While public health officials and the vice president fear for the worst, I haven’t started wearing a face mask. If there’s anything that looks to me like something out of a sci-fi movie, it’s people going about their daily business with those things on. Can designer face masks be far behind, maybe just the sort of thing to stimulate consumer spending and get the economy going again?

In any event, Steve Carper has devised a particularly ironic solution to the problem in A Kiss is Just a Kiss, which is a sample of his tales collected in Tyrannosaur Faire. You can buy his book here as either a downloadable PDF or good-old fashioned print. The collection includes Steve’s “Pity the Poor Dybbuk,” which first appeared in Black Gate’s second issue, back in the Summer of 2001, when everyone was breathing easier.