Friday’s Theme Music

A dull red sun is struggling to light the morning, but smoky air lays siege to the sunshine.

This is morning. The windows are closed tight. Per government and health experts’ recommendations, we stay indoors and avoid outside activities. The air is unhealthy. If you must go outside, wear masks…

Yeah, not going into all the smoke and COVID-19 mask-wearing comparisons. That knotty logic against wearing masks, no matter what, is beyond my pre-coffee mind. I cannot help but think that this smoke and unhealthy air is going to cause a COVID-19 spike. See, in my limited and uninformed view, the smoke will affect our lungs, eyes, mucus members, sinuses and airways. We’ll sneeze and cough to eject the offending particles. That greater and more frequent force will launch more COVID-19 particles into the air. Those without masks, well, are more exposed. Additionally, the smoke will impact our bodies, creating or feeding underlying conditions, increasing vulnerabilities that the novel coronavirus will exploit. Finally, as people are being forced together to shelter, potential super-spreader events are being created.

But that’s just me, and my fiction-writing mind.

Back to the music. This sun color kicks in songs about the sun. The old pop tune “Red Rubber Ball” (The Cyrkle (had to look that up), 1966), about a relationship and taking new positive energy from the sunrise, doesn’t quite work for me for this situation.

No, I think it’s more of a somber, reflective, “Tequila Sunrise” morning.

Here are the Eagles with their 1973 song.