Appearances

Diary Entry: April 8, 2025

The pandemic and its global contagion forced a seismic shift in our existence. Was it merely a dress rehearsal — an exercise in remote governance from domestic bunkers before the kinetic destruction of worldwide wars? Who can say. Yet, from that chaos, one deity ascended above all others: Zoom.

Physical communion was usurped by the virtual. We were immediately inundated with the grotesque comedy of this new era: the pantless executive, the unmuted confessions of disdain, and the sudden, feral intrusions of children and house pets. I endured my share of this digital theater while conducting seminars and lectures at Tbilisi State University. It was largely a performance for the void; students rarely illuminated their cameras, leaving me to lecture to a grid of black boxes, God only knows what anarchy unfolding behind them.

These ruminations were cycling through my mind, matching the rhythm of my pedals as I rode toward the university, when a familiar figure anchored the street scene. Professor Pigou!

He was navigating the intersection, clad in jeans and a sweater, his hair a chaotic halo and thick reading glasses perched on his nose. He was worrying his lower lip — a telltale tic indicating he had just emerged from dining. I didn’t break my cadence to hail him; the pedestrian signal held him in its green embrace, and he was intent on his crossing. Besides, our orbits were destined to intersect later in class. There, the setting would be rigid, the context restored. A return to form.