Day 94

Our state set a record today for new cases of the Dread Virus.

It turns out people don’t know what to do with freedom, which ironically means our isolation will be more profound and more protracted. Some people just can’t believe they’re courting disaster until it gets down on one knee with a ring in its pocket.

Buckthorne Underbrush, one of the Forest Sprites, had some choice words to say on the subject, when I read the article to the group this afternoon.

Humans, he said, don’t recognize Enough until they’re so far past it, they’ve blown by More Than Enough and A Little Much, and even Quite a Bit, There. Only when they get to How’s That Going For You? do they even realize they’ve missed their exit. People don’t know what Enough feels like—only the pain of Too Much.

I told him he was absolutely right, which somehow made me the butt of a joke I didn’t understand until the Lady Bee pointed out I’d shoveled down half a box of Triscuits while we were talking. Truly I thought I’d only had one or two.

The man in the cap said his personal definition of maturity is the resolve to avert mistakes you haven’t made yet. “Even a baby learns not to do things that hurt,” he said. “You can spot the grownups by the way they look out for dangers that haven’t stung them in the butt.”

This, I think, offended the Lady Bee, though she agreed she would have lost fewer comrades if people could learn to steer clear of the hive without a stinger to incentivize that behavior.

When I told the HM about the conversation, she said it was disturbing. I asked what she meant, and she said my ceiling people are starting to make a disturbing amount of sense.