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DAY 27: TOTAL CONFIRMED DEATHS 102,753 WORLDWIDE


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 fresh food. There didn’t seem to be a run on fresh food, which was curious. Plenty of salads, greens, strawberries, oranges, and grapes were available. It was the non-perishables that were gutted.

No soup.

Not one can!

Just boxes of broth, broth, and more broth. Broth from all kinds of animals and all kinds of bones.

And no flour. Only a few bags of sugar. What were people doing? Were they rage baking? Were they afraid the bread would disappear so they started baking their own? Were they holding bake-offs between family members?

She got in trouble for bringing her own bags.

Apparently that was a big no-no now. She sighed as she thought about all the months and months it took her to get used to bringing her own stupid bags to the store. It was all the rage in her state-save the planet they said. You’re a monster if you use plastic bags, they said. And when she forgot her bags, she had felt a shame and a guilt that made her just put the items, naked, into the cart so that she could bag them when she opened her trunk. Now it was like none of that mattered. Instead of punishing the customer by charging ten cents per bag if one did not provide one’s own, along with a gentle yet reproachful side-eye from the clerk, now the stores were giving them out like candy.

“Oh you don’t need those, we will give you bags,” the checkout worker told her.

What the fuck? What about the planet? She already had about ten thousand reusable bags in her house. She didn’t need any fucking more. So she left with her bags that she had brought, wet from the rain, and three new plastic fucking bags.

There was a blue glove, crumpled and drowned in a puddle by her car. She had heard about the increase in PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) being just tossed in the streets, adding to the polluted planet. No one cared anymore. It was all for one. Each man and woman for his or herself! Planet be damned. No one had time for any of THAT nonsense anymore.

She took off her purple gloves and balled them into a little wad, and stuck them behind her seat. She was still human, she wasn’t a complete monster yet. She would be responsible for her own waste. She would not de-evolve. At least, not yet.

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