My aunt sent me a graphic last Thanksgiving. You know the kind. Red background, dripping font, a countdown clock, and a caption that said something like “SCIENTISTS AGREE: WE HAVE LESS THAN A DECADE LEFT.” She tagged me because she knows I teach science, and she wanted me to tell everyone at the table how scared to be.
I did not tell anyone how scared I was. I put my fork down and asked her a question instead: how many of these countdown clocks has she personally lived through already. She’s sixty-one. She could not name one. Not one single specific year, name, or quote. Just a general, permanent, floating sense of dread that has apparently been humming in the background of her entire adult life, refreshed every few years with a new deadline, never once checked against the last one.