I BLAME THE QUARANTINE
I blame the quarantine: that my daily commute takes 30 minutes instead of 90. That I drive 80mph instead of 0-10, and that it gives me a horrible sinking feeling instead of joy. I wonder where all the people I’d normally curse at have gone, and if they’re ok, and if they can pay for their homes and food. Chicago’s suddenly quiet. Vacant.
I’m an ‘essential’ employee, and I’m grateful to be one of the few allowed to keep earning a paycheck, because the financial loss would be crippling. I was swept into the 2008 housing crash when- as a newly single parent- I was forced to foreclose. For my soul and self-worth, I cannot lose my recently purchased home. Not again.
I go to work but my gratitude has ended. I’m panicked, and nervous, and tense. There’s a cloud of impending doom that darkens and lowers from its looming perch every day. Co-workers look at each other as though they could be spies for this new plague, ready to drop an invisible bug within our confining concrete walls. We don’t joke like we use to. We can’t eat together. All these sprays and disinfectants we breathe in are going to give us cancer.
There’s signs barring more than two people in a room, and shouts of ‘six feet apart!’ whenever someone’s spotted too close together. Social distancing felt like an easy thing to us introverts, but now it’s impacting our morale, and I just want to sit up close and personal with someone. Anyone. My reprieve is sadly the romance I’m writing into my WIP.
I called in sick today, which would’ve been a minor thing ‘Before’, but nothing’s minor in this ‘After’, and I panicked. What if I’m the spy with the killer bug? I blame the quarantine.
**this was a 300 word writing prompt from an English Professor at Rhode Island College, who is collecting 'Windows' into people's experience. To read the article, follow this link.
I’m an ‘essential’ employee, and I’m grateful to be one of the few allowed to keep earning a paycheck, because the financial loss would be crippling. I was swept into the 2008 housing crash when- as a newly single parent- I was forced to foreclose. For my soul and self-worth, I cannot lose my recently purchased home. Not again.
I go to work but my gratitude has ended. I’m panicked, and nervous, and tense. There’s a cloud of impending doom that darkens and lowers from its looming perch every day. Co-workers look at each other as though they could be spies for this new plague, ready to drop an invisible bug within our confining concrete walls. We don’t joke like we use to. We can’t eat together. All these sprays and disinfectants we breathe in are going to give us cancer.
There’s signs barring more than two people in a room, and shouts of ‘six feet apart!’ whenever someone’s spotted too close together. Social distancing felt like an easy thing to us introverts, but now it’s impacting our morale, and I just want to sit up close and personal with someone. Anyone. My reprieve is sadly the romance I’m writing into my WIP.
I called in sick today, which would’ve been a minor thing ‘Before’, but nothing’s minor in this ‘After’, and I panicked. What if I’m the spy with the killer bug? I blame the quarantine.
**this was a 300 word writing prompt from an English Professor at Rhode Island College, who is collecting 'Windows' into people's experience. To read the article, follow this link.
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