I was troubled by how easy it was to mistake one thing for another, as with snakes—
the Scarlet King resembling the Coral with its arrangement of black
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on yellow, or the harmless Hognose which is often confused
with a Copperhead. Likewise, mushrooms— however you might examine the warts
on the umbrella caps or the thin white gills you could miss some telltale sign—
the partial veil around a stem, say, or white spores, the Sprouting Amanita
pretending to be a Young Puffball and then, days later
the lethal symptoms would begin: burning thirst, blurred vision,
your heartbeat growing dangerously slow.
We lived like this for more than a year— unable to tell which
doorknobs were ordinary and which harbored the virus, afraid to taste the
vivid winter air.
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