So anyway, regarding what is apparently the System shutting down--Death, if you will--

Peculiarly, being a Buddhist long since persuaded that I have no self or permanent existence--much less a soul--the process (and we are a process) of dying seems to be something that I'm not very good at. While I go on seeing my doctor and taking my meds, something tells me that contracting a series of pneumonias, as I have done the last couple of months, coincidentally with the advent of the Plague (though I have not personally been infested with it)--this late in my seventy-seventh year--seems to indicate an inclination towards dying. Maladvertly (if I may be permitted a word-coinage), with no grace or composure, or sense of order or procedure, whatever. Madly. But directly and to the point, not unlike my hypothetical (for the purposes of argument) self, if I had a self. So say, like my admitted character--which I have overheard it said (so it must be true) to be blunt to a fault.