yesterday i read the end of oil is near, and today i read the end of plastic is near. though some say fossil fuel will never end and plastic is forever. like war. some say the pandemic will stay with us, and others that the cure is almost here. walking around here i see anxious people avoiding people, avoiding even their curious eyes. whatever is near and whatever is near the end, stolid acquiescence to the morbid normal persists along with a feeling of futility that ebbs and flows with perennially rising resistance. the sea goes on with moribund tankers, widening gyres of our cumulative waste and wondering whales singing the ancient planet song.