Dear Father Time of 2020
By: Christyl Rivers
Tags: Racism, Pandemic, Trump, 2020, Covid 19

Dear Father Time of 2020

Photo by Hermes Rivers

Aging fast

In January you got a headache listening to impeachment hearings, and some bats, upset at being skewered alive squeaked both prayers and curses at you in regard to zoonotic viral contagions. Several people were trampled to death at the funeral of a state-ordered assassination of General Soleimani in Iran, and a plane crash shortly thereafter caused a few more wrinkles in time.

By the second month, you and the whole world, were confused when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry divorced the royal family in a first ever “reverse Cinderella” move. Christina Koch, holding the world’s record for number of days in space at almost a full year, returned to Earth among murmurs of “Christina Who?” and “NASA is still a thing?” For her part, Christina told you, “I could do a whole more year away, please?”

Although, by age three months, you already had a two-foot length of gray hair, singed black at the ends from the Australia fires, a touch of dementia from the failed impeachment hearings, and a broken heart from seeing Covid 19 flying off to the Americas, (not to mention all those burned koalas.)

A whole mess of people were running for president, and tons of rich people rejoiced when a movie called Parasite showed that not even really skilled poor people can undo a “Reverse Cinderella.” By April, at four months, you were not only past toddlerhood, but were somehow, in the terrible teens pouting about everyone being grounded. Companies began to fail, the stock market crashed, and Tom Hanks, his wife, Rand Paul, and even Harvey Weinstein caught Covid-19. Demonstrations took to the streets.

Leadership to the rescue!

Trump suggests we have nothing left to lose by trying hydroxychloroquine because he had not yet discovered that drinking disinfectants works just as well to kill people.

By late April you are bent over with sciatica from carrying the burden of whining, anti-maskers who begin to assemble, grumble, wave guns, and spew virus at State capitals.

Then you really got bent because so many unarmed people were murdered by police. People were terrorized by so much dancing, chanting, and singing, and by the lie that riots were burning down all major cities.

Shortly thereafter MAJOR reforms were enacted: No more Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, COPS, or that sweet Indian maiden on the almost butter.

Trump continued to spread the Gloss Bull according to Donald, which confused everyone except Q, who is not who you think, but actually that Q from Star Trek the Next Generation (STNG) messing with us. Which explains a lot.

Sunset of your life, have a drink

By late summer, coffin containers began to line hospital alleys. Then, as the west slowly sank into cinders under blood-red setting suns, you were getting too old to handle it all. We know that Time itself (YOU) must have been hibernating and/or drunk, because the WTF election DAY went on for THREE months, if not years.

While super spreader events proliferated from the White House and from sea to shining sea, we all are trying hard to be merry and anti-social for what seems like the longest year of our lives.

In truth, we know it was only a preview of what’s to come, so, thanks for burying us in enough Amazon parcels that we can’t see that far ahead!

We ended the year with a lot of people stressed, stranded, strange, and struck dumb. But 2021 promises new leadership and hardly any major civil wars or pandemics, or pollution fires.

We have certainly learned from our mistakes, right?

You have earned yourself some “Me-time,” Old, man Time. Go have another beer. When that new years baby shows up in January, we will promise not to shake him up so badly that we start out on the wrong baby bootie.