So hey, thanks for diverting that hypothetical asteroid, 2024, and I hope 2025 can get its heels dug in and do its best.

I like to think that, anyhow. Since the universe probably doesn’t much care how I picture it, I’d rather have a valiant year doing its best than to spend twelve months muttering that this is the worst year ever. Better for my mental health, anyway.

So for all of last year’s calamities (and there were many) perhaps there would have been far more if 2024 wasn’t flinging itself between us and sundry misfortunes. Maybe it was so busy deflecting a dinosaur killer asteroid or stomping down a resurgence of Justinian’s Plague that the rest got through

Every now and then, as a writer, you come up with an idea better than you deserve, and for me, I always come back to a stray bit of wirldbuilding— idea of fiercely benevolent year-gods that go out to fight off the calamities that would otherwise befall us.