A passingover, perhaps…an angel of God forbid to even think of it, death Itself — no Moloching matter. Or so announces the Honorable Meir Meyer, Mayor of New York, on the basis of information supplied by his staff, interns and unpaid. A thesis if you’re feeling generous, we’re just putting it out there, giving gnosis. That, and a collective allergic reaction amid the greater congregation. Bad milk; mutated poison secreted in the previous generation’s lacteal unmissables. And then, it’s gossiped, that the firstborns, they might have been the first to claim their chosenness, but they’re not firstborns. Impostors. Stand in proxies. The latest generation of secundogeniture. Seekers of fortune, profiteers. Opiners opine. Public intellectuals publicize. A malfunction in the mechanism of infridge units of water purification, another. Tampering down at the plant, etc. A reaction theory advances a week, half a lunation, a triggering agent hidden somewhere molecular or other, rendering it innocuous for drink to pass the lips of those for whom the Law’s without cause. Dribble. Mere chin music. Then, a Section A’s last page retraction of an entire moon’s worth of coverage, letting the metro area know they can’t believe everything they read. Tabloid advertorials headlining mass starvation. Overconsumption. To burn like a bush. Or a parasite’s parasite. Autopsies reveal nothing. Milkmuscled meatus. Shrinks analyze the dead upon metal sofas. It looks like a Rorschach to me. Now close both eyes and tell me what you see. A panel of mediums flown in from Anywhere That Sounds Good. Only to find that the Affiliated — they’re still around, why shouldn’t they be; that they’d only transcended human form, went on to exist in a galaxy popularly referred to as Memory (subsequently identified as dwarf spheroidal 3600, type dE0, though disputed). Under the crust of the earth, alternatively, secreted deep in its core, waiting out their day. Talkingheads and yesmensching no. And always with those suits: drycleaners must be making a fortune; salesmenschs, distributors, suppliers. Still, what of selfdestruction. Hardwired martyrdom. Mutation of the urge to submit. Give in, give up, relinquish or relent. An adapted strain of abnegation, anyone. Ritual mass suicide — this the thesis advanced in a private, independent study matchingly funded by the undeniably patronizing sponsorship of the Humboldt-Universität, Berlin. All of them just transmigrating into the ocean at once to drown, holding their yarmulkes down on their heads against the tides. Though, what’s most revealing is this: that not one authority has the media audacity to suggest sin. Who’d the nerve; anyway, it’s called chutzpah now. And on primetime, publicized to an audience of fearmouthed, willing millions. Punishment. As in, Divine Retribution. Deserving. Wanting, needing. Had it coming, then it came. Ask for death, and thou shalt receive only death — and cards you can’t see to read, prayers and sympathy you can’t hear to thank, flowers you can’t smell, and brunch spreads you can’t taste, then a grave that will give you no rest.
