Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

  Her Korg on its stand felt like home under her fingers, even as her shoulder stung while she sustained the G chord through the chorus. But the pain from the tattoo receded as she sang the lyrics she’d written the night they found out she was pregnant. She saw now that it was the idea of a baby that had made the music seem smaller, less permanent—but the truth was they would always be bound by the music, no less than by a child or by the drawing buried and throbbing in her back. The music, she hoped, would outlast them all.

  “Is it fear or love? / We’re none of us above / the doubt of why we’re getting in / or out of this. / This bliss.”

  Emma swallowed at the end of the verse. She remembered the version she’d written, and how Stu had added a bridge with a key modulation that managed to capture both her hope and her uncertainty. Ben had added some syncopation to the pre-chorus, and Jesse had hit upon a riff with the digital delay that lifted the whole thing into a shimmering, elliptical thing of wonder. Together they’d made it better than anything she could have done alone.

  When the song was over, Stu came up and placed his hand on her belly. “In case you didn’t already know,” he said to the crowd. “I’m ecstatic.”

  Emma stepped forward and grabbed her mic stand. “It turns out that everything with us is changing,” she said to the audience. She tapped her stomach, a little telegraphed hello to her constant companion, who kicked back in response. She turned to Stu, who was watching her, frozen. “But I think that means we’re getting better.” In the roar of cheers and applause, he grinned and returned to his own microphone, then launched into the opening chords of their almost-dance number, as Jesse kicked off the heavy bass with his pedal. Almost instantly, Emma saw what looked like a wave rippling through the audience as they began to jump up and down en masse. But in the distance, she spotted a movement that was out of sync, as though a group of people were pushing in the opposite direction. Then she saw one of the turquoise porta-potties tumble down. And then another. She looked to her bandmates but none of them had noticed. She kept squinting out to the limit of the crowd and thought she detected a scuffle of security guards and concertgoers. It looked like people might be shouting, but she couldn’t hear them over the music.

  As she waited to come in with her harmonies, Emma searched the sea of faces closest to the edge of the stage, the young men and women clinging to the barricades who had waited for hours to be up at the front. They were pressed in tight together, sardines all the way along, and they had stripped off their sweaters and jackets in spite of the coolness of the evening. Their hands were up in the air, clapping or cupped around their mouths so their cheers would carry. She saw a girl a few rows back coughing into her hands then holding them up as Ben beat out the drum fill at the end of the verse.

  Emma felt a new fear take hold in the back of her mind. They were all only helpless people trying to help. Yet maybe they were making things worse.

  Then it was time for the chorus again.

  Well-Meaning Disaster: Dove Suite’s Doomed Fundraiser

  Oct 12, 2020

  VANCOUVER—It was meant to be the must-see live music event of the year, if not of a generation. The Canadian organizers of “To America With Love” promoted the event as a benefit concert to raise money for ARAMIS antivirals. With its lineup of popular acts, and featuring headliners Dove Suite in what would be their only live performance of the year after cancelling their fall stadium tour, the Vancouver-based festival seemed poised to become a blockbuster. A successful social media campaign, fuelled by Twitter trends, Instagram stories, and a few enthusiastic TikTok influencers, led to tickets selling out in minutes and a pre-concert buzz that likened the event to the next Woodstock. In retrospect, the music festival seems closer to Altamont—doomed to go down in infamy.

  Sidney Reeve, 24, attended in spite of the high ticket price and the safety concerns of her parents. “I love Dove Suite and they haven’t played Vancouver in years.” She has been a fan of the Austin-based band since the release of their debut album, WhisperShout, in 2010.

  For other concertgoers, the threat of the virus was more of a draw than a deterrent. Jason Harvey, 39, attended with a large group of friends and co-workers. “ARAMIS is really bringing home just how vulnerable we are as a species and how ill-equipped our governments are to protect us. Who knows what’s going to happen in the future? And I just kept thinking, what if this is the last killer concert of my lifetime?”

  But it was a killer concert in more ways than one. By late afternoon, rumours began to circulate about the presence of ARAMIS-infected attendees. A panic-fuelled stampede midway through the headlining set resulted in the deaths of eight concertgoers and dozens of injuries. Though the performances by artists such as SHÖR, Bakelite, and rediscovered folk artist Gertie Colewick earned rave reviews, hundreds of concertgoers began to fall ill within a week of the event. A second wave of the disease rippled outward across British Columbia and into neighbouring areas. All in all, Canadian health authorities estimate that up to 3,000 infections may ultimately be traced to the concert, a heavy toll for a country that, until recently, had largely avoided a public health crisis due to strict border protections.

  Concert headliners Dove Suite issued a statement through their publicist: “We are grieving with the people of Canada and the families of the victims. Our participation in the concert was prompted by a desire to do good by fundraising for life-saving medication and equipment. Our hearts are broken that this attempt to help our country has brought about so much unintended harm.”

  The fundraiser succeeded in raising upwards of $4 million in relief funds. The United States has faced a shortage of antivirals and specialized medical equipment, due to an overburdened health care system and various diplomatic and economic issues with former allies.

  To date, over 500,000 people have been diagnosed with ARAMIS worldwide since August. At least 175,000 have died.

  Symposium Magazine

  Where the internet comes to think

  These days everyone is worried about ARAMIS, as the global death toll pushes health care systems to the brink and causes havoc in virtually every sphere of daily life. But the deadly virus poses other threats that rarely make the headlines. Keelan Gibbs, professor of philosophy at Lansdowne University, sat down with us to discuss some of the ethical considerations of living through a global pandemic.

  Q. You became well-known in academic circles for writing about philosophy in times of crisis. You wrote these books decades ago as hypothetical frameworks for approaching different types of human catastrophe. Did you ever think they would become practical handbooks for real events?

  A. I hoped they wouldn’t. If I’d had to guess, I would have predicted my more recent work on climate change would have become critically relevant sooner.

  Q. Can you describe your books for those who haven’t read them yet?

  A. Ethics for End Times outlines the choices faced by governments in times of crisis. For instance, should the government uphold the principles of free speech, or censor scapegoating and false science that could lead to vigilantism and further disease transmission? Classical liberals like John Stuart Mill made powerful arguments against censorship—Mill even believed that false beliefs could help lead to the truth through open debate—but could he have imagined how quickly untruths proliferate in our modern world and how easily they are believed? Similarly, the government may need to inhibit the personal liberty of exposed or infected individuals in order to promote the health and happiness of the greatest number of citizens. But what about non-compliance? Is the government within its rights to shoot people who violate quarantine? In The Survivalist’s Code, I explore the dilemmas we may face as individuals. Do we need to obey the decrees of a government that has become unjust? If the government ceases to function, what are our responsibilities to one another? If an extinction-scale event occurs, are our previous social contracts dissolved or do we owe a duty of car
e to our neighbours? For this volume, I thought it was important to move beyond theory and engage with the practical problems arising from a global crisis. For the chapters on pandemics, I consulted with epidemiologists, disaster-preparedness experts, and infectious-disease specialists. For the chapters on environmental disaster and nuclear conflict, I offer a similar blend of historical theory and contemporary research.

  Q. What do you think people might be surprised to learn from your work?

  A. That most of our beliefs about disasters are myths. Study after study has shown that panic is actually uncommon. In almost all cases, people will act for the common good unless they have already been given reason to believe, either through prejudice or misinformation, that others will behave badly. The most dangerous type of panic, the one that can actually come to the fore in a crisis, is what sociologists of disaster have called “elite panic.” This is the fear of those in power that the change brought about by disaster will undermine their authority, for disaster often precipitates transformation and renewal. When elite panic rules, dangerous and unwarranted measures may be taken in the name of preventing chaos or mob rule.

  KEELAN GIBBS IS THE DUNHAM PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AT LANSDOWNE UNIVERSITY. HIS BOOKS INCLUDE ETHICS FOR END TIMES AND THE SURVIVALIST’S CODE.

  THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED FOR LENGTH.

  ELLIOT

  NOVEMBER 2020

  It was ten minutes before the start of his shift and Elliot was hungry. Half of the businesses in Washington Heights had shut down in early October, but the restaurant closures were the biggest pain in the ass. Elliot had been forced to revive cooking skills he’d repressed since college: scrambled eggs, pasta, sloppy joes. There was a booming commerce in food delivery for intrepid couriers, but sitting and waiting at home reminded him too much of his quarantine. Now even the grocery aisle at the drugstore was picked over. He leaned down to inspect a lone instant ramen bowl on the bottom shelf while a woman in a purple raincoat edged over to move away from him. He noticed she had peanut butter and pickles in her basket, and his stomach spasmed.

  The centre display of Halloween candy at the front of the store was the one thing left untouched. Usually there’d be slim pickings the day after Halloween, but this year the mayor had called off trick-or-treating—just in case there was anyone living under a rock somewhere who still wanted their kids to go door to door in the midst of a pandemic.

  Elliot grabbed a fifty-piece variety box with Kit Kats and Milk Duds. Better to get fat than to starve.

  Bryce loved Kit Kats. Elliot’s partner had come down with ARAMIS after they’d worked a quarantine relief shift at a big apartment building with sixty confirmed cases. Quarantine relief was a constantly evolving role that entailed food delivery, warning off visitors, and, increasingly, issuing tickets to people registered under a Q-notice who refused to stay home. Though quarantining was technically still voluntary, the city’s top medical advisors had recommended enforcement given the long incubation period of the virus. For police officers like Elliot, this meant trying to strike a delicate balance between respecting the personal liberty of thousands, and guarding against the potential damage that could be wrought by a single infected individual on an ordinary day. What happened to Bryce was a reminder of how badly—and easily—things could go wrong. A feverish, stir-crazy woman adamant on leaving the building had pulled off his mask and coughed in his face to prove she wasn’t infected. Forty-eight hours later, Elliot had watched as her body was carried out in a biohazard bag, while Bryce stayed home under his own Q-notice. A week later, he was symptomatic. Public visiting hours at all hospitals had been suspended, although according to the latest daily update from Bryce’s wife, he was still conscious but breathing with a ventilator.

  The self-checkout kiosk was slow; in the store’s far corner, an idle cashier blinked up at a wall-mounted television blaring ongoing coverage of the deadly aftermath of the big ARAMIS fundraising concert in Vancouver. Even when people were trying to do the right thing, Elliot thought, things could still go spectacularly wrong. He stood well back from the person ahead of him in line. It was no longer considered polite to get closer than three feet of someone, though it made for some unruly queues that nettled his sense of public order. Behind him, there was a scraggly row of gloved and masked customers extending all the way into the shampoo aisle.

  Everyone in line, Elliot realized, looked like they were steeling themselves for the worst.

  * * *

  —

  “If four out of ten people with ARAMIS die, and eight out of ten people exposed to the virus get sick, and there are nine million people in New York City—”

  “What’s your point, Russ?”

  “By all mathematical rights, we’re fucked.”

  Elliot and his new partner Russ had just been assigned to maintain a cordon outside the Medical Science Pavilion of Methodist Morningside Hospital to manage the journalists. The outbreak had done more to sell papers and fuel the public appetite for news media than climate change and nuclear threats combined. As usual, fear was proving to be good for business.

  “Why are you guys here, really?” Russ asked the journalist standing closest as they began their shift. “I wouldn’t be anywhere near a hospital if it were up to me.”

  “This is the biggest story in the city,” the reporter answered. “Children in comas. Parents dying. Nurses standing in for next of kin to make the kids’ medical decisions…it’s unreal.”

  Another journalist beside her said, “We’ve been covering the concert story for a month, but there’s nothing new there. So we’re waiting for the latest update from Dr. Delille.”

  “This is the worst,” said Russ, ignoring the conversation he’d started and turning back to Elliot. “It isn’t even our responsibility.”

  “Today it is,” said Elliot, passing his partner a mask and a set of the gloves they’d been issued.

  “I like driving,” said Russ. “Not standing around.”

  Elliot remembered how, during the first few days of his quarantine, it had nearly killed him not to be able to just slip into his car and put miles of road between himself and the plain facts of his life. Even if you were going in circles, as long as you were behind the wheel, it still felt like you were going somewhere.

  Russ took off his cap and, passing it to Elliot, stretched the elastics of the face mask over his head before securing it in place over his nose and mouth. “God, we look like armed surgeons or something.”

  Elliot peered into the underside of the hat, where a snapshot of two toddlers and a Saint Michael medallion were tucked into its inner plastic sleeve. “Think of it as a promotion,” he said, handing it back. “This is life-and-death stuff we’re dealing with here.”

  “So what else is new?” said Russ. “But this is putting my whole family on the line.”

  Elliot couldn’t deny it. “I’m going to check on things inside.”

  “Don’t leave me alone.” The journalists were a calm bunch, but Russ was antsy, hooking his thumbs in and out of his belt loops. Then Elliot saw that his partner had shifted his attention to a man and woman who, in loud and desperate-sounding voices, were asking for directions to Emergency. Russ pointed them in the right direction before adding, “You know what I’ve been through.” Like Elliot, Russ’s wife had spent three weeks in quarantine, after one of her co-workers had fallen ill. Though Russ’s family remained healthy, Elliot imagined his partner had gone through his own mortal reckoning.

  “Just keep your mask on,” he said.

  “You’ve got to teach me some karate or whatever,” said Russ. His fidgety hands had gone slack, but his voice remained tight. “I need to be more Zen, like you.”

  Elliot cracked a smile. “What is the colour of the wind?” His partner just shook his head, and Elliot noticed the dark circles below his eyes. “Hey, man.” He clapped his partner on the
shoulder and waited until Russ met his gaze. “We’ll be fine.”

  Elliot went inside and followed the signs for the Infectious Diseases Division. He asked a nurse where the labs were and she directed him up to the fourth floor. He spotted Keisha as soon as he emerged from the stairwell. White coat, black hair, narrow hip swish, slight bounce on the toes. It was harder to recognize people in face masks, but being tall, she’d always had a very particular stride. She was headed to a set of doors at the opposite end of the hall.

  “Keisha,” he called out.

  The woman who stopped to look at him was dignified, preoccupied, in a hurry. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” he said. “Elliot Howe. From college.” He took off his hat because he knew it could be hard for people to see past the uniform. “It’s good to see you,” he added, in case she was on the fence. From what he could see, she’d aged better than he had, in that she hadn’t aged at all. Shorter braids, still pretty, no makeup. “It’s been a while.”

  “What are you doing here?” Her tone was, if not angry, then at least annoyed. She carried a slim metal briefcase under her arm.

  “Keeping the journalists at bay,” he said. “Though I wondered if you wanted to come downstairs and make a statement. It might be enough to make them leave.”

  She shook her head. “If they don’t let me get on with my work, there won’t be anything new to report.”

  It was clear she took no pleasure in her recent elevation to the status of media personality. She was as sensible as he had always known her to be, and he was glad she had achieved her goal of becoming a doctor and that there was a consistency to who people were over time. It reassured him to know that he hadn’t been wrong to let her go back then, maybe only wrong to have gotten involved with someone as Type A as her in the first place.