The mistake is not in succumbing to the idea that all this (gesturing) is rendered absurd by the idea that all this (gesturing) could be laid low by a virus. It is in forgetting that absurdity is the baseline, the starting point, at which all this (gesturing) bottoms out in the first place. Mud not bedrock. Objects, not descriptions, but aleatory objects, at that.

And sentimentalizing that acknowledgment of the absurd with archetypal accessories ( bad acid jazz, gesticulating young males in a smoky room, a mime playing chess on a cutting board with no squares) - keeping at arm’s length the finite parallax view and the kitschy end-times ballads - does not expiate the barren foreign feeling. Rejoice in the click of the door that locks shut behind, without asking for something more. Puke your guts out and then go back to hot buffet sizzling under the sneeze guard. Eo nomine ludere, et lux in tenebris lucet. That sort of thing.