Each day is a copy of the last. Make coffee. Make phone calls to make sure nobody has a fever. Watch the governor’s briefing about personal protective equipment and ventilators. The numbers are scary. Refresh the news. The numbers are scarier. Spikes and hot spots. Today America became number one: more infections than China even though we have a third of the population. Our political dysfunction has degraded into negligent homicide.
People stand in the street, just staring at the sky.
A woman in Pennsylvania walked into a grocery store and intentionally coughed on the produce, meat, and bakery items. The store had to throw away $35,000 worth of food and she was referred for a psychiatric evaluation. Meanwhile, a man in Missouri filmed himself licking the merchandise at a Walmart while asking, “Who’s afraid of the coronavirus?” He was arrested and charged with making a second-degree terrorist threat.
We stand in the street because there’s no place for many of us to go. We go outside simply to go outside. The optics feel wrong, more like a simulation than reality; it’s eerie to see New Yorkers so evenly spaced apart.
A neighbor asks if I can take a letter to the post office because she can’t leave her apartment. I am profoundly nonessential in this crisis but at least I can do this. And I’m grateful for the clarity of walking from Point A to Point B.
