THE WAY THE MAYOR WINCED

A new malady has been identified in the region, and officials are not sure what to call it. “We would not say a virus, necessarily,” said the mayor, after which he motioned to his left and welcomed Dr. Frances J. Bufalina to the microphone. Bufalina began by stressing that she is not an epidemiologist proper but rather a psychoepidemiologist. “That does not mean I am a psycho,” she said to laughter from the crowd, “though my husband might disagree,” more laughter, “so, though, what it does mean is that I specialize in investigating how mental conditions pass from one person to the next in a society, for example anxiety, for example paranoia, for example anger.” Now there was no laughter. She endeavored to describe her most recent discovery. “I can only give an example and leave it to you to decide if you have experienced the same thing,” she said. “Yesterday I was taking recycling out to the bin on my driveway, and a small cardboard box fell out of the bin and landed next to the bin. My first thought was to leave it there. Who cares that it didn’t reach its destination? I began to walk away. Four steps later I was consumed by a feeling that mixed guilt, self-reproach, and a simple recognition of how easy it would be to take four steps back toward the bin— that would be eight steps wasted in all, but only eight steps—and put the little box where it should be. That is what I did. But what was that moment of fleeting resistance to what should be done? Can it derail us? Can we always depend on that moment of recognition of a simple solution? And so, see, we have begun to see cases springing up across town that are similar but not identical, and that affect all corners of our lives: organizing meetings at work, picking up children from school, acting with intimacy in marriages. A minor obstacle arises in the completion of a task, and we balk at the effort required and to some degree revel in its incompletion. We begin to move back toward a world of chaos that we have in part created, only to—we hope—have our better nature settle back upon us. We do not know the precise progress of this disease, let alone its fulcrum, so we are watching closely for the moments when the momentum of walking away outstrips the magnetic pull of returning to fulfill the obligation in question.” The mayor now returned to the lectern. Bufalina made one final remark, which explained that she has dubbed the new condition “rorgetfulness,” which she called “an inelegant portmanteau combining elements of regret and forgetfulness.” From the way the mayor winced, it is unlikely this name will stick.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas