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DAY 11: TOTAL CONFIRMED DEATHS 18,883 WORLDWIDE


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 were positioned on the sidewalk to the right of Target, directly outside the doors to the main part of the mall.

She grabbed her reusable bags and dared to enter.

Darkness. It wasn’t her sunglasses- it was actually dim. It looked like the store was operating on 60 percent capacity, as if directly after a tornado or some other devastating natural event. The opening from the store into the mall was barred with what looked like a sheet of corrugated metal, normally rolled up to allow entry.

She grabbed a cart. Normally, she would have strolled through the dollar bin- her favorite place in the store for cute pencils and decorations for her classroom. She didn’t even slow down. All of that was non-essential. Not essential for life. Unnecessary, not needed now. Her classroom was probably already heavier from the layer of dust accumulated in the past two weeks.

She rolled toward the paper products. Empty. Nothing. Just shelves yawning in front of her like a patient saying AWWWWWW to a doctor who never finishes the inspection. Stuck open.

She turned a corner and saw a woman with some toilet paper.

     “Oh wow you found some!” she blurted out like an idiot.

     “Yes! Down around the corner!” the woman responded.

They were only one foot away from each other, but their combined excitement had overridden the six-foot mandatory state order.

There it was. On the end of a long aisle, a few packages of toilet paper and wet wipes.

She grabbed a pack.

The sign said, “Limit one package per customer.”

It was only six roles, but it was something.

She continued her mission, filling her cart with cat food, cat treats, alcohol, grapes, and bananas: the essentials. They were out of most meats, soups, baking goods, and of course, paper towels.

How long was this hoarding going to last?

She slathered hand sanitizer before getting into her vehicle; she didn’t want to infect her baby.

When she got home her husband sprayed her down with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol.

This was the new normal.

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