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DAY 36: TOTAL CONFIRMED DEATHS 165,257 WORLDWIDE


Keeping her eyes open on this endless, dull day was difficult.

Sunday used to hold purpose: the finishing of weekend chores, the preparation for the week. Now, nothing mattered. She could do some laundry, if she felt like it.

She didn’t feel like it.

She could cook something more interesting than a can of soup, or a fried egg.

She didn’t feel like doing that either.

She felt gray. Blob-like. Flat.

Someone had left the telescreen on and the Orange Leader was blabbing again. This angered her because she specifically instructed her husband to not turn on the telescreen for the daily press briefing-it was too insane, too depressing, and she didn’t want to give this man what he wanted: attention.

He was waxing on about what a great job he’d done, and how “No one had ever seen anything like what he’d done to save so many lives.” He wanted praise, why couldn’t the reporters just “be nice?” Why couldn’t they thank him for all his hard work? Things were looking good! Parts of the country could start reopening! And the testing was going great no one had ever seen so many tests so many ventilators in fact they had so many ventilators now that they were giving them to other countries and now they could thank him for his generosity and why bring up the past when he said it was a hoax why were they so mean to him with all he’s done he saved the country from the mess that was the previous administration and why can’t you just thank him?

She screamed at the glowing screen.

This was why she had the no-press-conference rule; it made her blood boil.

Still no word from him about the dead. No words of condolence, no thoughts for the families, nothing. 40,683 citizens had died. Not one word. Most dying alone, with no family by their side. But he didn’t care. If he cared he would be encouraging people to stay home, not go out and protest- that was okay he said. They had flags, so many flags, so many beautiful flags so they must be good people, he said.

He only cared about the shot, the image, the ratings, the look, the brand.

And dead people were bad for his brand. He couldn’t have that, so he smiled and kept pumping rainbows and sunshine out of his pruned, white lips, talking about the reopening of the country and how good things were going, all the while, more people were becoming infected, and thousands died, just today.

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