Dear David,

Now that you’ve been gone for nearly a year, I’ve developed a new theory that I want to tell you about. It has to do with science fiction — that passion of mine that you so encouraged.

Perhaps the sci-fi genre first came about when someone wanted to tell a dead loved one what has transpired since their passing — how fantastical it all might seem.

Wouldn’t your father have been startled to learn that millions of people, of all social classes, were felled by a virus? That people would be afraid to touch each other, breathe the same air?