Will knew there wasn't enough whiskey in the world to get through the next five weeks. 

We eventually turned everything into a weapon. 

 Listen to the poets (not the politicians) and submerge yourself in the world (not the web). 

She just couldn't understand why power and money were so important. 

When would the continuous confusion of COVID-driven dazed days end? 

 With all the wonders of nature to behold, they preferred the Kardashians and Tik Tok videos. 

Our dystopia is their paradise. 

Half-forgotten dreams melted in the morning light. 

She was haunted by the paths contemplated but never taken. 

The words, written so long ago, still resonated, connecting their souls from across the vastness of the tomb. 

 As a scientist, Isabel thought of time not in decades but in eons and knew that justice would prevail as long as we didn't destroy ourselves first. 

 Scott's body was on autopilot as he jogged to the edge of town while he let his mind roam, soaring like the eagle hunting on the river, skittering like the squirrel heading for a tree, gusting like the wind that suddenly kicked up—distractions that brought him back to himself. 

 Time can so easily slip through the cracks in our frail homes, ossified bones. 

A wizened face, a mask, he thought, stared back from the morning mirror. 

The dark corners called to her. 

Civil discourse had been tossed on the bonfire along with everything else they despised. 

The summer faded into memory with the heady scent of chimney smoke on the frigid wind. 

The old was bulldozed and buried to make way for the new, whether it was better or not. 

The feeling he had that night when the wind rattled the windows of their hotel room in a small village in Spain never left him.  

 Through the choking smoke and orange haze, they couldn't see the truth. 

When they told Sheila she was shit she smiled thinking about the lesson she learned from gardening: manure was the key to growing. 

Bury yourself in the sand for a bit before diving back into the ocean. 

It was all just sleight of hand. 

All he wanted was to recapture that feeling he had as a kid when his family finally arrived at the amusement park. 

 From the mountain's peak looking across the valley, she was almost able to forget about the strife below. 

 "The existence of parallel universes is given credence every time I go on Twitter," the scientist told me with a smirk. 

 They sharpened their knives waiting for the word. 

Every day felt like that reoccurring nightmare in which you walk into class and realize you haven't done any of the required homework all year. 

 "Fight with all your might for what you believe," she told me, "as long as you know you're on the right side of history."