symptoms started four days ago. Over the weekend. Memorial Day weekend. I told you…I told you I’d be home. Flight 1984 out of Laguardia. I was in seat 33C, my reservation number was WUBVSP. Number, it’s all letters, I didn’t realize that til just now. We got diverted to Houston. They didn’t tell us why at the time. I was listening to a podcast so I didn’t hear him at first, the flight attendant. Coughing. Struggling for breath. It was like I’d been transported back into the triage tents. I didn’t even realize I’d unclipped my belt. I just wanted to help him. I held him while people screamed, backed away, or prayed. He didn’t make it off the plane. They quarantined the entire flight while tests came back. My throat wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t right, so I chalked it up to psychosomatic influences. I wasn’t worried. I just wanted to be sure that I could look your mother in the eye and tell her that everything was fine. That I’d kept my promise. I’m tested pretty regularly, so…I wasn’t worried. I didn’t panic. I just waited in a dingy motel a measly 222 miles away from you. I had been so ready to leave New York and all of its vast empty and here I was, at the finish line, til someone pulled us off the track. I was scrolling through pictures of you two when, when I got the call. I asked a lot of questions. I know all the protocols by rote but I still had so many questions. God. Uh, so, that was, Saturday. Saturday. They are going to keep me for a few more days. I haven’t improved. In fact, things have gotten a little worse. I’m in bed right now laying next to a ventilator draped in plastic. There are suction tubes and monitors and, you can probably hear the beeping, the oxygen tanks. Constant wheezing of machines. The staff knows they can’t lie to me or stall me with jargon but they try out of habit and apologize when they see me see them. Even behind masks, I can read their faces. I’m recording this on my phone. I’m not supposed to have it but…I can see why they take it from you. Germs and anxiety bound like mortar and cement encased in plastic and glass. A man named George Floyd died today. Wait, that’s not right, he died Monday, he was murdered on Monday. But the video became viral on Tuesday and the headlines caught up today, Wednesday. His name, the man the cops killed, his name was George Floyd. By the time you hear this his name will be lost like all the rest, sunken treasure buried under tons and tons of cold indifferent waves. There were four cops and a crowd of onlookers. One of the cops, THE cop, had George Floyd on the ground handcuffed and leaned into his neck with his knee, casually, for nine minutes. That’s wrong. It wasn’t casual. It was defiant. The people pleaded with him. George Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Over and over again. Before he died, he called out for his mother. He told everyone there that he was going to die. HIs mother is dead. I, I didn’t know that before, I just read that. Fuck. And this cop, with his hands in his pockets, a smirk on his face, he dared anyone to do anything. Dared anyone to care. He knew that there would be no real consequences. He was sharing his impunity with the world and he knew they wouldn’t give a shit. They all eat from the same trough and its brimming with our meat and bones. Most white people aren’t even aware that they see us as no more than animals but can’t explain why seeing us slaughtered doesn’t move them the way a mutilated dog might on the highway between where they’re going and where they’ve been. No one will remember my name. I will live on in you, my children, but I will die more as a statistic than a man. I told you before that I regretted coming here. That’s not true, I just wish I did. I helped people here, people who really needed it, who would’ve died if it hadn’t been for me. Maybe one of their names will live on and I can share a scrap of their immortality. It’s enough that they will go home to their families. I didn’t intend to sacrifice mine for theirs. The flight attendant, his name was George Adiacco. He grew up in New York all his life. Used to be a police captain. Retired and decided to practice his comedy routine on domestic flights during landings and takeoffs. He was loved. I just wouldn’t have been worthy of you if I had done nothing. But now, I wish so much that nothing was exactly what I’d done.
#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #dad
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. You can see from the header that this letter is pretty special. It’s Game Night, and we’re all here. We are hoping that this tradition is still going strong in the future. All of us are contributing to this, but it’s Desmond doing the typing. The work never stops. Anyway, we just all learned from you kids a mystery that has been percolating in our households for a few years now and we just wanted to share the moment it all came together for the sake of posterity. We were playing Taboo and Shane was giving the clues to Randi, because of course you two were on the same team. He kept yelling Randi! Randi! And she was like, what? Say something! Give a clue! And Shane said I am! It’s your name! And she said I know my name! That’s not a clue! Now, you have no idea how entertaining it was to watch you two get so frustrated with one another, but finally the sand runs out and Jude, gleefully, presses the buzzer next to Shane’s ear. After we pulled the two of you apart we finally get to look at the card that started all of this. It was Marathon. One of the words on the card was “run”. Which got us all to thinking, where did that come from? One day that’s just what Shane called Randi and what Randi answered to and none of us had ever gotten around to asking where it came from? As you read this now, lord knows when, do you remember? Well, this is what you told us. One day Shane and Jude were having a discussion about nicknames and how they were’nt eligible. Because each of their names was one syllable and you don’t get to get a nickname if your name is one syllable, unless of course you just go by the first letter of your name. But Shane thought “S” just didn’t sound right and Jude thought “J” was cool, but always really liked Jude, and since it took the same amount of time to say, what was the point? Harrison chimed in with his disdain for Harry and offered that Randi didn’t get a nickname because she was a girl. This didn’t sit well with Shane. So you all started troubleshooting it. Eventually Harrison and Jude got bored and went off to break something valuable, as is their way. So the two of you, Randi and Shane, approached it “logically”. Shane thought the simplest route was to shorten Randi to Ran, but neither of you was convinced. Randi liked Dee, but Shane thought it was too girly. Randi didn’t like the sound of that, but Shane explained that it needed to sound like a boss, because, Randi was the boss. She disagreed, and thought girly and boss could be the same thing, but Shane didn’t want to belabor the point. Randi kept ticking off prototypes when she realized Shane hadn’t said anything in a while. When she looked up he was smiling. He said, Run. Randi needed convincing, so Shane explained. “Run” is “ran” but like now, instead of before. It’s in the present. It makes it sound like you’re fast. She was coming around, but she needed a nudge, and Shane provided one. He said, plus it’s like that rap group. Run DMC. Walk This Way he said. My Adidas he said. And then two things happened. One, Randi lit up because she liked the sound of that. She had just been staring down at the pair of Adidas on her feet and it all felt right, plus she loved those songs, and although she didn’t say it at the time, it meant a lot to her that Shane thought so long and hard about a nickname that was worthy of her. But the second thing that happened, and this is the most important, is that we, as your parents, realized we have been raising you right! Run DMC? We didn’t even know you’d been put on! The pride we feel in this moment, as your family, you have no idea. No matter where you are kids, know that we love you and we are so proud of you and now we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you will be okay, because your taste is impeccable, especially when it comes to one another.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad.
Glossary
funnel: the term, interchangeable with correspondence variable, Emmeret Ko uses for the letters. The specific sequencing of words when read in their entirety comprise magnitudes of additional data that funnels into a prepared mind for assimilation.
Desmond’s Letter
John Lewis died yesterday. What an odd thing to have happened. I say odd because it’s insulation I think against the pain. He was arrested more than 40 times, beaten almost to death, outlived King, his friend, and saw the first Black president swear an oath to the Constitution on King’s worn travel bible on the day we celebrate his birth. And underneath that Bible, was Lincoln’s. He was more than a witness to history; he was an author of it. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was passed and also there to see it gutted. He marched for his life and saw the world march in solidarity in what would be his final summer, for all of the things he had dedicated his life too. I wonder, deep down, if he was joyous to see how far we had come or saddened to see how little had changed. People are never just anyone thing, so I’m sure it was a combination of both, but in what proportion? I can’t imagine. C.T. Vivian, another civil rights leader and the greatest preacher ever to preach, according to King, also died yesterday. Dr. King believed in heaven and if there is such a thing, I hope their reunion was full of charming half lies and full funny truths. The Fourth of July was a couple of weeks ago and, like so many things this year, it was just so strange. The president held two speeches. One at Mt. Rushmore, a place he expects to add his profile at some point in the future. I wish you could reach back and tell me if that has happened, but I imagine his aspiration will fizzle along with the other walls or towers he has failed to construct. He compared the democratic party to Nazis, at the White House, on the Fourth of July. It’s a common refrain these days but I was shocked and in no way surprised. He barely mentioned the virus but scientists from around the world are petitioning the World Health Organization to amend their findings on whether it is airborne, as the science suggests, but the WHO stubbornly refuses to state conclusively. The New York Times sued the CDC for demographic information regarding infection and death rates. It found that Blacks and Latinos, across all environments and age groups, are three times as likely to contract the virus and twice as likely to die from it. According to reports the president is trying to make sure that money for testing and contact tracing dries up so that the numbers won’t continue to increase in the press, as if that’s a thing, while continuing to suggest that’s it’s all going to just disappear. The protests, and the abuse, continue. Three cops were fired for re-enacting the death of Elijah McClain. There’s a hearing on Monday for a girl from Michigan, they call her Grace, but that isn’t her real name. She was sent to prison back in May by a judge for not finishing online assignments. There is a Strike for Black Lives event scheduled the same day. Thousands and thousands walking out on the job all across the country to demand corporations back up their support of black people in more than just slogans, tweets, and superficial performative activism. There has also been some encouraging news. Justice Ginsburg’s cancer has returned but she says she’s fully able to remain on the court despite the chemotherapy. The Pentagon has banned the Confederate flag on all U.S. bases, despite the president’s objections, and all the charges against a group of protesters who congregated in front of the Louisville D.A.’s home, calling for a real investigation and justice for Breonna Taylor, were dropped by the prosecutor. But there is something that happened recently that I really want you to know about. It’s called the Wall of Moms. In Portland, there are vans of unidentified federal officers kidnapping protesters. They just pull up, jump out of a vehicle, restrain someone, and flee the scene. They don’t arrest them or read them their rights or charge them with anything. A news organization came across an internal memo from Customs and Border Protection that said these agents would be deployed in perpetuity and in secret. So, a group of mothers, many of whom are vulnerable to the virus, have positioned themselves along the perimeters of demonstrating peaceful protesters to help keep them safe. They are putting themselves in harm’s way to protect their children and the children of others. I want you to remember this because this is my last letter to you boys. Before they come and take you away from me, I am going to make sure that you are taken care of. There is a policy in my name wherein the two of you and Harrison and Randi are the only beneficiaries. If the insurance company saw this, they would deny your claim, so I’ve hidden it in this time capsule so that by the time you read this, the money will have been paid out, and you four won’t have to ever worry about money. Just make sure you don’t share this with anyone other than yourselves, so they don’t come after it. I know I’m taking a risk by writing this down, but I couldn’t accept the idea that I would disappear from your lives and you would always have questions. I don’t want any part of your memory of me to be a puzzle you need to solve. The only other person I’ve told is Eve. I shouldn’t have, but I love her and was too selfish to die without her knowing just how much. You are both with her now, as I write this. When the time comes, and you want to know all there is to know about me, she’s who you should go to. You two said goodbye to Randi yesterday. I took her to this Institute that is willing to pay a stipend to tutor her. The administrator there has determined from some tests she took last year that she is extremely gifted, and they’ve given her a scholarship. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s so different from anyone I’ve ever met he doesn’t seem real, like a shadow you can’t hide from who is pretending to be a person but can see right through you. I’ve never let him come around when you two were here since that first day, but he just seems to show up when I think of him, answering questions I haven’t asked. It was Randi who convinced me. She said she wanted to go with him, that he had a lot to teach her. I didn’t trust it at first. I was worried that maybe he’d been in contact with her somehow and had coerced for some other reasons. But she looked at me and all of a sudden, she was so much older, so confident. She told me that she loved me and that I had nothing to worry about and thanked me for loving her. She told me not to feel hurt that she wanted to go, that it wasn’t because I wasn’t family, but because she knew that her education would help us all one day. Her certainty reminded me of him. The foster agency said they would monitor him over the coming months and his background checked out. You were sad but not as sad as I expected. I hope that as you are reading this the four of you are all together, maybe with your own families, hopefully not judging me too harshly. If you see this as weakness, that’s okay. I love you. If you see this as strength, that’s very generous, and I love you. I was present in every moment I spent with you and wouldn’t trade any of them. What happened is boringly simple. I realized that I am better to you, can offer you more, dead than alive. I’m not scared, but I’m sorry I didn’t figure out a way to be both. Provide for you in the way you deserve while loving you. I like to drive, and when they find me, know that your father was thinking of you and all the moonlit skies teeming with stars, that are your celestial birthright, my princes. My boys.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad.
Glossary
The Blue Fall: a three year period where police officers connected to the killings of unarmed black men and women died under mysterious and unrelated circumstances.
Raguel: the angel of vengeance among the Abrahamic tradition.
Eve’s Letter
Jude and Shane, I’ve spent days trying to write this letter. I don’t think I’ve figured out how to do what I was asked to do, but if I put it off any longer I’ll lose my courage. Your dad’s instructions are specific and I will do my best to abide by them. I’m supposed to tell you what’s happening in the world. It’s been a hard time for everyone, but for you two, it’s been particularly cruel. I want to tell you that everything will be okay but when you read this, you’ll know better than me. Can you find me then, and let me know if I was right? I hope by the time you read this we’ve seen each other many times since your mother’s funeral. I didn’t visit as often as I wanted before the world shut down and now I wish I’d used every red cent on a flight to be with the people I love. If any of us had known, we would’ve been crisscrossing the skies like locusts. I’m stalling. First, what’s happening. Connecticut and Rhode Island are the only two states that saw a decline in new cases this week. I’ve never been to either, but it sounds like they may have a modicum of their shit together. It’s almost July. Friday saw the largest single day number of cases since this all began. We have one quarter of the world’s cases and deaths and 4% of the population. As bad as things are, no one is as upset as they should be at the things they should be upset about. No one seems to really sit with how badly we’ve mismanaged this. Maybe because it wouldn’t help to dwell on it, but I think it’s because we are isolated from one another and the devastation hasn’t hit home for so many of us in a way that makes the numbers make sense. At least, for most of us. The Florida and Texas governors won’t issue mask mandates. The Vice President was just in Dallas, getting serenaded by an unmasked choir of more than a hundred pious fools from a pew right up front. Over the weekend there were reports that the administration removed thousands of social distancing signs at the Tulsa rally. I wonder, at this age, what you think of cops? Has it changed since you were children? Do they even exist in the same capacity? Some of them are being exposed for being the vile terrorists they are. In California, Alabama, North Carolina. A cop there was caught on tape saying he “can’t wait to start slaughtering” Black people. It’s been 108 days since Breonna Taylor was killed and still no arrests. A man fired more than a dozen shots into a crowd of protesters demanding justice for her, or at least a shred of accountability, and killed a young photographer who supported the demonstration. Riot police broke up a peaceful violin vigil for Elijah McClain with pepper spray and batons. After the Minneapolis city council voted to defund their police department, we’re seeing protesters in New York and Seattle laying siege to City Hall and the private residence of the mayor while thousands marched in solidarity for the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall riots. People hate the word incremental. The quick translation is “draggin your feet”, but it feels like this is different. It feels like maybe this is lasting. Maybe you’ll remember the marches as an icon of liberty that you didn’t have to inherit, a relic of your childhood that shocks you into appreciation for what you have. Facebook had to change its policies by labeling important posts and deleting anything that incites violence after a hundred companies boycotted spending advertising dollars on their platform. That couldn’t have happened without everyday people using their voice, making themselves heard, and refusing to be mollified into going back to the way things were. Mississippi abolished their state flag. Mississippi. Georgia was one of four states who still didn’t have any hate crime laws on the books, but Governor Kemp, who stole an election from Stacey Abrams, signed one into law on Friday. There’s no appetite to rejoice with everything still so dark, but maybe there’s some light leaking in. Any splinter of sunlight has to make it past the storm cloud that is 45. The Russian government offered bounties for American troops serving in Afghanistan, and while it’s not clear right now what he knew and what he didn’t it is clear that he’s incompetent and unfit, so does it matter? Second, I’m supposed to tell you about your father. I think he wants me to absolve him. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. He’s told me that he has made a plan. I can only tell you this. He is certain. He is certain that this is the only way to care for the two of you in the way that you will need. I hate that he told me. I hate that him for loving him, but boys, I can tell you that he is convinced in a way that is hard to put into words. He was calm and casual and still so full of love for the both of you. He warned me that if I told anyone that people would take you away, and that that would be worse. And for better or for worse I believed him. He told me that I was the only one he trusted, the only one left, to leave you with what he couldn’t. Answers. And certainty. That he did what he did for you no matter how selfish or insane that may sound. It has been a terrible burden to live with but I am no victim. I was a willing participant in keeping this from you and for that I can’t even begin to ask for your forgiveness. I can’t even ask for your understanding. Instead, any hate you may still carry for your father, I ask that you carry it for me instead. He was weak and I should have been stronger. Lastly, he wanted me to tell you two something that makes no sense to me but I’m hoping will provide closure or meaning to the two of you. Your father was never religious before but perhaps we all find God at the end. He told me to tell you “He saved us once, he saved us twice, but when he rises, we must save ourselves.” I’ve looked it up but if it’s scripture Google doesn’t know it. If it’s a prayer between a father and his sons, I pray it is heard and answered. Sweet boys, you deserved better. I will love you until the end of my days.
I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking for it anyway. My glass of Maker’s Mark isn’t absolving me or providing penance, each prayer just burns my throat. I’m not going to make excuses, but I need you both to understand. You see, the first thing the pandemic taught me is that the world doesn’t need me. I have no value. My hand isn’t out for anyone’s pity. It’s just an understanding the Universe and I have come to. I don’t create or manage wealth. I pour celebrations you can sip, or fogs where you can hide, or fuel for your rage, misery, and loneliness. I used to think of myself as a middle man to an experience. I’m a good listener, a good servant. I smile and people feel at ease even if they don’t really see me. Now? There is nothing to celebrate, no need to hide, and liquor stores might as well be pharmacies. On my best days, my very best weeks, my most outstanding months, my contributions to our home were meager, almost counter productive. I raised you boys and I love you with all of me, but I didn’t raise you because I love you. I raised you because it was my only path to being useful. My only mitigation for being a parasite. Child Services were there at your mother’s funeral. It took me a while to understand what they were saying when they started talking. Your mom was in earshot, just a few feet away, separated only by a gleaming platinum coffin and a fresh dug hole. There were only ten people allowed to be there, but there they were. A man and a woman, tired looking predators, like lazy vultures circling on stolen wind. I kept wondering, how’d they get there so quick. Was my name on a file somewhere, tied to a string? When she died, did the string get cut? Did my file pop up like bread from a toaster and drop in some social worker’s outstretched hand? There they were, with questions and concerns as empty as thoughts and prayers. Each of us played our part, but we all knew how it would turn out. At least I thought I did. I was wrong. It’s important that you understand what today looks like, so you can decide for yourselves who I was, given some context. The pandemic has killed almost half a million people across the world. Here in Texas cases have risen 100% over the last 30 days. In California it’s now against the law to go outside without a mask. It was Juneteenth this weekend, and the president took credit for making it famous. He organized a large rally in Tulsa. Oklahoma has broken a record for cases every day this week. Health officials were “concerned” but he refused to cancel it, though he did make those attending sign a waiver, in the event someone gets sick later, or worse, and he did move the date back a day after people protested. Prominent black supporters were there to offset the outrage like Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board members and Herman Cain. A black woman in the administration resigned over how the president has reacted to the protests. She was the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, instrumental in securing conservative judges and Justices, the ones who will levy the rope for the men and women the Supremacist in Chief serves up on a rhetorical platter. A federal prosecutor refused to resign after the Attorney General fired him. He’s been looking into the president and his associates but it feels like more false Mueller hope. In Atlanta, the officers who shot Rayshard Brooks turned themselves in. He was asleep at the wheel at a Wendy’s drive thru. After a lengthy conversation and sobriety tests they attempted to arrest him, but he resisted. Wrestled a taser away somehow, then ran. One of them shot him in the back. A bunch of cops called out in protest or said they would only answer emergency calls involving other cops. Amy Klobuchar removed herself from consideration as Candidate Biden’s VP, paving the way for a woman of color, which is what I’m sure she’s always wanted. I shouldn’t judge. I guess we are all trying to meet the moment the best that we can. Ha. The best we can. 45 million people have filed for unemployment since March, but Bezos and Zuckerberg have added $76 billion dollars between them to their own personal wealth. It’s hard to imagine money like that, even for people who have lots of money. Millionaires don’t quite understand it themselves until they are given a framework they can wrap their minds around. Like this one. One million seconds is equivalent to 11 and a half days. One billion seconds is 31 and a half years. I’ll never see 11 days worth of seconds in my bank account, but if it was missing from theirs its hard to imagine they would notice. How easy is it to forget 11 days if you’ve lived 6,000 years. That’s how many seconds of money Jeff Bezos has personally, today. He’s on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026. By the time you read this, he will be truly immortal, worth more than all of humanity put together, Emperor of Eternity. What am I to that? What are any of us? I am talking about Lord Amazon but I’m thinking, as I write these words, of someone else. A being that makes Bezos seem scant, like Jupiter in the sun’s shadow. I am only a man and this is no longer the time of men. It is the time of Gods.
