The End of Men

by Christina Sweeney-Baird

Be wary of that little voice that tries to twist one scary thing into a spiral of despair.

I can feel the weight of the knowledge on my chest. I need to tell other people. I need to do things and not just worry in silence.

There are three different ways that a vaccine against a virus can be created. Firstly, you can change the genes of the virus so that it replicates poorly. Secondly, you can destroy the genes of the virus so that it doesn’t replicate at all. Thirdly, you can use a part of the virus but not all of it, which means that it can’t replicate.

What I do know, from years of reporting, is that ignorance, incompetence and fear so often go hand in hand with government that none of us should be surprised if the institutions we thought would keep us safe would in fact be woefully inadequate in the face of a pandemic.

love is more than fireworks and declarations. It is steady, certain sureness. It is knowing that you are loved. It is knowing that you are not alone.

My father left when I was small. Our greatest weakness has become a strength. Now, I think, what’s the worst that can happen? They will not die. I will not die. We will be okay.

I have never felt so powerful. This must be what men used to feel like. My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running. No wonder they used to get drunk on it.

happened to you. I don’t know how the women have done this, but I know it’s their fault. It was their plan all along. They wanted to make sure women got into the best colleges, and got the best jobs, had the most money and then they didn’t even need men to have kids. So many women are already having children on their own using donor sperm and weird medical shit, what’s the point of men in that equation? They’ve been moving men slowly into a position of irrelevancy, and now the Plague is confirming it.

“Like with many things in the story of the Plague, Amanda was way ahead of the rest of the world,”

But it was also a bit like a failed artist working as a security officer at an art gallery, or a failed author working in a bookshop. There’s a constant reminder of how close you are to the thing you want, and how far away from it you are.

would not

the difficulty we’re having releasing prisoners after their sentences. They’re safe in prison—there are no visits and guards wear hazmat suits—and leaving could be a death sentence. Truly, the world is upside down.

You’ve given us a golden ticket to become the most powerful nation on earth. The geopolitical slate has been partially wiped clean and we have what everybody wants.”

I wanted to shout at them, “What you fucking staring at, I’m just a man,”

“Before the Plague, women had a forty-seven percent higher chance than men of being seriously injured in a car crash.”

Look how far we’ve come, I think to myself. Look how we have survived.

Dear Frances, Love Toby, a memoir by Toby Williams, the man whose wife, Frances, famously saved him from starvation on the Silver Lady, a ship off the coast of Iceland.

“You know, the world doesn’t have to remember you for you to matter. We were loved by those we loved. Not everyone can say that,”

“Perhaps some traumas are too overwhelming to recover from.” On an individual and societal level, perhaps recovery is too great a goal. We can never regain what we have lost and we must accept that, mourn that, grieve what cannot be, and find a new way to exist.

We will not be together in this life but I am so very glad you have been mine.