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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For the first lockdown, Rip Hamilton masked up and went to Costco.
For the second lockdown, Rip Hamilton ordered in from Amazon.
When the third lockdown came, that fall, Rip Hamilton had had enough. He ordered non-perishable food online, with enough hand sanitizer and soap to get through a couple of years. He retreated to his basement, turned off the TV, and lost himself reading the classics.
Even before the pandemic, Rip didn’t fit in. People kept asking if his name had anything to do with the basketball player, whose given name was Richard, Rip would explain calmly that his folks were old Dutch, supposedly descended from Peter Stuyvesant himself. His name came from the Washington Irving character, Rip Van Winkle, who fell asleep a British subject and woke up 20 years later an American.
Rip didn’t intend to hide out for 20 years. He could maybe do five. By that time, he’d read all of Shakespeare, translated Chaucer, and was an expert on both Dostoevsky and the theories of Freud and Marx. This included Karl and Groucho, Anna as well as Sigmund. He was ready to throw his Kindle against the wall. He couldn’t take it anymore.
Rip emerged from his basement into a living room filled with cobwebs, to cracks in his wallboard and paint peeling on his house. He had plenty of money. He’d left his entire portfolio on tech stocks at Schwab, and just let it ride. He would never have to work again.
Rip masked up, put on a face shield, put some rubber gloves in his pockets, and walked out his door. Immediately he was hit by a blast of heat the likes of which he couldn’t remember, living outside Cleveland. But the biggest surprise came when he saw his neighbors. They were all unmasked. They were going to coffee shops, hugging each other, and their kids were playing ball in the street.
Is it Sunday, he asked himself? Is it summer?
No. He checked his Fitbit, which he had kept charged. It was still April. It was a Tuesday, in 2025. What are these people doing outside?
Rip found a coffee shop with a patio, and tentatively sat down. A teenage waiter wiped the table with a cloth and gave him a strange look. “Halloween coming early?” the boy asked. “Pumpkin lattes won’t be around for another 4 months. Can I get you anything?”
Rip was startled. The boy was just a foot from his face. Fortunately, his shield was up. “Black coffee,” he said through the mask. “What about the virus?”
“Which one?” the boy asked, placing a piece of paper on Rip’s table. The paper had a WiFi 6 code, and instructions for two-factor authentication on it. “I’m up on my shots – flu, distemper, COVID-23 and measles. Would you like a pastry with that coffee? We have a nice crumb coffee cake.”
“I’m sorry. I’m from out of town,” said Rip.
“Just flew in from Brazil?” asked the boy. “I know. It’s bad down there. Ms. Harris tried to help, but the military junta there refused. Just like the junta in Russia. It’s sad. The ’23 hit them hard. But at least the forest is growing again.”
Rip nodded and started to remove the shield. “If you haven’t got your shots, I wouldn’t recommend that yet,” said the waiter. “But the national health is doing them at the YMCA around the corner, free of charge. Just show them your health card.”
“Health card?”
“Or they’ll sign you up. You do have some ID with you?” Rip nodded. “Good.” The boy noticed Rip’s phone. “Want this on your Apple Card, or do you still carry plastic?” Rip handed him a credit card, and the boy ran it through a terminal on his hip while a young girl, wearing a green apron, placed the coffee and a croissant on the table and skittered away, frightened by Rip’s strange outfit.
At the YMCA, the front desk took Rip’s driver’s license, laid it against a reader, and pointed him down a hallway. In an office, a health care worker signed him up for national health, gave him his shots, and said he could remove the Halloween get-up. “My sister works at the Salon on Somerset, if you want to get that taken care of,” the woman said, pointing to his hair, which with the mask gone was flying several feet away in every direction.
In a daze, Rip nodded and took her advice. By the time he returned home at 5 he looked like everyone else in University Heights.
With some trepidation, Rip turned on his TV. There was nothing, just a black screen, no matter which channel he tried. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t know that cable had died in 2022, replaced with wider-band Internet services and streaming. He turned on his computer but had to wait a half-hour for updates to load.
Finally, he was able to reach Google News. Prime Minister Kamala Harris was meeting the Chinese President Hue on the provincial island of Taiwan, agreeing to a non-proliferation treaty that would take American ships entirely out of the Pacific, except in Hawaii itself. The leader of United Europe was preparing to consider the entrance of Great Britain as a protectorate, with full travel rights to come in five years. Amazon.Com was finishing its name change to AmazeBalls, and CEO Jeff Bezos was about to retire. Bill Gates was struggling to give away his own fortune and that of the late Warren Buffett, so was footing the global bill on the vaccine his foundation had just developed. Brazil was resisting.
Not all the news was good. Miami and New York had disappeared under the waves, the dam around the Statue of Liberty still holding for visitors. Houston, New Orleans, and much of Los Angeles was gone. Anchorage was the fastest-growing city in the country, the new Silicon Valley as companies sought something like winter or at least a cool January. The Arctic was expected to be ice free in May, but might partly freeze-up in December, as CO2 levels had finally slowed their rise.
Baseball was gone but the U.S. was looking forward to co-hosting the World Cup. Jason Isbell was going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rhode Island had finally approved the new U.S. Constitution, with its unicameral legislature. Harris could be removed by a no-confidence vote, and there was now talk of that, as Leader of the Opposition Ocasio-Cortez had gotten the support of Republican leader Doug Jones.
Today’s high in Cleveland would be 103, a cooling trend. There was the chance of rain in the forecast, possibly a tornado. The ads next to Rip’s stories were for Berkshire insurance, for DraftKings’ online sports betting and for Tesla Transport services.
Rip Hamilton heaved a sigh. He had survived. He had made it through.
He never saw the International Space Station as it fell on his house, leaving an immense crater folks would talk about for days.
