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COVID Chronicles

Posted July 30th, 2020 at 12:51 PM by Sylvano the Wasabus
When this whole COVID pandemic started I was just like everybody else. Didn’t know much. Then the lockdowns started. Where I work most people were told to stay home and were laid off. I got the flu one day and it freaked everyone out. Then they shut down my work place completely.

I didn’t mind staying home. I decided to sell my house, so I began fixing it up and cleaning it out. In the beginning getting wood for repairs and new flooring and ceilings was a hassle- waiting in line to go in the store, socially distanced. Then the store was shut down. It was an inconvenience but I didn’t let it slow me down.

I still walked every morning, but now the streets of this city were deserted. On an hour long walk I might only see two people and a handful of cars. And I thought I finally have enough room. I’m not a real social person. I don’t like crowds or bars. I like privacy and space. And I finally had it. If someone was walking near me we’d both move further away. That agreed with me. I finally felt like I had enough room.

The pandemic, like a big dark cloud in the sky, slowly drifted closer and closer. At first it was just news. Then a friend of a friend was stricken. Then a guy I’d gone to high school with. Then the extended care home where my infirm parents live was gripped by an outbreak. Then a woman I know was hospitalized, on a ventilator, barely alive.

The close calls were next. I spent time with my daughter and her husband who was a nurse in the hospital COVID ward. He got sick. I had to isolate too, a possible case. He was tested and when the results finally came back he was clear, which meant I was too. Then another friend was hospitalized with a fever. I’d spent some time with him and went for a COVID test.

After five days, I found out I was negative. It became law to wear a mask in stores and public. Previously I had watched the people in masks, noted their frightened eyes. They seem terrified. I wasn’t terrified. I have no desire to die but I need to see the elephant charging before I’ll get scared of it. Now I too wear a mask, and enjoy it. I have always craved anonymity. I’ve fantasized about being a bandit. Or a ninja. People recoil from my intense eyes but now they can’t see my scowl.

Unfortunately I am completely deaf in one ear and kind of iffy in the other. I hadn’t realized how much I read lips. You can’t see lips anymore. In stores, the cashiers wear masks and stand behind plexi-glass shields. They make murmuring sounds which they believe is speaking. They might as well be talking elvish. How you forgotten how much I hate elves?

I have been called back to work where I mostly sanitize door knobs and talk on the phone. On the phone I say things like “we are closed” and “no idea when we’ll open again”. Then I spend the afternoon putting up “no pubic access” signs on all the doors. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of future in this.

I was in a room with two people. One was a nonbeliever. They think it’s all a hoax. The other person, a friend, lost their father to COVID a month ago. There was shouting. The nonbeliever had nothing to say. How do you argue with a person whose father just died from the disease?

Where I live has been hit hard. There are a lot of migrant farm workers, and they are heavily infected. There are also a lot of Mennonite communities. They’re fairly modern but they speak Low German and keep to themselves. They weren’t reporting their sick and dying and the disease has spread through them.

An acquaintance has finally been releases from hospital after 8 weeks on a ventilator. She’s lost about sixty pounds. She looks like the skeleton of a bird.

And in the news it keeps spreading and reappearing while fickle humans argue about it. Like lemmings, rushing here and there and possibly to their deaths.

I have enough room now. I’m ready for this to be over.
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TheAverageFan's Avatar
Things almost seem normal where I am. I'm fortunate to not know a single person who has it, yet things are hardly deserted around me. I currently work at a restaurant and customers continue to swarm the joint as if it were any other summer. Very few of them wear masks and a lot of them that do don't wear 'em correctly (if yer not gonna cover your nose you might as well not wear one at all).

My brother isn't quite a hoaxer but he goes on and on about all the redundant procedures and misinformation constantly being spread, and I'm certainly inclined to agree for the latter. By using all the power of the internet and instant global communication at our fingertips, we've managed to have no idea what's going on. Guess technology can't really save mankind from itself.

~TAF
Posted July 30th, 2020 at 08:34 PM by TheAverageFan TheAverageFan is offline
 
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