Delta (the Sequel)
Delta (noun)
the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.
a triangular tract of sediment deposited at the mouth of a river, typically where it diverges into several outlets.
the new coronavirus variant.
As we enter into what a Twitter user described as “the pandemic part two,” I am thinking about words. Covid-19 is a phrase that did not exist two years ago today. Delta means something different than it did just one year ago. Words change, as does our perception of them.
Thinking about words, at least for me, translates seamlessly and without fail into thinking about books. I have a deep and ridiculous love for anything literary, but something that has always vexed me about the book world is unnecessary sequels.
Allow me to explain. Once upon a time, Main Character was unwillingly sucked into a dangerous and magical world, in which she was recruited into an unlikely crew of misfits, tasked with saving the world and faced with nearly impossible odds. After a series of events that led up to a satisfying climax in which Main Character saved not only her new friends but a part of herself she had not realized she had lost, Main Character and her friends held hands and walked into the light of a sun rising over a better world. The End.
Except the Author decides - after writing these words - that it is not, in fact, The End, and writes another book, casting Main Character and her friends into yet another calamity. Does Main Character deserve another calamity? Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t.
But do the readers want another book? In their minds, Main Character is languishing in the glory of her accomplishments, kicking back and relaxing in the new world she helped to create. Put quite simply, a sequel is unnecessary. But even so, it’s written, edited, and published.
The term “unwanted sequel” is what comes to mind when I think of the Delta variant of Covid-19.
This time, Main Character is not a heroine of magical abilities who brings about a greater tomorrow. In this story, Main Character is a frontline worker, a musician struggling to make a living at home, a grieving parent, an anxious teenager, a little girl asking “why?”
And maybe Main Character did not save the world. Maybe Main Character was afraid to go back to the thing we used to call “normal.” Maybe she didn’t even want to, but Main Character’s climax came and went and now the action is building again. The novel structure has been turned to that of a bowl of pudding and the chapter titles are all variants of “here we are again.”
The word “delta” has a lot of meanings, though. It’s what we call the triangle of silt and sediment that joins the river to the ocean but somehow isn’t a part of either. It’s a word that captures the essence of transitions. So maybe our current version of Delta is just a transition between the climax and what comes next. At the heart of the word “delta” is a space between.
Between gamma and epsilon.
Between the river and the ocean.
Between today and whatever comes next.