It’s already end of February. A year into this pandemic that is gradually transforming our lives into a less and less recognisable video conference-call / reality show.
“Look at this”, my friend Patrick says. He is reading an old issue of The Atlantic, a true hardcopy one, made out of ink and paper. He found it buried underneath piles of other, more recent (and perhaps more relevant) printed material: newspapers, mail order catalogues, HMRC notifications, sundry bills, half-read books, magazines. “It’s about Reiki”, he says, talking to no-one in particular. “You know what Reiki is, right? That energy hocus pocus blah blah blah they do with their hands to heal you. It doesn’t work, it says. And yet it does. Or so it seems, anyway. Placebo or something. Here!”
He hands me the magazine.
