A certain kind of insanity darkly blossoms in the U.S. at the sputtering close of Covid.

Madness, fed on two years of frustration, erupts through young men who slaughter unsuspecting adults and children.

Bullet-proof backpacks sell quickly in the “Back to School” shelves while parents shudder.

Weekly shoppers look twice for escape routes as they pass through sleepy grocery store aisles.

What secret hate metastasizes the weakened brains of youth? Is an insidious misfire responsible for the release of this new design to destroy? A moment’s notoriety?

And as the pandemic shrinks like a hurricane hitting landfall, will the vicious derangement also come to a close? Will the hate dissolve back into rare atrocities or has a newly discovered cancer taken root? Yet, “The wound remains.” (Rose Kennedy) And “only time will tell.” (anon)