This past calendar year, known by many of us as 2016, was nothing if not controversial. Populated as it was by unexpected outcomes, celebrity demises, and global tragedies, the year stands out as, at the very least, memorable. And at the very most? Well, it may be the first time I’ve heard a quartet of numbers get accused of killing people. Who knew those four digits carried around a sickle and political machinations in their back pockets?

Whether the loss of Prince and Princess (Leia) ruined your year or just amounted to a footnote in it, overall apathy about the past twelve months has been in short supply. For my part, I was talking on the phone to a friend in late December who, after we caught up past our social media newsfeeds, told me, “Well. You may be the only person who had a good twenty-sixteen.”

Yes…and no. Which is sort of the point of everything, right?

Read the rest over at Mockingbird!