This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited.
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When the first lockdown hit, we were scared but not careful.
When the second lockdown hit, we were careful but not scared.
When the third lockdown hit, we were neither.
After months of avoiding stores, of having Friday date nights delivered and becoming chummy with the Amazon driver, I finally went out to get Thanksgiving dinner ingredients on Sunday.
The store isn’t a chain. It’s a one-off. Half the floor is dedicated to fruits and vegetables. The signs not only tell you what you’re buying but where it comes from. The selection is fabulous. The prices are good.
I barely thought about how crowded it was inside. Outside, there was a sign insisting the store recycled its air every few minutes. Everyone seemed to be wearing a mask. But I wasn’t everywhere at once.
When I went to pay, I found the strangest thing. There was a line to reach the checkouts. It seemed all my neighbors felt like I did, they were desperate to get out, to do something that was normal. I got behind a cart, opened my phone, and waited. I figured, the line must be because they’re limiting traffic inside the checkouts, which is in a separate room, with a low ceiling.
Nope. I finally entered the checkout room and was shown to a line. I thought there are only two other people here. That’s good.
Not good. The first person in line seemed to want to make every few items a separate transaction. Probably buying for several families. The second person in line, well it was a couple, they had a full cart. They argued about whether to buy the red potatoes, and the value of the collard greens.
I was third, and there were people all around me, looking for other checkouts. I put my head down, opened my phone, and cleared my junk mail. Piece by piece. Hundreds of pieces.
When I reached the front of the line (at last) the checker didn’t make eye contact with me. She just kept her head down as I had been doing. Her hands shook. Then, my cash card didn’t want to work. I had to run it through several times. That was frightening, too, because I didn’t have cash. I hadn’t needed cash in months. Most stores no longer take it.
It wasn’t until I got outside that I started shaking. I realized that I had been among hundreds of people crowded together like cattle, in a low-ceilinged space with (probably) minimal ventilation. If just one of those people had COVID and didn’t know it, uh oh. Many of my fellow shoppers were low income, or immigrants. Very unlikely to have been tested. That guy buying for multiple families, either they were poor, or he was, or both. How likely was it he’d been tested lately? How about them?
First world problems, I told myself. You’re living the high life. You work at home. You have money for food. Most people aren’t like you. Don’t think about it. Have a care for your neighbors.
I admit, I’m a hypochondriac. COVID has made it worse.
I woke up the next morning with a cough, a scratchy throat. My head felt hot, my body ached. No, idiot, a friend assured me online. Even if you were infected yesterday you won’t have symptoms today.
Wait a few days, at least. Wait until Thanksgiving.
That’s what I did. I waited until Thanksgiving. I didn’t rush out to get tested. I stayed away from everyone but my family. I cooked the dinner and waited until Thanksgiving. My wife kissed me while I waited for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving arrived much as the previous days had arrived. With a cough, and a scratchy throat. My head felt hot and my body ached. Was this more or less than what I’d had before? I tried to measure it, but my mind didn’t feel like getting its act together.
The chills grew worse. I put on a sweater. I smiled through dinner. There was no need to worry the wife.
The cough grew worse when we went to bed. It wasn’t the wet cough I’d experienced several times before during the year. This was dry, and it was persistent. Finally, unable to sleep, my wife checked my temperature.
100.
I usually run well below normal, often around 97.4. This was worrisome.
As the night went on, I grew worse. I finally left the bed and went to my favorite chair. I curled up in blankets and finally got some sleep. Fitful sleep, with twisted dreams. Next morning, I looked at the world through bleary eyes. Coughing. Hacking. Feverish. Chilled. I started eating Tylenol, drinking cough syrup. Nothing helped.
Now my wife was getting worried. But how do you get a COVID test on Black Friday? My wife made some phone calls. There was a CVS a few miles away, near a hospital. They did tests 24 hours a day. She bundled me into street clothes, more bundled than normal. She got in the car and drove.
We waited. It seemed like hours, but my brain was getting fogged. It may have been only a half-hour. We didn’t get the PCR test, only the simpler, cheaper one with a swab, the one that gives fast results that may not be true. We decided to wait in the parking lot until the results came in.
The results were not good.
We went back in, and I took the PCR test. The adventure had cost several hundred dollars, even with insurance. I was advised to quarantine and wait. The results would take a few days to get to me.
That’s what I did.
Meanwhile my symptoms grew worse. I was wheezing, short of breath. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I was barely eating the clear soup my wife brought me. I tried to watch TV but couldn’t follow my usual shows. I watched the news instead and cursed the President. I was a very impatient patient.
A few mornings after this, my wife pulled out her phone and spoke quietly. She bundled me up. She drove me to the hospital.
I got the last bed.
Now I’m on a ventilator. Probably the last one of those, too.
I’m upside down. I can’t think, can’t breathe.
I’m writing this in my head because it’s the only place in the world that’s still real. My head is real. Everything else is my imagination. My fevered imagination.
A nurse just gave me a sedative.
Will I get to the other side of this? Or is this the other side?
I don’t know.
I don’t.
I…
