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 down, every little part of the map was freckled. If she zoomed out it was just amorphous blobs bleeding out everywhere, pooling in the major hot zones. If she kept zooming out the entire country was obscured with red. Disappeared.
Like normal.
Normal, was gone.
Nothing mattered anymore.
This was the only news story.
She shut off the map, closed her eyes, and dreamed in red.
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 down, every little part of the map was freckled. If she zoomed out it was just amorphous blobs bleeding out everywhere, pooling in the major hot zones. If she kept zooming out the entire country was obscured with red. Disappeared.
Like normal.
Normal, was gone.
Nothing mattered anymore.
This was the only news story.
She shut off the map, closed her eyes, and dreamed in red.
Comments
Post a Comment