I am at home dreading everything. Since compulsive hand-washing began, whenever that was,.
mMy hands feel strangedifferent, slightly, and, so, which is to say, e. Everything feels different, slightly.
TheA book in my hands, feeling slightly different, is James HoggSue PrideauxKazuo IshiguroCarmen Maria Machado.: a story collection,.
that continually changesI’m re-reading it: a masterpiecea biography of Friedrich Nietzschea fantasy novel, research maybe, who knows, I'm not sure what I'm writing now any moreone of the stories – it turns out, strangely enough – is about a global pandemic, global death coming in like the tide.
The sun’s out coming in at the window, I think I’ll go and dread there for a while.
I walk the dog take the dog for a walk long walks – we have to tire her out in one government-approved outing.:.
iIt’s easy isn’t hard to tire her out. Forty-five minutes is enough. After fForty-five minutes into any walk she gives you a looks at you: ‘Are we lost?’
We passwalk past big houses and jealously imagine being on lockdownliving inside there instead of here.
But also: aA different walk, a different day (for all the difference a day makes, these days).,
I see someone I know on the far side of the road, and ; we have a shouted conversation.
His wife is in hospital, expecting twins. He’ll get to see her for the birth and then daily, briefly, after.
I say positive things, awkwardly and loudly, then go home wait until I’m home to imagine how that feels.
What do you write at times like these? It would be nice to write sShapes, maybe instead of words.
Just shapesShapes and sounds.. Catafalque catafalque catafalque catafalque catafalque catafalque catafalque.
withoutThat’s a William H. Gass reference (to Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife), everything is a reference.
That’s mMyThe problem is that I am stupidone of the stupidest people alive and I am writingattempting to write a book.
All oOur friends, have been flattened into screens and boxedboxed, and us tooboxed beside them.;.
oOne behindfriend I get to talk to through a door, even wave up at her, waving through her window.;.
aAnother I pick up at the hospital to drive him home from ann hospital appointment.
It's a shock as real as a punch when he gets into the car.: I drive dazed from sitting alongside.
AaA body inthat occupies space. He’s an eruption. He’s the Sphere invisiting Flatland. His fullness is
Uuncanny. What do you call aA ghost who’s more real than life?. I read, walk the dog, sleep badly.
I wonder iIf in the mornings I have a sore throat, I wonder if I will cause any deaths, ‘Will I be responsible for any fatalities?’..
or just pPandemic hypochondria.,. Does hypochondria exist nowin a pandemic? On with the day, anyway.
I think about how I’m thinking about all this. I get overfamiliar with all four corners of this box.
I’mWe are each of us, I’m sure, a haunted house.,. I take the dog for walks and we pass homes where.
Ooother people are haveare quarantined with awful bunkmatestoo, whose fangs grow with every word of the news.,,
andwho they’re living with in stale airfrom the staleness of the air, every day thick with stories and statistics about loss.,. I’m lucky.glad that
Tthe worst of mine are locked upin the basement, and. To have spent years buildingbuilt good, liveable floors above.
I try to remember that. Hold it in my head as something real. And full.
