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DAY 23: TOTAL CONFIRMED DEATHS 69,479 WORLDWIDE

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.

Because of her clumsiness, she took this to heart. She thought about this every time she used the scissors or used a razor knife to open packages. Once she had tried to trap a feral cat and it bit her so hard the wound required surgery and stitches. Another time she mandolin-sliced the tip of her finger off. Another time she just took a step thinking she had just completed the last step in the series of stairs, but there was one more. Her ankle swelled to the size of a tennis ball and she went completely non-verbal from the black, sparkly pain. It was actually this last old injury that was most likely responsible for the current situation. Her husband had banned her from rescuing cats, using the mandolin slicer, and wearing shitty shoes, but still. What possible freak accident was waiting to happen in her small home, the home she was now trapped in? It seemed that potential threats loomed everywhere.

Hospitals were setting up make-shift pop-up mini hospitals to deal with the surge of patients. What would it be like to die in one? Alone. The counts were rising. Almost ten thousand people had died in her country. Would the cemeteries be overrun too? Would ovens be created for mass cremations?

She shuddered. And hid the knives and scissors from herself.

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