For weeks we’ve struggled to find an image to properly visualize the grim, absurdist horror that is this year’s coronavirus pandemic. Could it be photos of store shelves bereft of toilet paper? Horny (and now, apparently regretful) teens determined to still rage through their spring breaks? Rat turf wars?
No. As of this morning, it is now clear that these were all pretenders to the throne. Internet, meet Toothy Thomas, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Early reports indicate he is a Yorkshire terrier living in Michigan who discovered his owner’s recently purchased joke teeth. We at The A.V. Club know better, however. Toothy Thomas is the avatar of our times—the specter of our collective looming mortality, grinning at us from the doggie bed in the corner of our living room. A living mockery of our domestic carceral state, made manifest in a little cuddly fuzz-ball with a full set of chompers.
