We are about to die. It is Christmas season and the lights are signaling the stark end of times.

The zombie virus is waking up, the permafrost sweating bullets shot from the pistols of cops.

Our neighbor China beckons its steal-all war, warping through the nation in sovereign shoals ajar.

Taylor Swift splits from six-summer lover Joe Alwyn, swears her oath to never walk Cornelia Street again.

So clearly, the world is about to end, is what I am trying to say. And yet, somehow, here we are, our

hands pressed together like puto bumbong in a crowd all-chorus to Christmas in Our Hearts.

Your name is winter fire to a December unseasonably warm.

Now I cannot decide what to be afraid of – is it the peril of another COVID coming back to choke us to death?

The threat of war under the hands of a pesky imperial neighbor?

Or the cost of rice costing far more than the price to love again?

These surely are trying, trifling, turmoil-inducing times; where Merry Christmas means I love you so much,

and Happy New Year means One day I want to get married and have five kids with you.

But what are we to fear when we have nothing to lose, besides maybe our cash?

It is blazing hot and the crowd is singing a haciendiero’s song and Taylor releases

You’re Losing Me and the world is literally falling apart. My angel, our hands are the only things cool in this heaving breath of apocalypse.

So by the way, in case I forget to tell you – merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Written by Jennell E. Lee Jr.

Art by Yuan Simbulan