[written in Feb '22]
The day I got the wordle in two, the war started.
c e a s e
My go to starting words are ROAST or CAUSE, ADIEU if I'm feeling particularly vowelly.
CAUSE came back green grey grey green green.
I would say bingo, but let's not go mixing metaphors. What other words start with c and end in se?
C a u s e
C e a s e
One allows the other. We're too late for the first. We can hope for the second.
The two words sat in my mind as I scrawled down the newsfeed, past an investigative journalist still missing in Mexico, a reality-TV celebrity who had lost weight, relief effortks in Ethiopia. I clicked on a long read of Ukraine; the timeline of the USSR, the pictures of tanks lined up, the women in bunkers, the corpses of dogs in bombed out buildings, black Ukranians refused at the border, gas prices, oligarchs, Chelsea, Biden, and him. Putin.
The Kremlin Gremlin, whose grandfather was Stalin's cook.
I would like to say I shivered. But I clicked the backwards arrow, scrolled through more.
Scroll. Scroll, just keep scrolling.
Next was an investigation into spyware technology, then another Kardashian lawsuit, and then a vlogger documenting her cancer treatment. I clicked on that one. Is compartmentalisation self survival, or selfish ignorance?
The next day I slept in. I missed the train.
I bought a cafe con leche and swore when the next train left early. As I ran for the third, the lid (which was the wrong size) popped out. I expected a burn, but the coffee was lukewarm and sticky.
Three things happened next, almost in one movement. I sat down, opened wordle and typed Putin. Why, I can't say.
A message appeared on the screen.
It tremored as I pressed enter again, again. Tremoring, shaking with rage.
The word doesn't exist!
it said.
You're wrong wordle, I wanted to say. It exists too much.
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