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.
Melissa Thomas is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She is an amazing human being and lent her considerable talents to this project simply because I asked and she’ll never know how much it meant to me that she gave of herself so freely (literally, like, I didn’t pay her) and generously and always maddeningly blind to the worth of her contribution. This was Dr. Estrum’s last episode and I’ll miss her. Thank you Toms. Thanx dad.
COVID39: Chapter 28
Season 1 · Episode 28
Monday, June 8, 2020 • Duration 08:46
Shane follows up a lead and Randi sets her own plan in motion.
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.
Original Name by Creator of sourced Creative Commons website
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 dad.
Hello little darlings, this is your auntie Jolie. I’m a really good friend of your uncle Serge. He mentioned this project to me and I thought the idea was so cute so I wanted to send you all a letter. He talks about you all the time. I think it’s so sweet. He told me once that he doesn’t need kids of his own because he’s got y’all. I don’t know if he really means that, I hope he doesn’t, but it tells me how much you mean to him and that’s so important to me. You know I met your uncle at a birthday party for Shane, I think. It was the summer. Your uncle and your mommys and daddys had rented out part of our patio to celebrate and you all were there, so I have met you. I was one of the hostesses at the restaurant, I took you to your table. Your uncle asked me for my number. He was so sweet. He didn’t call for a while and when he did I was so happy, I thought he’d forgotten. I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s just amazing. Handsome and always so happy. He’s so articulate. I haven’t had a chance to see him recently since we are all under quarantine. We’ve always been a little off and on. I just realized the other day that we’ve been seeing each other off and on for five years. I can’t believe it. Five years. I miss him. Not having someone right now is hard. I mean I have friends, of course, but they’re taking it all very seriously too. So it’s just me. The fact that you are all quarantining together is so sweet. And you’re kids, so hopefully most of this won’t even matter to you since you don’t have a whole lot to compare it to. I hope so. Maybe you are getting on each other’s nerves, but at least you aren’t lonely. These screens we use to be with one another weren’t designed for long term isolation. My little brother plays a lot of video-games and his controllers vibrate when he falls or gets hit or whatever and I wish they had designed Zoom that way. When someone whispered I wish a little fan would flutter in your ear. Or there was an emoji you could use for a hug and the chair you’re sitting in would squeeze you. I think it’s been almost three months since I hugged someone. And I’m a hugger! So it hurts. I’m not complaining. I just think you all are so lucky, that’s all. I know it may not feel that way sometimes, but you are. You really are. There are a lot of people that love you. Take care of each other.
Aircrack: the Aircrack is a wireless hacking tool that is renowned because of its effectiveness in password cracking. (This is a thing. I saw it here.
f-tech: fossil tech or fuck you tech cuz it’s so old you wind up cursing at it a lot.
hydrakits: a set of infiltration packages that auto-run in the background that protect against any potential intrusions and simultaneously probe for any opportunities to exploit systems it interacts with on the Q.
metasploit: the Metasploit is a vulnerability exploitation tool that can be considered as a ‘collection of hacking tools and frameworks’ that can be used to execute various tasks. (This is a thing. I saw it here.
vhd: “virtual hub dispersers” operate as VPNs on the Q.
Joseph’s Letter:
Today is a history lesson in Barack Hussein Obama. After the last four years, I am concerned that when today becomes days of yore, there won’t be anything left of his legacy. So I want to set the record straight for my beloved nieces and nephews about my president. Graduations couldn’t take place this year so the second best basketball player of all time, this is not a vote or an opinion, nor will it have changed by the time you get this, Lebron James, got a group of people like, Lena Waithe, Malala Yousafzai, the Jonas Brothers, Yara Shahidi, Bad Bunny, Pharrell Williams, Megan Rapinoe, and Ben Platt, all together to celebrate the class of 2020. Congratulated their accomplishments, highlighted their challenges, and encouraged them in all of their future endeavors. But the piece de resistance, was my Petty President, Michelle’s husband, the one and only Obama. I don’t know what it’s like for you now, but hearing anything from the White House these days is like an exercise in getting punked. You’re constantly pinching yourself wondering out loud in a room by yourself, “Did this motherfucker just say that?” And watching the press thrash about in repetitious dismay, but nobody actually says what we’re all thinking out loud. Is this motherfucker okay? Can’t be. Something is really, really wrong with this dude. Get him removed and rehabilitated. So to hear the English language spoken with clarity and coherence from someone of the High Office felt a little like waking up from a dream. Familiar, welcome, but a little discombobulated. It’s like being in the desert for weeks hallucinating about water and then when you finally get some it’s like, I remember it was good, but was it always this refreshing? Why is my skin glowing? Is that the water too? Ash begone. What is that taste in my mouth, is that nourishment? And your thirsty ass just guzzles it down cuz you don’t know where your next cup of clean free replenishing water is going to come from. And then he gave it just a hint of flavor. Nothing over the top. Not a kool aid packet and pound of sugar. Just a hint of fresh lemon, a wafer of cucumber and maybe a basil sprig or some shit. This brilliant fool said these leaders y’all got now ain’t leading shit, don’t know shit and ain’t shit. You wanna sing and dance and chest bump but you don’t want to spill no precious water, so you listen, and before you know it, you in the tripod headstand with lotus legs and don’t know how you got there. All relaxed and strong in your core and what not. When he was done he left you with that lingering caress of empathy you’d been starved for and you remember that truly great statesman are meant to inspire more than they are designed to deliberate. The dream dissipates and you are back to reality. America. A third of all global confirmed cases, a quarter of the world’s deaths and only 4% of the population. Texas. 1800 new infections, the highest single day increase thus far, after the governor allowed the state to partially re-open weeks ago with plans to announce new openings today. Washington. In six weeks the White House has dismissed four separate oversight heads designed to monitor corruption and abuses within government. And in Germany, Britain, Poland, Spain and Israel anti-lockdown protests led to arrests and more importantly, almost assuredly, more infections. There was this video from Japan that showed a bunch of people sitting down to dinner while one of them covered his hands in an invisible paint that would show up under black light. It’s a buffet. Thirty minutes later the lights go off and everyone sits there in the neon dark confused about the stains that are EVERYWHERE. What the fuck are y’all protesting?! Obama gave us eight years of decency. I’ll leave it to you, my scholars of tomorrow, to discern for yourself how you felt about his legislative accomplishments. I have some serious qualms with a lot of it, but the depth of sincerity provided by that man’s leadership transcends any political preferences I may have personally held and my hope is that in our lifetimes we all get to share in something so beautifully flawed as a human being doing their best to represent humanity to the world again.
Special thank you to my boy who don’t want to be associated with this dope podcast publicly but that’s fine but who put in the work to give us something reliable to work with in regard to today’s session with Dr. Estrum. Kudos to you Mystery sir.
Glossary
The Harvesters: a far right radical American Christian cult offshoot of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. They believe that the age of pandemics is the first of three cycles wherein disease and famine will cull the world of the unfaithful. They infiltrate other congregations to recruit and to also spread contagion to would be infidels.
The world is tilting toward some recognizable version of itself. I am going to try and remember the type of patience this all required, because it’s not over, there is still going to be some pain ahead, and I don’t want to forget the lessons that I’ve learned. I guess we are doing this in part so that we can pass those lessons on to you. No matter what happens, I’m sure that when you read this the world will look a little different. The little ones, I’m not sure how much they’ll remember or what affect it may have on them. On the one hand the world was already so new to them maybe their expectations are more flexible and can bend to the shape forced onto them by the future. We’ve had grim days but nothing that we can’t overcome. For you Jude, it’s probably going to be harder. You’re at that age when responsibility is starting to really take hold. You can appreciate what your contributions are and understand sacrifice. I’ve learned a lot from watching how you’ve carried yourself through all of this. When this is over, there will be lost opportunities that you will have to reckon with. I have never been more confident of the man that you will grow up to be. It has been a long few months of waking nightmares, but now it’s finally getting to the end, and I feel guilty about my tepid happiness. Your father isn’t as optimistic, unfortunately. I think he feels more valuable in the world where everything is standing still, than in the one where he has to keep up with everyone else. He can navigate eggshells while speaking from his chest about this injustice and that looming menace but I love him in spite of our mutual failings. What I want to say to you most, is this. Living at the edge of free-fall has taught me about loss preparation. It’s all felt so near. Losing the house, the cars, my job. Your father. And some of these I’ve come to understand as inevitable. Do what you can to hold onto the things and people that are important to you. They are the only thing that matter. And sometimes even if you hold them tight and treat them as precious, you can’t will something into existence. You can hope and pray and love, but you cannot battle what time will take. Time will trade muscle for wisdom. It will heal all wounds but decay is not a scar, it is a cancer. I’m not telling you to save a corner of your heart because that won’t help, it’ll only allot less resources to the task of mending you back together when you need it. I want you to love without reservation. I’ve learned so much about the elasticity of time. Endless and yet so short, it speeds by so quickly. Don’t waste it trying to circumvent pain that is promised. Drink up so much of life while you can so that when you are living through a drought, you have reserves you can call upon. I’m going to write a book one day called “The Camel and the Bear”. It’ll be about coping with loss. Emotional hibernation versus resource management. I will dedicate it to you Jude. I’m going to spend the rest of the day working while daydreaming about a conversation between you and I, with me as an author and you as an adult, having emerged from the cramped chrysalis we now occupy. There will be plenty of time to sleep boys. We’ve spent so much time sleeping already. Dreams are still possible. Let’s capture them while rising instead of falling still. Loving each other is how we prepare for losing one another.
A special thank you to NK Jemisin for the Broken Earth trilogy, in general but specifically, she hit us all with Father Earth and that really resonated with me and the beauty of her world building, which is where the impetus for Randi’s Mother God exclamation came from.
Glossary
diving: instead of “surfing” the net, one “dives” the Q.
screen: as in “giving screen” is a term of art for giving someone well earned accolades or “props” as it were.
trim: slang for flawless, excellent, immaculate.
Desmond’s Letter:
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach this. Jude, Shane. I’m watching the two of you right now have an intense “conversation” about Star Wars. This has been brewing. May the Fourth was last week and the Rise of Skywalker dropped on Disney +. We didn’t go see it in the theaters so when I put it on I thought it would be this amazing opportunity for us all to shelter around something that we love. It would be a serious understatement to say that I was wrong. Shane, you were really quiet afterwards. You seemed, I don’t know, affected, but I couldn’t tell if it was because this chapter was ending or if you just didn’t like the movie. Jude, you were, happy. You thought it did what it set out to do and felt good about it. The Morgan kids, Harrison wasn’t really watching. He was doing his assigned reading while catching glances in between verses. The Bible. Helen makes him read fifty pages a day. Randi, I didn’t see her blink once, but after it was over, she turned her attention over to the ESPN app, digesting commentary about the Chicago Bulls documentary. The first time I’ve seen her excited in months is when she talks about the finale coming up on Sunday. I figured everyone felt fairly apathetic towards it and moved on. Things escalated quickly, maybe because there isn’t a lot of competition for your attention. As you’re arguing I’m moved by the mundanity of it all. I’m as passionate about Star Wars as either of you, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. I struggle on a daily basis about what I should be prioritizing with you. How I should be using this time we have with one another. I don’t know if it’s the right choice, but I’ve decided, I think, to be honest about this moment. Today a man named Rick Bright testified before congress. He used to be in charge of an important part of the government that spearheaded the pandemic response. He was reassigned recently. He’s testifying today as a whistleblower, a term that’s come up quite a bit over the last year or so. He claims that the administration didn’t take him seriously when he was in his former position about the potential impact of the virus. He’s saying that he was removed because he urged that funds should be prioritized for treatments that have been vetted vs those that have not. He basically said, winter is coming. By his side was a man named Mike Bowen. He runs a company that makes N-95 masks, the top of the line ones. The ones people on the front line wear. He told the committee that he voted for the president but as he sat there he was embarrassed to be a republican. So as my two boys are making me proud by standing tall in their convictions about something we all care about, well you two and me, I can’t help but think about my best friend, who has entrusted me with his children, who is a thousand miles away. Bright said the N-95 masks that many nurses and doctors and clinicians are wearing are only 30% effective in comparison to the ones that they should be wearing. This Bowen guy didn’t disagree. If this is true, then it’s like parachuting everyday with a frayed cord. Apparently, all because the president thought it would help him win re-election, somehow. I’ve come to believe these people are capable of anything, but is Roderick out there saving people, risking himself, rationing his PPE, and being lied to on top of it all about the risk he’s taking? Could that be true? What I’m angry about, but proudest of, is that even if it is true, it wouldn’t make a difference. Not to him, not to any of them. They were drafted into this war but there are so many unforeseen combatants. The Wisconsin Supreme Court nullified the governor’s shelter in place order. One of the justice’s compared the mandate to remain home to the Japanese internment camps of World War II. The republican legislature has no alternative plan, but even though they brought the case, they requested the court give them a week to put a plan together. The court declined that request and neutered the governor’s order immediately. Within hours the bars in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay were packed. The scientists are begging for a more cautious approach, but summer approaches with more questions than answers and impatience is making our decisions for us. Enemies surround you my friend, and I don’t know how to help, except to say that from this day until forever, I will do what I can to keep your children safe. To make good on whatever they need. When the Last Dance concludes this Sunday, I’ll be right there with your little girl, giving her the context of that mythical era called 1998 that she wishes you were there to provide. I will be there for Harrison during this confusing time and answer any questions a heretic like me can muster as he finds himself. And Helen, I will give her the space to heal so that when she is ready, her beautiful children are prepared to receive her in all her glory. I will be here, for all of you, always. And Shane, you were right. It was trash.
Q filters: people have the ability to source their information in a completely customizable fashion across all media platforms by including or excluding keywords; the system is sophisticated enough to remove even tangential information that is proximal to the keywords chosen.
The Run: a mass run that takes place every evening in most large cities that consists mostly of the poor and the marginalized; it is one part health wellness initiative and one part passive protest. Usually takes place at the top of blue hour.
Ebony’s Letter:
I used to imagine having kids and y’all growing up together, but now it’s gotta be y’all babysitting mine whenever mine come to pass. Sometimes I find comfort in thinking about the future, especially if it involves all of you. Sometimes it just makes me angry. I don’t want to wake up one day and see all of these empty years between us. But as long as I see y’all I can’t ask for much else. They told me that you’ll read this when you’re older, so there are things I can say here that I can’t send you in a video today. Randi, you are so pretty, just like your mama. I Facetimed you yesterday and you seemed so sad. That hurt me. There’s no real way to protect you from the world, even when it’s all locked down. Ahmaud Arbery played football, just like you Jude. His cousin is in the NFL now. Plays safety. They were athletes and young together. Running was safety, and freedom, and excellence, and pride. His cousin said he was slow as molasses, but he loved it, he loved to run. I watch videos of you Shane, running, with your whole heart and ragged breath and I wonder if that’s what it’s like for you, except you’re not slow. Unh unh, boy you fly. This white man wrote about how wrong those other two white men were, the way they hunted him down, with suspicious suspicion. How they should’ve called the cops and let them handle it the right way. Three times I read it, to make sure I understood whether he was being monstrously sarcastic or just exhaustingly simple. Breonna Taylor was killed by cops in her home. They were looking for someone else. Someone else who didn’t live there, had never lived there, who’d already been arrested and had been in police custody by the time Breonna was murdered. She was there with her boyfriend. They were asleep. The cops came in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles. They say they identified themselves. Which is odd, because Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, called 911 as people banged on his door trying to enter. They eventually did. Kenneth also called Breonna’s mom, and told her that someone was trying to break in. Breonna was shot eight times. Kenneth returned fire with a legally licensed weapon registered to him. He wasn’t injured and neither were any of the officers. But Breonna was shot eight times. There is this quote from the article, “The gunfire from the officers struck objects in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom and both bedrooms, according to the lawsuit.” If that’s a two bedroom apartment, that’s every room. Every room. Some shots penetrated apartments that shared a wall with Breonna’s. How many bullets did that take? Kenneth was the only person charged. Assault and the attempted murder of a police officer. If you were white I wouldn’t have to worry about this. I’d worry about you being confident. I’d worry about you, Harrison, being too shy to express your brilliance. I’d worry about you finding your voice, not losing it. I know that God has a plan and he is keeping his babies close to him, washed in love that they didn’t always get here in the world. White people bury their dead much quicker than we do. We idle on the bodies of our loved ones. I think we evolved into perpetual mourners because our time here is such a short and savage struggle. We are weathered and they keep killing us but I picture Ahmaud running still. On clouds thread with gold, running headlong into praise, worshipping the wind. I can see him and he is beautiful. He isn’t slow. He is taking his time in a land of no fear, he is taking his time, he is running and he is peacefully, blissfully, free.
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