Edited by Dava Sobel 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 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.
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
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.
