Day 14

BRENDAN MCLEOD

 

Not gonna lie, sleep till noon. Wake to a text Justin’s outside. Go to the balcony, yell rude jokes at each other until I have to go down to the street so as not to embarrass the neighbours. Justin stays in his car. I stand on the drive. Imagine lying down between us to gauge the space. Each time a pedestrian walks by Justin blows air out his mouth. Ask what he’s doing. He says he holds his breathe when people pass, then breathes out after to keep their droplets away from his face. Pretty sure that’s not how Science works, but we’re making it up as we go along. Down the street a man yells at a woman. We wonder how to intervene from six feet. Back inside. Eat granola. Get sad like always after seeing a friend - a snapshot of the time before. Watch Bo Jack Horseman. Try to write. Watch Schitt’s Creek. Feel bad about the amount of TV. Jog. Listen to “Hospital Moon” – beautiful, but probably a bad call given the day. In a world of war and money/ cancer and lies/ all that’s certain is heartbreak. Try to decide whether that’s true or overly fatalistic. Switch to HAIM. Have the alien feeling of wanting to buy something to cheer myself up. Realize I even put my credit card in my sock, in case I could support a business that was breaking the law. Keep jogging. Not hard, not fast. Stop before the hill. Talk to Blanche, who says we’re in a period of transition, like when you go from communing at the funeral to everyone leaving and you’re back home making yourself a sandwich at 11PM. Get in. Skip sit-ups. Watch #TrumpGenocide trend. A lot of talk of being at war with the virus, which seems like being in an eating competition with a bear – it’s not going to know. Get sad this is the most relevant metaphor we have for coming together. Talk to Jen, who’s depressed and says mean things like, “you would like BoJack Horseman.” Write a birthday post for my bandmate. Miss them, though not to the point of picking up an instrument. Wonder how the world closed in so fast. Shower. Look at myself in the mirror. Hanging tough, though I wouldn’t take a picture for a calendar. Listen to Bon Iver like a wimp. Text Julia not to colour code her sock drawer because she can’t lose her mind before the third week. Text Amy about Patrick Stewart reciting sonnets on Instagram. Text my Dad to say the meme he just sent me was the same one I’d sent him the day before. Make a whiskey sour, take a picture. Make a mediocre tofu dinner, take a picture. Send missives out into the night. Realize I’ve drank almost six liters of quarantine wine. Try to work out if that’s overindulgent. Zoom with my parents, who are using it for the first time and equip themselves admirably. My mom graduated high school from a one-room school house in Birch Hills. Try to imagine an analogous future for myself – watching my kids marry robots and having everyone roll their eyes at me when I screw up the time machine and go back to Ancient Greece instead of visiting the dinosaurs. Ignore the map of the world glowing red on the Internet. Break down and look. Eat a cupcake. Feel sorry for myself, then remember there’s people out in the world who can’t breathe. Feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself. See a meme of a cat staring out a window: never, ever will this melancholy pass. Think this can’t be the last thing I see before bed. Bed.

 



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