Isolation Memories

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contagion, covid-19, creative writing meetup, disease, fears, infection, isolation, perspectives, self-isolation, virus

This was a collaborative project by the Creative Writing Meetup group that meets weekly in AltspaceVR. The prompt was to share personal reflections about the recent COVID-19 self-isolation decisions, with some participants not yet isolating, and others already into their second or third week.

Everywhere is dead.
Access is different now.
Access to food, people, work, family.
Too little, too distant, too hard, too much.
Big city is empty. Village is bigger and emptier.
Streets are empty.
I hear birds not traffic.
I wander, helpless.
I’m lost.

There is a shift from normal.
A new normal.
Watching this happen far from me
Drawing closer and closer
To work, to home, to life.
This is something that happens
To other people not me.
I didn’t believe.
I didn’t listen.
It is. Happening.
It is happening to me.

We are adapting, or are we?
Normality drifts away.
A new normality replaces it.
You barely notice the shift
As life changes around us.
Plans cancelled. Life on hold.
I didn’t prepare.
Shortages are my loss.
I order take out.
I call two hours later.
It was delivered an hour ago.
I tighten my belt.

We live together, yet apart.
One person living alone.
Nine people living alone.
Who is safe? Where is everyone?
Everyone is alone.
Everyone is together.
I feel alone.
I feel left out.
I feel forgotten.
Misplaced.

There is a deterioration of routine.
The schedule is falling apart.
Times, days, weeks fall off the calendar.
Scattered. Lost.
I’ve lost my purpose, my senses.
I have more time than
I remember ever having
Yet I don’t know what to do with myself.

My life is not mine any more.
My life is no more.
I don’t know who I am.
I am missing.
I am a robot.
I am blind.
No emotion.
I need guidance.
Everything I ever knew and was
Gone out the window.

My perspective has changed.
The virus is a mirror
I didn’t expect to look into.
It’s changed who I was.
It’s changed who I am.
I am becoming
Different
Yet the same
Facing my new reflection.

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His and Hers Isolation

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characters, covid-19, experiences, his and hers, perspectives, self-isolation, slice of life

His:

There was no one to talk to but her. The office at home used to feel huge, so he’d filled it with boxes of round-to-its and when-I-get-time-to-do-its, the clutter of a life lived outside of the home in an office kept pristine with plenty of chairs and tables for interaction, spreading out drawings, plans, spreadsheets. All those endless meetings he’d complained about that were the fuel that fired his imagination, his problem solving ability on overdrive. Without someone to bounce ideas off, to lean over their shoulder and point out an error or the right answer, it wasn’t the same. He was now trapped behind the desk, his face shoved into the computer monitor’s camera, trying to recreate the personal experience through online cameras, conference calls, and the phone. His biggest adventure was removing all the clutter on the wall behind him, and putting some of the boxes of whatevers and need-to-deal-withs on the floor out of view in the background of the web cam. Woop. Without the two hours of commute every day, he now had to fill those hours with something. What? How would he survive.

Hers:

Having spent the past 5 years immersed in virtual reality, the phone, email, and social media requests for her expertise were flooding the digital airwaves. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this busy. Endless meetings. six am to 8pm, non stop online meetings, Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and even in Engage, AltspaceVr, Second Life, the list of virtual spaces was long. She was jealous of all the people with extra time. She dreamed of taking a few minutes to read her book abandoned by the side of the bed, her knitting next to her chair in the living room where her cup of tea poured 3 weeks ago turning moldy on the surface of the butterscotch liquid surface.

Can We Go Outside?

Tags

characters, covid-19, isolation, perspectives, self-isolation

Light flooded the living room, a bright sunny day worthy of playing outside.

“Mama? Can we go outside?”

The answer was always the same. No. Not today. Not yesterday. Not the day before yesterday. Not tomorrow, though maybe in a few days.

Janice didn’t know what that meant. Days were wrapped with light mixed with dark, but she rarely saw the dark. She lived for the light. She lived to go out into the light, to feel the warmth on her skin, to breath in the leaves and trees, tilt her head in the direction of bird song and search through the branches for a glimpse of blue or red feathers.

She knew better to argue, so she turned around and looked for the cat. The cat always found the warmest spot in the 5th floor flat. If even a sliver of sun came through, the cat found it with her heat-seeking radar. Yes, there he was, a silver tabby, curled in a ball in the largest swath of sun. She laid down on the floor next to the cat, pulling him in close for a snug, then stared up into the ceiling.

Did mama ever have to spend weeks on end locked in the house waiting for illness to pass by their door? She’d asked and was told about war and hiding under desks to protect themselves from bombs falling out of the sky, but never hiding from something no one could see that was killing people.

What would she remember from this time when she was mama’s age, she wondered? What would she tell her child?

The first few days, she’d worried about invisible monsters breaking down the door and hurting the family. Now, she understood better and now worried about other things, school, friends, other family members, and her teachers. She didn’t worry much as they stayed connected all the time on the net, but she missed the hugs and arm punches, the teasing that she and her friends would do, but now they could only tease each other on the vid and not see or touch each other.

She understood. It’s just the way it was.