Apocalypse: COVID 19, A Diary

She would have Her revenge. Though born in a purity of violent collisions, fire, and molten lava, She cooled to a majestic beauty and lived in peace for billions of years. But eventually, upright creations evolved on Her skin- at first a whisper of a tickle, hardly noticeable, a tiny itch in the night. But the creations became a virus, a cancer, splitting and mutating into different strains, coating Her skin from pole to pole. They brought fire, slaughter, and a scraping and re-sculpting of Her skin. It wasn’t too much at first to bother Her. She could take a change in Her look, and some of the virus wasn’t too damaging and even created things of beauty, adornments for Her exterior. It was when the virus began to bore into her pores, that She began to feel the extent of this violation. They cut, sliced, and injected metal rods into her delicate skin. They even created shocks that rattled Her dermis, creating shivers that even the virus felt and questioned. They dug into Her waters, th...

The country was burning. Though the days of quarantine repeated endlessly like the same diary entry written over and over on an ancient palimpsest, now there was a real change, and it came in flames. The stones that laid the foundation of the country rested atop the blood and bones of the peoples who previously lived on the land and on the backs of stolen peoples forced to build the structures of this new great nation. Each injustice: whether it was the lash, noose, infested blanket, bullet, blade, or humiliation that was taken out on these people was now being repaid, with interest. The catalyst was yet another black man killed in broad daylight, live on video- a blue knee pressed deeply into his neck for almost 10 full minutes. The peace-keeper acted calmly and nonchalantly, like he had done this a million times, but this time he lit the flame on a wick that was hundreds of years old, and soaked in an accelerant that was just waiting for the right match. On top of the generations of ...

She thought she had heard it all from the white, puckered lips of the Orange Leader. But this new utterance took the metaphorical cake, in one bite. He had suggested in the daily news briefing, that the virus could be killed in humans with disinfectant, or ultraviolet light injected into the body. He then tried to walk it back later by saying he was making a satirical remark. A joke. A funny. In a country where the death toll just surpassed fifty-thousand people. Hilarious. When he said those insane words, his aides furiously began texting each other, trying to figure out why he was saying this, and where he got the information from. There had been in a meeting in the Oval Office where people were discussing how the virus was indeed killed on surfaces with bleach, disinfectant, and ultraviolet light. And like a star “D” student with ADHD* this man with little attention to details and with no regard for factual information, twisted the few words from this briefing on how to kill the vir...

He was running, on dirt and rocks, sweating profusely, in bare feet. Even in the pre-pandemic era she would have thought this insane, but now? With all the risk? It could live on surfaces for days, in the air for hours, and this guy was just jaunting around in his bare skin? Just when she thought it couldn’t get any weirder. His body was slick, as if he was fresh off a water slide, and she accidentally got a whiff of him, some earthy scent of manly deodorant (probably encased in a black plastic container with bold and stark lettering) floated up into her nostrils. She tried to cough it out. Most people were now wearing masks or at least a piece of cloth over their nose and mouths, even when exercising. Not Sweaty Man. The only article of clothing on him was a pair of small running shorts. Maybe he was trying to capture the feeling of freedom, of control, of euphoria by prancing straight ahead, wind whipping through his thin shorts, sand and rocks squishing up between his toes, beads of...

She tried some banana bread rage-baking. She didn’t really have rage per se, but her bananas were blackened and she didn’t want them to go to waste. The previous rage-cleaning made it easier to cook, as she could actually see her counter-tops. She found she could move slowly. There was no rush now, no deadlines. Just this lingering time. Usually, she was a sloppy cook, but now she took the time to organize her ingredients and instruments before actually getting started. Who was she? She laughed. There was something magically about the smell of baking bread filling the house. Just just sat in the aroma. She wasn’t even hungry. Did they make candles with this scent? She wondered. As she sat there in her aromatic privilege, she thought about all the families that lost their income, who were on their last pennies, wondering what the next day would bring. There was news that small businesses hadn’t received the relief funds from the government, while big companies banked millions. Workers w...

Fresh, ripe strawberries forced her to break the law. She had been mostly strict about the rules, the social distancing, the activities that were no longer allowed. But her best friend made a sneak-trip up to their favorite place: the strawberry fields. It was a magical place where one could pick ripe strawberries off the vine, purchase vats of not only strawberries, but strawberry jams and jellies, even T-shirts and other products with the farm’s logo on it. When they first went, a week before the outbreak became a daily headline, they had taken a hay-ride and indulged on strawberry confections like fresh milkshakes and strawberry angel food cake that were sold out of a small camper off to the side of the little market. Her friend swore she could, “smell the strawberries in the air.” She didn’t smell anything but dirt, but didn’t deny her friend the moment. They came home with a ridiculous amount of huge ripe berries, more than any one human could consume. Her friend LOVED strawberrie...

She decided to dye her hair purple. Why not? She felt like getting messy. She hadn’t washed her hair and days so it was already damp with head grease. Why not throw in a little gooey dye? She had gloves, which previously were for things like dying one’s hair, but now those were a precious resource necessary for a simple trip to the store. She had to be frugal because it was now impossible to get one’s hands on any gloves, cleaner, and oddly, flour and sugar still. People were still rage baking. So she went for it, hands bare and naked. Her nails were already ruined with patches of silvery pink paint, and her cuticles were completely destroyed, torn, shredded from picking and housework. At first she used the appropriate black, stiff-bristled dying brush she purchased along with the dye. Neatly, she separated her hair into sections and smoothly brushed in the dye. But it was taking so long! She hadn’t realized her hair was also quite lengthy now as well. So many layers needed to be cover...

Keeping her eyes open on this endless, dull day was difficult. Sunday used to hold purpose: the finishing of weekend chores, the preparation for the week. Now, nothing mattered. She could do some laundry, if she felt like it. She didn’t feel like it. She could cook something more interesting than a can of soup, or a fried egg. She didn’t feel like doing that either. She felt gray. Blob-like. Flat. Someone had left the telescreen on and the Orange Leader was blabbing again. This angered her because she specifically instructed her husband to not turn on the telescreen for the daily press briefing-it was too insane, too depressing, and she didn’t want to give this man what he wanted: attention. He was waxing on about what a great job he’d done, and how “No one had ever seen anything like what he’d done to save so many lives.” He wanted praise, why couldn’t the reporters just “be nice?” Why couldn’t they thank him for all his hard work? Things were looking good! Parts of the country could ...

It had finally hit her: the rage cleaning. She stared at the looming cabinet that she knew was filled with expired, unused, and anonymous items. This ends today, motherfucker! Shelf by shelf she dumped, cleaned, and questioned what the hell some items were. Fish sauce? Vital wheat gluten? She had gone through many phases of diets and cooking, and it showed. The vegan phase: years old egg replacer mix. The sushi phase: various jars of oils and sauces. The paleo phase: coconut item after coconut item, after coconut item. Cans that were leaking, jars with a layer of solidified mush on the bottom- how did she let it get this way? This was just pure savagery, living this way. So uncivilized! It all went, and as she wiped down each empty shelf that glorious feeling of victory washed over her. Clean. Reborn. Sanitized. It was as if with each wipe of the shelf, her soul also got a mini-cleanse-a layer of film scrubbed away the weight and anxiety of living in such filth. She was able to move a...

The apocalypse had not slowed home improvements. In fact, this is what people must have been doing with their time, she realized, as she pulled into the home improvement store’s parking lot. It was packed. More than the big box stores, more than the super markets. There was a line of cars just to enter the parking lot, and each row was filled. Her overhead fan and light had broken over a week ago, and even though she loved the darkness and candlelight, she knew it needed to be replaced. The previous owners had spared the least amount of pennies on renovations, and this was one of the last items to go. They would make a run for it. She took her husband to ensure she had the right size, and this was his first trip to a store (besides the local convenience store) since the pandemic. They both were amazed at the amount of people that were shopping. Here they had been hiding, following orders, only leaving the house for necessities and bouts of fresh air- and these people were just meanderi...

Someone called anonymously to report a body being stored in a shed. That was how the story began. The nursing home facilities were taking a hard hit with the virus, and bodies were starting to pile up, literally. When the police arrived no body was found in the shed, but seventeen bodies had been piled up in the nursing home, the workers unable to keep up with the rate of death. The grim reaper had been working overtime. The home was located in Andover, New Jersey and could house 700 patients. These facilities were the hardest hit, the virus ripping through them like a death hurricane. Sixty-eight people including some nurses had died but there wasn’t enough time or physical tests to test everyone for the virus. This was one of the current problems. Because of the lack of testing, the real death count could be vastly higher than what was being reported by the authorities. And nursing homes in some states were just left out of the total body counts. They weren’t regulated, and some were...

A bright, canary-yellow flag with a coiled, fanged snake, ready to strike whipped in the wind as protesters gathered around the Michigan state capitol. It read, “Don’t tread on me!” The people were protesting the new stay-at-home orders from the governor. She had trampled their rights, and destroyed the entire constitution all in one blow. How dare she? A woman! A young woman! A smart woman. Who was she to tell strapping men, young and old, how to live THEIR life? Politics had entered the pandemic shitshow. It always had, as the Orange Leader already had given supplies to states and people he favored-but now the people were rising up. This governor had been a favorite target of the Orange Leader, as were all strong women who stood up to him, fearless, unfazed by his hollow threats and juvenile remarks. And now the people followed his lead, gathering on the steps of the capitol building. She had extended the rules to include no gathering besides family, no traveling to second homes, a l...

She sat in the sun until it burned her through her back hoodie; she didn’t care-she was just so happy to see that yellow, fusing ball of gas burning in the sky. Just to be able to sit outside felt like a small, sweet miracle. She felt better, and tried to focus on her good luck. She still had a job, a home, and didn’t have a tube shoved down her throat, unable to breathe. She felt so good in fact, she decided to call her mother, whom she hadn’t seen since the carrots-paper towel exchange, on the handheld portable internet machine. She didn’t know if her mother knew how to work this feature on her own device, so she thought she’d give it a try. “You scared me!” her mother gasped when the video screen opened. She could only see the top of her mother’s head, a lamp, and a wall in the distance. Finally, her mother’s face found the camera and she immediately yelped. “Is that what I looked like?! How do I turn this thing off?” Before she could protest this move, the screen morphed into a blu...

First day of virtual school. She was staring again, this time into the void of her screen, waiting for students to join. She knew they wouldn’t. If she were them, she wouldn’t. She kept her video telescreen chat open for the duration of an hour, then made breakfast. By second period three students appeared, in name only. She realized these kids would never turn their cameras on, so it would be just voices floating in and out of the meeting. She didn’t mind, her camera wasn’t on either. The adults all had their cameras on when they did a virtual meet. Waving, changing the background, being all-around dorks. But teenagers- self-conscious kids who spend hours putting on make-up? No way. Not without a filter (there actually was a filter but it wasn’t that good). She did her little spiel, and showed them her little virtual classroom, and explained what the next few weeks would look like. Someone shouted, “Yo! What’s your Discord?!” and then she was aware that while she was “teaching” these ...

Easter Sunday. The day of the resurrection, for believers. And for not believers, it was at least a day to celebrate spring, food, and family. She was still staring at the wall. The sky, a flat boring gray, didn’t help cheer her up. People with children were still posting cute photos of their children dressed up and with their overfilled Easter baskets. She was amazed at their ability to fake it. But she guessed they had to, for the children. The kids didn’t understand what was going on, and parents were trying to hold on to whatever threads of normalcy that they could. Some days she excelled at faking it, but she just didn’t have the energy today. She scrolled past endless coronavirus Easter memes, some lighthearted, some darker. She liked the one of Jesus, splayed on the cross. Someone had added an arrow from one impaled palm to the other indicating the length people should remain from one another. Ha. Poor Jesus, little did he know that thousands of years later his death image would...

She lay in bed staring at the window that was covered in kitty nose-smudges. The sun finally broke through the clouds and cheered up the sky, so she opened the blinds and cracked the window. But her motivation had disappeared. It had been almost a full month since the schools shut down, and since that happened she had been stuck in a manic mode of go-go-go to learn the new online system and to get curriculum up and online. She had spent days learning and creating, emailing and voice calling people. Now that manic fury had dwindled down to a slow pulse. Why get up? She had laundered so many items that now she might start washing curtains. And cleaning windows. But why? It really didn’t matter anymore. She slept most of the day. When she emerged from her sleep she stared into nothing for good chunks of time. She went outside and stared at some onion seeds that had sprouted into little grass-like figures. She realized she was actually watching plants grow. In real time. Who did that? Whe...

Tiny, sharp, bullets of rain pounded the tarp above her head. She had made a not-so-smart decision to “run to the store”, and woefully regretted that decision as she stood in the cold, trying to dodge the waterfalls that fell in thin sheets between the edges of the square tarp umbrellas that the store erected outside to protect customers from the pounding rain as they stood in line. She hadn’t anticipated the line at the grocery store, because she hadn’t seen one before at this store; this was new. She had her mask on again, now they weren’t letting people in without one, it was the new policy. So she didn’t feel as odd, this was now becoming just part of the routine. She wanted something green. Salad, fruit. She was sick of beans and eggs, which was quickly becoming her staple. She used to hate salad, but now it seems like such a fresh luxury, a delicacy really. She thought of all the people who risked their life to be outside, among others, probably not social distancing, to pick the...

During the Christmas season people would stake LED projector lights in their yard facing the front of their house. Green and red spots would dance across the face of the house making passersby merry and bright. Sometimes the specks would form images like reindeer with Santa in tow, or bouncing snowmen with their stick arms that would dance in the windows. She thought of these images as she stared into the map of the virus in her state. She looked at it every night, gazing into the blooming, bright red dots. The dots themselves like a rash, a skin outbreak infecting every square inch of epidermis. At first there were only a few dots. In Washington state, and New York. Then, slowly, over time major cities would get the feared dot. Then slowly, leaking out from the cities, like a small pinprick in a garden hose, the surrounding areas would get their dot, but smaller. And from there more surrounding small towns would get the mark. Until now, over 25 days since people started to hunker ...

It felt like her head was buried deep in a polyester pillow that had been sliced open, synthetic guts bursting out, suffocating her. Her breath just stayed there, suspended inside the N95, heating up her lips and the tip of her nose. Sweat formed, but she couldn’t wipe it away, or take tissue to it. And the more her blood pumped, even if just by a degree, the more hot and uncomfortable it got. She tried to move slowly. She looked like an idiot. But this was the new normal. It was her now biweekly trip to her favorite Target store, and things were definitely getting weirder. Everyone was now wearing masks. Some had homemade cloth masks, others had thin cotton masks; she was lucky enough to have one of the coveted N95 masks. This was the one that was impossible to find, for the public and especially for health care providers. Civilians were told not to purchase these, in order to ensure those on the front lines could get what little supply was left. Lucky for her, she had two cats that ...

Hard droplets pelted the roof through the roof and she inhaled the sweet petrichor that she loved. It smelled wet, earthy, and she absolutely loved this scent. This was partly because growing up in a desert, rain was a rarity, special, memorable. Who didn’t like cuddling under blankets with a floofy beast, a cup of tea or coffee, and a good book? There was no rainy traffic to contend with, no shivering toes in her boots. Just silence and the pitter-patter-pat-pitter of the droplets falling on the roof. How could she ever go back to the grind? The endless and monotonous rush of getting dressed, sitting in her car for an hour, being late, and being tired. That monotony seemed far worse to her now than the days of home incarceration, thanks to the virus. She was on her own damn schedule now. She could eat breakfast slowly and when she wanted- even if that was at the one o’clock hour. Maybe she wanted dinner at eight. And the best part, the absolute crème de la crème of this entire new...

Sitting bra-less on her dirty kitchen floor, she stared into her oven. Before this reality of being trapped like a rat inside a trap- not to become poisoned but to hide from it- she had replaced all her old appliances. Refrigerator, microwave (she actually didn’t even have one before), dishwasher, and a sparkly new oven had all been installed less than two months before the shelter-in-place orders. She had never been so happy about such a decision because though she was a trapped rat, she was a trapped rat with top-of-the-line appliances to cook and heat her food. The oven was a convection oven, and she didn’t really know what that meant. Her husband tried to explain to her that she of course needed this feature, and it had to do with cooking the food more evenly and possibly faster. But she was scared to press the button for “convection.” Wasn’t that a zone inside the sun? How hot would it get? Would her food explode? Turn into a soupy mush? She had time to find out. She cut ...

Orange creamsicle fluff obscured her vision when she opened her eyes; her twenty-two pound cat had stolen her pillow in the night. Of course it was the one good pillow, the one that was a splurge- memory foam and shaped for the neck. He wasn’t even resting his neck on it; his loaf of a body perched there, his large white mitts folded under his folds. He smelled like maple syrup. She loved him, so moving him was out of the question. Her neck ached. Her foot throbbed as she stepped out of the bed and she realized she must have injured it on her walk the previous day. It wasn’t sprained or swollen, but her arch pulsed and she could feel every pump of blood pulsating through it. Shit. Now she was really housebound, at least for the moment. People needed to be careful now to make sure they didn’t get injured- the hospitals were overrun and going there meant a high risk of infection. If your pet needed the vet, even then you had to wait in your car while your pet had their exam. ...

Her hair reeked of sweat and old bubble bath soap. When was the last time she washed it? She truly didn’t know. Tonight would be a big night then, whatever day it was. It was Saturday, which wasn’t even slightly exciting anymore. She wondered what the young people were doing to pass the time. She recalled all the energy she used to have and how “partying” used to soothe that agonizing urge to just get all that youthful angst out. She needed it, she craved it and her and her friends always had a good time. It was normal for old people (she now considered herself officially ancient and not all all cool) like herself to just relax and recharge from a week of working on the weekend, but what were those college kids and young twenty-somethings passing the time? In Florida they still didn’t have a state-wide order to stay home. Spring break had come and gone, and there were thousands of spring-breakers who hit the beach, and the bottle. There were some stories going around that now large swa...

Instead of days slowly melting like molasses from a fierce summer sun, the days were now spinning. A mandate had been set forth by her school district stating that school would resume in a month. The party was over. This intense scramble to shift from brick-and-mortar pedagogy to online and virtual methods filled her days with work: video calls, online lesson crafting, and even real phone calls. She had been completely focused on herself. But she had a thought while video-chatting with her best friend, who was also mother to a three-year-old son. What about the kids? In twenty years, what would they be like? Would this young generation be full of obsessive compulsive clean freaks who would bring back face masks just like they were now bringing back ripped jeans, mullets, and nerdy visors from the eighties? Would it be a cool “flashback to 2020” trend? Or would there be an explosion of health care workers, adults who as children suffered through the worst pandemic of the century while h...

There was still no national stay-at-home order. The states were left to fend for themselves, as the Orange Leader tweeted that the federal government was just, “backup.” She tuned in to the slim, no-nonsense newscaster who apparently was so fed up that she simply had no more fucks to give. She looked straight in the camera and said, “This is insane.” And then she proceeded to state in all the ways in which the situation was indeed, nuts. There were still states that had over a thousand cases of infected citizens, but the governors didn’t want to give a state-wide order to stay home. They didn’t want to interrupt the church goers who praised their god, or the capitalists who worshiped the almighty dollar. But people were dying in their own state, the hospitals were overrun- what would dollars be worth if everyone was dead? There was no business in hawking wares to corpses. These governors were the sycophants of the Orange Leader. They worshiped him and did what he said, regardless o...

She stared into her eyeball. It was wet, like most eyeballs, but unlike most eyeballs, hers was shaded brown around the pupil, and the green ringed the brown. This was not hazel. There was no mixing, but two separate colors that encircled and merged delicately together. If one stared long enough, at eyeballs or any other patterns in nature, one would find that these patterns repeated. At the atomic level one could see the same shape as a spiral or elliptical galaxy- a super-massive black hole around which solar systems, other galaxies rotated- just as electrons did a dance around a nucleus. In this same fashion the eye resembled the sun during an eclipse- A dark center with flames dancing outward. And these flames that encircled the sun, made up the sun’s outermost layer called the corona . Originally in Latin the word corona meant “crown” or “wreath.” That sounded positive. To be crowned meant you were on the top of the social hierarchical pyramid; god spoke through crowned kings and ...

She could vaguely make out her reflection in the thick plexiglass barriers. This was the new normal now, stores attempting to protect cashiers from the possibly-infected patrons. First she saw it at her local bulk warehouse membership store. She had tried to avoid this place for two weeks, but it was time. Parking was plentiful, so there at least was that- until she saw the line. Like a disjointed snake it ran around the building after the switchbacks near the front. People were calm, many in masks and gloves. She had neither and felt naked. There was a designated cart wiper-downer person who handed her the extra large cart, typical of these warehouse stores. She always felt a bit ridiculous shopping there, being that there were only two people in her home-a package of toilet paper lasted them months. The line would ripple forward then stop. They were only letting in a certain amount of people at a time. Empty pallets had been placed strategically to form the maze of switchbacks fun...

She was getting better at holding her breath. As people passed her, she sucked in air, held it, counted to 10, then released. Discouraged, she scrunched her eyes, nose, and lips together: she could still smell some people. A runner passed her on the walking path, shirtless, dripping with sweat, in the middle of an ethereal cloud of his own deodorant. She had held her breath for the recommended 10 seconds, and he was far past her when she finally inhaled, but there it was. A pretty yet manly combination of synthetic scents meant to mask his pungent body odor. Which would be worse? His actual odor, or this mix of sweat and menthol, with a hint of expired Brut cologne? She could see people gathered at the basketball courts and at the outdoor workout area again. They were definitely not keeping with the six-feet requirement of social distancing. A new story appeared that detailed a church choir that, in their devotion to their faith, had defied the social distancing rules and came together...

It felt good to clean. It was Sunday, and though the titles of the days of the week were now meaningless, she decided to stick to an imaginary schedule in order to keep grounded to reality. It was a thin string, like that of an orb spider, a silky thin but strong anchoring “bridge line”- her only connection to what used to be called “life.” So she would pretend that this Sunday, like every Sunday, contained the last remaining moments of the weekend, so she would clean. Prepare the house for the week. Wash her clothes. Make her bed. The latter was proving difficult. Each day she thought about making her bed. There had been articles written on how making one’s bed was the key to having a successful and focused day, but she just had never been a bed maker. She loved naps. And her cats were always snuggled up and nested in the bed anyway. Who would know? It’s not like she had people over regularly. And now… well… no one would see the inside of her abode, maybe for months to come. Still, s...

She was losing track of time again. The days of quarantine folded in on themselves like paper origami fortune tellers- the ones tweens played at slumber parties. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: QUARANTINE. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: VIRUS. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: SCHOOL IS STILL OUT. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: STAY 6 FEET AWAY. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: EMPTY SHELVES. Pick a number, pick a color, pick a number, pick a color: FLATTEN THE CURVE. Every day was the same. Blurred; smeared; a mirage. She watched some videos on her internet machine. In one a doctor explained how to clean groceries. She had been doing it all wrong. Don’t use reusable bags- they can carry the virus for up to three days. Soak all fruit in a soapy bath, then scrub each piece for twenty minutes. Wipe down all thick boxes, or take out the inner bag and tos...

The curve wasn’t flattening. Everyone knew what this meant, as experts from the beginning encouraged people to shelter in place and to self-quarantine if exposed to a contagious person. The idea was that the less people moved around and interacted with one another, the less the virus could spread. And this virus loved, more than anything else, to spread. It shed gobs of contagious material for days before a person had a hint that he was infected. One attorney from upstate New York went into New York City and gave it to at least 100 people before he knew his fate. Now New York had over 450 deaths and over 26,000 confirmed cases. The curve was still on its upward odyssey, and she imagined it was snickering and thoroughly enjoying every moment of its escapade. There was no national order to shelter in place, so the states were in charge of their own curve. Some states are going to burn, she thought. There were governors who just didn’t want to “look” like China, or California- those plac...

Her country was now number one. The overconfident residents always thought of themselves as the best, as better than people in other countries, as the most civilized and forward thinking: the smartest. In the past this may have been true to a certain extent, but in the past few decades other countries had surpassed her own in certain areas. But now the country was back on top. Except this time it had earned a new inglorious title: country with the most confirmed cases of the virus- 85,991. This was even more than the country in which the disease originated, and in which there were over a billion residents. Her country was home to only 350 million. The spread was nowhere close to being contained. She saw a photo on the internet machine of health care workers in their scrubs, but they had added a new layer- these workers, who were out their on the front line, risking life and limb for the sick- were wearing some kind of bastardized personal protective gear in the form of black crinkly tr...

The “Ice Palace” or “Palacio de Hielo,” a lively and merry place for local ice skaters, now housed the mounting bodies that had succumbed to the virus. Spain was in the thick of it. The small country already surpassed China in number of deaths from the disease: 3,647. Only its nearby neighbor, Italy, had more deaths. The Spanish morgues were overrun- they didn’t have the capacity to hold all of the dead bodies, and there was no place for them to go. She imagined what that must be like. Did they even have enough coffins? Were they even using boxes of some sort? Or where the bodies just stacked up in body bags? Many of these people probably died alone and in isolation. They say it feels like drowning outside of water. Gasping for whatever air the lungs could strain to breathe in, while the chest burned. A simple speck of dust could spark an extremely painful cough. Health officials described what happens in the lungs, as a result of the extreme pneumonia, being like “ground glass.” Tha...

Her husband had been secretly feeding the feral cats “cakes”- a whole can of wet food, sprinkled with Temptations. She needed more cat food. It felt good to drive. She pressed the gas on her way there and felt the acceleration purr up from her toes to her heart; she missed driving. She drove into the parking lot of her favorite store called Target, which was attached to a mall. This was the same mall she used to go to when she was a teenager to hang out with friends and eat piles of french fries in greasy-slick paper boats. It was funny that she still shopped at the same place. But the Target, this “Run and Done” store, so the slogan said, was her favorite store because one could find everything from gardening supplies, to fresh groceries, to lip balm. The parking lot stood empty with only a few cars sprinkled in the spaces. The cops were there. What were they doing there? The mall was closed. Wood barriers stood upright, blocking the entrance to the rest of the mall, and two cop cars ...

She discovered a shopping cart graveyard. She had been on her now illegal bike ride- the mayor shut down all trails and parks in response to the people not being able to socially distance appropriately- meaning kids were still partying and playing team sports on the beach- so the entire city was punished. But her trail had escaped the eyes of local law enforcement- at least for the moment. Less people were riding their bikes or walking, and some were starting to don masks. The path followed the Sweetwater River down to the bay- a river filled with ducks, doves, fish, squirrels, snakes, and a population of the homeless who had made camp on the banks for years. Graffiti covered the freeway underpasses; she made sure to ride quickly through those spots. The graveyard appeared on the left: twisted metal and plastic, red and gray, reaching up through the flowing water towards the sky. Some were on their sides, some prone, some were supine, like helpless spindly animals taking their last bre...

Bubbles from her bath popped softly in her ears, like melting Rice Krispies in warm milk. The day had been uneventful, the same virus continued to spread, and the quarantine remained in place. Early in the day the Orange Leader had been on the telescreen in what turned out to be a freak hour-and-a-half press conference where he rambled on and on about how no one had complimented him on all the work he has been doing to fight the virus even though three weeks ago he said it was a hoax and how he was so rich and how he wasn’t as rich anymore since he had become the Leader and he should again be thanked for not being so rich in order to serve the country. A reporter informed him that one of his archenemies had been infected and he responded with an irony “Oh really? That’s too bad.” His excitement, like that of a demon spawn who had finally cornered his prey, was palpable. He tried to play it off, but it was too late. The Great Leader had in front of a televised audience of millions, had ...

“Weekends” were now just, “days.” She didn’t bother emerging from her bed until after what would normally be lunchtime, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like she had anything planned for Saturday. Or Sunday. The urgency of time had ceased to exist. There wasn’t even the Leader’s press conference to cringe at, or evening news to tune in to. Time. Some scientists theorized that time simply IS. It’s only humans that perceive time as a linear phenomenon with a yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They say that if you fall into a black hole, past the event horizon, you would be stretched out into an infinite wet noodle, and as you gazed out into space you would see all of time at once, there was no beginning, middle, or end. She always thought that would be an excellent way to die. But today she realized that the days were becoming especially noodly, stretched out. Is this what retirement will feel like? *** On her daily walk she found herself talking to the trees in her head. She w...

Her state was officially now on lock-down. Early in the previous evening the state leader interrupted all telescreens for the announcement. There were 40 million Californians, and 56% of them could become infected in the next eight weeks. That meant 25.5 million people. Only “essential” businesses could remain open. Shit was getting real. *** Sometimes when a person walks closely to another, you can breathe them in. You don’t do it on purpose, but you inhale and discover an unfamiliar scent or taste, and you realize that you have sucked another person’s exhale into your own lungs. You feel strange having digested molecular parts of someone else, but there is nothing that can be done, you can’t cough it up or vomit it out with a finger. She had gone out for a walk- still allowed though everyone had to practice social distancing as they did it. Six feet. That’s how far one had to keep away from every other person. The trail she used had a wide berth for most of the path, but there were ...

Her eyes flicked open from the nightmare. One look at her internetwatch and she realized she had only exchanged one hell for another. In her dream she had been in a hospital, her gown covered in blood. But the doctor was a villain. She had done something to him, crossed him in some way, and he was enjoying his revenge. He threw her on the ice cold floor, and injected her with something that made her entire body useless- all except her mind. She screamed an invisible scream over and over, and over. He laughed and walked away, locking the door behind him. There were other patients in gore-soaked gowns, and their faces were nothing but a wrap of skin with only dark smears where facial features had been. All were frozen in various states of movement. Some on stretchers, some half sitting-up. One slumped against a wall. It smelled of disinfectant. While wiping off the sweat from her clothes (the same ones from the previous day of course) she began seriously contemplating reduci...

She awoke to her phone ringing. Her mother was calling from WalMart. Did she want her to pick up some eggs? YES! Sweet Jesus I have been saved! Wait what the hell is mom doing out AGAIN? There was no stopping this woman, and she knew it. 15 minutes later, she was cooking breakfast with real eggs after yelling from her doorway, “Go home mom! Sanitize! Stop going outside, it’s a pandemic!” She knew her words fell on deaf and dogged ears. *** Walking into the bedroom she heard the familiar pitter-patter-pitter-patter of floofy feet on the hardwood- it was her most fluffy, black and white cat who used every opportunity to beg for food. She leaped up onto the dresser then up into the closet where all the cat furniture was housed. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew? Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew? Whenever she feigned starvation she used her tiniest of mews. She tried with all her might to morph back into the tiny kitten she once was, in order to maximize cuteness, and in ...