Cyclical Mysteries: Watching Netflix’s Dark

In early March, my husband and I sat in our car in the parking lot of a Ralph’s. He had just lost his job. We had 60 days to get out of the country if he did not find another. Covid-19 was all around us. We sat, slightly stunned, watching people go into the grocery store. An elderly woman got out of her car, hovered, then gathered her courage like she was gathering stones by a river, shiny and smooth, grey, black, and turquoise. They glimmered in her hands. I imagined her as a bright, endangered bird in the wild of soup cans and instant noodles. The image stayed with me for days.

Around that time, I started watching Dark, the science fiction drama created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese for Netflix. As news about the virus started crawling across my world, I curled into the chaise in the evenings, trying to escape. As our new and jagged reality unfolded, I turned to the show’s uncertainties and found in them a strange comfort.

Originally published at https://www.tor.com.