A father in highly regional camouflage switched from the news to Ancient Aliens, where it was being posited that the metaphor of death as the Grim Reaper came from aliens in our cornfields spraying pathogens over medieval peasants. The man watched. She watched the man. Some needle in his face moved steadily from Possible, to Plausible, to I Would Die for This Belief, which was bewildering until you remembered the wild beeping of his daughter’s machines. ■
