Essential or Sacrificial?

By: Marissa Hawkins, Assistant Fiction Editor

It’s hard to think about a time before all of this: when we could go outside without wearing a mask and gloves, when we could hug without fearing sickness, when we could see our family in person and not through a zoom call. While some of us are getting used to this new norm, for however long we have to, some of us can’t stay at home. 

Consider the cashier you saw at the grocery store before this all happened. Or maybe the mail person who comes to your door almost every day. What about the drivers of Amazon, FedEx, and UPS trucks? There are so many essential employees, and it’s horrible that only now are they being recognized as crucial. Before, I’m sure you saw a “Karen” in the wild, screaming for a manager. You thought it was normal, and it was. But after this pandemic started, did you start thanking the employees at those grocery stores? Did you start noticing them?

It’s not hard to pinpoint when the world decided to go to shit. It had started the week before spring break. That Monday, everything was fine. The world was as peaceful as it usually was, which wasn’t that peaceful. But toilet paper and hand sanitizer hadn’t yet became the new money system. That Monday, I had left the grocery store where I work to head to Urgent Care. Why? My sciatic nerve decided to be fucked up, and while waiting for a doctor, I noticed signs about COVID-19 posted everywhere. The novel coronavirus had taken over the medical world by this point, but it didn’t seem that bad. A guy had jokingly asked me if I believe this shit was real and if it would be bad. I looked him straight in the eye and told him I didn’t think it would last, that it would be just like the Swine Flu, that it would come and go as quickly as it appeared. I wish I had been right. He laughed, nodded his head, and said he hoped the same, before he was called back for whatever he came in for. I think about that moment, sometimes, wanting nothing more than to go back and change my answer. To tell him I wasn’t sure. Or even to tell him I believed it would only get worse. I know at the time I didn’t lie, because at the time I was still laughing about COVID-19 memes. Now, I scroll through Facebook and see nothing but death and destruction as the virus destroys our world.

Reality set in a few days later, on that Friday after classes had been canceled until spring break was over. I went to work at 4 a.m., like I always do—and it was packed. Like, usually a few people were shopping here and there, the normal people. But no, the parking lot was packed… at 4 a.m.! I could barely even find a parking spot. It was like when people learn about a snowstorm and stock up—but worse. It was as if people were told they would never be able to leave their house ever again. They took everything; the shelves were bare. Nothing but the things people would never dare to eat, like jars of pig feet. YES! Pig’s feet. I know, gross. But it was left there, surrounded by nothing but settled dust. The one gross reality of this pandemic is how much dust can be found on the shelves and how much mold can be found in the fridges that keep the eggs. I know you likely didn’t want to read that, but that’s the reality. I didn’t want to see it; you didn’t want to read it—well tough… if I’m going down, so are you.

Customers started turning into demons in desperate need of TP, and the employees started to see that the world was just a place and they were objects. And then, suddenly, the news showed that we were more than only slaves to the system. We were “essential.” Each week my boss sent out new changes to the policy, something that our union had worked so hard to get passed. Slowly, things in the store started to change. Now we couldn’t take returns or exchange, couldn’t offer rainchecks, weren’t allowed to bag groceries in any bags that customers brought in. There were so many more rules, until eventually they put up plexiglass barriers and gave us masks and gloves. Why did it take so long? Well, they waited for an employee at one of its stores to die until they’d protect us. I was reading the article about the employee who died. Her immune system was compromised, but she loved her job—and her death triggered the debate: are we essential or sacrificial? And if I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure I know that answer. But I’m starting to lean toward sacrificial, especially since people getting unemployment are getting paid more than essential employees are right now.

Most people already knew that they were getting fucked over by the minimum wage. Why else would I be striving to get out of that shit job? I was supposed to graduate from Towson University, find a job (where I didn’t have to work on weekends), and quit working at the shitty grocery store before Thanksgiving. But as time slowly trickles away, the world remaining in never-ending panic, a part of me fears that I will be trapped at a job I hate for longer than I intended. What if we stay this way until 2021? Or even in 2022? This is what doctors are predicting because some Americans are so fucking stupid and don’t want to listen. Instead, they protest about opening the world back up. They believe this is some sort of thing to push Trump up the polls. Or even that it’s all fake. I don’t know about you, but this feels real. Too real for comfort. And I just want it to end. I want to go back to the time when the world was peaceful, but I also hope that we change the world. I want to see a world where everyone realizes that we have fucked up, that we need to fix how we act, how we treat others. Because if working during this pandemic has taught me anything, it is that a lot of people are assholes. 

My boyfriend, right now, works as a counter outside of our store. The limit of people allowed inside is 20% of capacity. Guess what that is? 117 people! That is still too many people, and they don’t even follow the directional signs (so that they flow correctly) and they don’t remain 6-feet apart. What’s funny about that, though, is they don’t care in the aisle, but once they get to the register, they scream if someone is too close to them. But that is a story for another time. Back to what I was really about to say. My boyfriend told me that the other day, he was telling people that they were only allowed inside if they wore a mask or somehow covered their face, either with their jacket or shirt. Simple, right? It makes sense, right? Well, some fucker told him, “I don’t have a mask,” and simply ran inside the store, not caring about them or anyone else for that matter. What’s funny is security couldn’t do anything. They can’t do anything. My boyfriend can’t stop customers from entering. The employees can’t ask customers to leave if they don’t have their mouth and nose covered. It’s just a front to show that we are doing our part. But once you get inside, we can’t do anything. We can’t force anyone to follow the signs, to cover their faces. We can only make suggestions. Funny enough, though, when the same guy exited, the security guard stopped him and told him next time he came, he needed a mask and then sent him on his way with a fake retail smile. 

The grocery store chain’s executives may seem to pretend they care on the outside, and the union may say they are trying everything in their power to protect us. But they don’t. We are nothing but sacrificial lambs to them. They pretend to give us protection, they gave us a raise of 10% until this is all over, gave us a coupon for $20 off our next order. But they don’t care. I was talking to the manager, and all he got was an extra day off for that week. He got nothing else. They don’t care. They only care about the money this pandemic has brought in, even with the lack of product. AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE LACK OF PRODUCT! We still don’t have toilet paper or paper towels, the Lysol section is empty, as is the hand sanitizer. And the entire frozen section is bare because they keep canceling the trailer. Because of the pandemic, we can’t even order what we need. They just send us a truck of rationed supplies that they sent to other stores, in our chain, in Maryland. So, if a customer asks when we’ll get something in, the answer is “who the fuck knows” or a shrug. And then they get pissed at us because we don’t know. I heard the store manager saying that she has gotten blamed for our store not having products; the front-end manager even got yelled at and accused that we weren’t allowed to take returns that have left the store. And if you thought grocery store employees were abused before, you have not seen it during this last month. We have been screamed at, berated, and drained of all our energy. Even when I work four hours at work, I feel as if I had been there all day. I’m exhausted, I don’t have the energy, and it’s worse than it was before.

This past week, I took a vacation. I had planned to take it before this shit happened only to have to deal with school and be able to sleep in. Because of this pandemic, I used it to clean my room. From the 15th until the 22nd of April, I deep cleaned my room from top to bottom. I dusted, I swept/vacuumed, and placed some things into storage. I couldn’t be prouder. But now, as I sit here typing, I realize my impending doom. I go back to work tomorrow. I must go back to Hell and deal with trash. I must go back to wearing a mask on my face and fogging up my glasses. I must go back to being yelled at by customers for not having the golden TP. I don’t know how much of this I’ll be able to take before I snap, especially after being at home for a week. Going back to the flow of things will not too easy, especially with no flow to be had.

When it All Became Real

By: Kaitlin Marks, Managing Editor

 

Before this whole thing became real, a tangible threat that sent us home and closed down Disney World and stole breath and lives, people made jokes about buying plane tickets and being invincible.

In my Monday night class, a girl scrolled through flights on her laptop. “If it’s only going to hurt old people and kids with weak immune systems, I’m buying a cheap flight.”

Another kid joined in. “Yeah, it sucks for them, but this is just going to take out those people, so I don’t really care that much. I’m still going to go to California for spring break.” 

I looked down at my highlighted notes on family resources and almost imperceptibly shook my head. The words “only” and “just” suggested that those lives don’t matter. I had a sinking feeling that as bad as that outcome clearly would be, this wouldn’t end with the old or immunocompromised.

When school shut down, I thought about how this invisible thing could reach everyone. 

When the university announced that the rest of the semester would be spent at home, I knew I wouldn’t mind the actual being at home, but I definitely have minded the way my thoughts start whirling. 

It almost reminds me of waves. Whenever I’m stressed, the ocean always calms me down. But now, waves of stress, doubt, fear, anxiety, sadness, grief roll over and threaten to upheave everything I hold close. I watch the news and have to cut myself off because it all becomes too much. 

I go to the grocery store with my mom and sister. We assign roles so nothing gets cross-contaminated: I hold the phone we use to scan items and avoid checkout lines or interactions; Lindsay, who wears gloves, picks up the items for me to scan and places them in the cart; my mom, who also wears gloves, pushes the cart. We don’t cross lines. We follow the rules we’ve set for ourselves. We fear every breath, every passing shopper who steps too close. At this point, the state is under a stay-at-home order. There have been deaths, cases are practically doubling each day, and things are rapidly looking apocalyptic. And yet, as my sister and I sidestep to avoid the older couple in the meat aisle, we hear them scoff. They say things like “Idiots believing in this whole hoax” and “I would never be stupid enough to get that disease.” I watch them touch their faces, touch the cart, pick up and put down items, wander much closer than six feet. My sister and I slowly get angry. We walk away. We know this is going to last because people aren’t listening. We fear how long it might last. We try to make the best of it. 

Days themselves feel normal by now. 

 

____________________

 

{April 8th} 

Donald Trump talked about reopening the country “with a bang.” Last week, he described his goal of “packed churches” on Easter. Someone on the news today said we shouldn’t politicize the virus. I think it’s impossible not to pick apart politics when lives are being thrown away, when people are suffocating when that fate is avoidable, when we’re focusing on economics and political candidacies instead of the rising numbers daily. 

Today was the day with the highest death toll yet. Almost 2,000 American people died from COVID-19.

Tonight, now alone in my room, I find myself thumbing through my old journal, the one I wrote in during my freshman year and sporadically since, but not in a long while, the one with the rose gold cover and lettering that’s about half full (notice the half full—there by intention). I don’t write in my journal about the death toll, or about COVID-19 at all, really, even though I can. Instead, I fill a page with one of my “happy lists,” the giant lists I love to write of every single thing—big and tiny—that made me feel joy, even for an instant. It feels familiar to write this list. It feels out of place to do so in spite of the world collapsing outside. It’s hard to see that reality when I spend a whole day out in the sun with the dogs, reading and studying and sunbathing, and then cook a meal my family loves, and then go outside and have a bonfire, smoke trailing up to the stars. When I look up at the stars, it’s easy to forget about the previous day’s worries, anger, and fear. I feel weightless. I feel boneless. I feel like myself, even if only for an instant. 

 

____________________

 

{April 12}  

On the day before Easter, I spend the evening stress-baking away the week’s news announcements and anxieties and worrisome predictions. My mixer whirls ingredients into yellow cupcakes—I create DIY cake flour with the regular kind and some cornstarch, and add in sour cream to make them tender and fluffy—and before I divide the batter into the yellow and pink pastel liners in the tin, I toss a few handfuls of pastel sprinkles into the batter on a whim. Later in the afternoon, when my parents and sister come in from splitting wood in the backyard, my mom gasps: “you made funfetti?” I tuck the moment away.

After dinner, around 9:30 p.m., I tell my dad about the plan for the cupcakes as he joins me in the kitchen, eager to help. I also make homemade Oreos, and he rolls the dough into a log for me, checking every few seconds to make sure he’s doing it right. I whip up chocolate icing. He does the dishes. We both taste leftover bits of dough and swipes of frosting from the bowl. I frost the first cupcake with a plastic piping bag and a tip that makes little lines, creating a little chocolate bird nest. Dad does the rest, swirling the frosting as I nestle three little pastel-colored Cadbury chocolate eggs in the center of each. I focus on getting the placement just right. I focus on how it feels to finish the last one and lean back on my heels, neat rows of cupcakes on the tray reminding me that some things are normal, after all (note: my hands are covered in chocolate icing, my dad is covered in icing, my sister asks me to squeeze icing from the piping bag into her mouth for a laugh, all is messy and well). I focus on planning for tomorrow, on trying to create joy for someone, for myself. 

 

____________________

 

{April 13}

Easter Sunday—a day of light, a day of hope. People across the country wake up and try to create magic for their little ones as they scatter colorful, treasure-filled eggs through living rooms and playrooms and backyards. 

Today, at breakfast—we have French toast—my dad explains that he’s sad about what’s going on in the world, and hates that people are sick with this, but that he’s grateful for the time with us and the memories we are making. I feel the same. 

I have little prizes from when I was in charge of my after-school mentorship program at the elementary school—tiny squishy chicks and bunnies, candy, fluffy little duck figures from the craft store, pencils with fun animal and food erasers—but we donated our plastic eggs a few years ago. Our neighbor does what I asked in my late-night message from the night before: traipses up the hill to our house, dog on his leash in hand, and deposits two (unopened) packs of plastic Easter eggs in a planter on our front step.  

My mom and sister and I stand around our kitchen table filling the eggs with little treats, making colored construction paper signs to hang on our fence posts with sayings like “hop this way” and “eggs ahead!” (Note: I just mistyped “hop this way” as “hope this way,” and now I’m thinking about how that is just what today felt like.)

We get on the golf cart to make things go faster—me on the backseat with a pink basket filled with eggs, tape in hand, mom and Lindsay in the front pointing to spots that would be perfect for hiding—and start creating the trail of eggs. We tape the signs we made to fence posts surrounding the field. 

We’re deciding how many eggs to drop along the outside of the fence when neighbors who don’t speak to us approach. 

We say hello. 

They do, too. 

This sounds normal, but for these people who have so much hate for anything outside of their bubble, it’s not. When we were really little, the parents suddenly decided that my younger sister and I were a “bad influence” on their three children. For a while, their kids would sneak out to the corner where our yards met, where they could chat with us, shaded by the trees. Eventually, they got caught, we stopped meeting, and I haven’t spoken to them since. I often wonder about how they’ve grown up. I wonder if they wish things had been different. I wonder who they are now. 

Anyways, the present-day neighbor-parents and my mom and sister and I are standing in my driveway conversing. We tell them what we’re doing, how we’re creating an Easter event for our (favorite) neighbors who have Charlie (who is 5) and Sophia (who is 2), and they actually smile, exclaim how wonderful it is, reminisce about the good old days when their kids were little and they would hide eggs. That moment shines for me as a highlight of this whole mess. They walk away, and stunned a little by that simple, kind, human encounter, we turn back toward creating Easter magic for our favorite little kids next door. 

 

____________________

 

{April 14} 

Every summer, for three years now, I spend a week volunteering as a counselor with PALS, a nonprofit that creates immersive experiences for young adults with Down Syndrome and their peers to create transformative friendships and build a more inclusive world. In short, it’s the most magical period of time I get to experience every year—it’s the thing that brings me more joy than anything else in the world. This summer, I was supposed to be roommates with one of my favorite friends from camp, Alana. I was making plans for matching outfits and playlists for getting ready early in the morning at camp. Today, the directors sent out an email saying that all of the camps scheduled throughout the summer are canceled.

My counselor friends and I text as we cry. There’s a pain—in knowing you won’t get a week where everyone is included, accepted, and celebrated—that I can’t describe. 

Prior to this day, I’ve handled all of the things I’ve learned would be canceled with acceptance. Losing the rest of an in-person school semester, visits with friends, visits with family, the launch party for Grub Street, knowing that my 21st birthday will most likely take place in quarantine, losing planned beach trips and business trips my mom and I were supposed to take—none of it stung like losing PALS. 

But I understand why they had to do it. 

Beyond the logistics surrounding camps that normally take place on college campuses, and volunteers flying from around the country, there is a heavy layer of fear surrounding the entire disability community. 

People with Down Syndrome sometimes have heart problems. They sometimes have diabetes, and they get leukemia at much higher rates. Some people with Down Syndrome are in perfect health, and some have to fight underlying problems. 

Before the virus started, I had already learned the horrific truth that individuals with DS or other disabilities in some states in the United States can be denied life-saving organ transplants (even as babies and children) because those governments don’t see their lives as worth living. 

Every single individual with Down Syndrome that I have met has—and deserves—a valued, worthy, amazing and joyful life. People with DS and other intellectual differences have jobs. They go to college. They have friends. They participate in sports, bake for their communities, run businesses, and achieve their dreams. They are the most wonderful people you could possibly be privileged enough to know. 

And yet. 

And yet. I can barely fathom having to write about this, but I need to talk about it. 

And yet, people with Down Syndrome and other disabilities can (legally, in some states) be denied life-saving care if they contract COVID-19, even if they have a perfectly fulfilled life. 

Every time I read about this, my eyes burn, my spine tenses, and my hands start to tremble. I have a physical and visceral reaction to the level of injustice this harbors. 

Amy Silverman of The Arizona Star reports on early state COVID-19 response preparedness plans. She writes: 

Some state plans make clear that people with cognitive issues are a lower priority for lifesaving treatment. For instance, Alabama’s plan says that ‘persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.’ Another part says that ‘persons with severe or profound mental retardation, moderate to severe dementia, or catastrophic neurological complications such as persistent vegetative state are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.

In a world where the word “retard” should never even be used, let alone applied to the rationing of medical equipment, this took my breath away. I thought it would be the worst thing I’d read. 

I was wrong. 

Silverman goes on to describe the ambiguous, and thus even more frightening, plans in other states. She writes: 

Other plans include vague provisions, which advocates fear will be interpreted to the detriment of the intellectually disabled community. For instance, Arizona’s emergency preparedness plan advises medical officials to “allocate resources to patients whose need is greater or whose prognosis is more likely to result in a positive outcome with limited resources.” Between a person with cognitive difficulties and a person without them, who decides whose needs come first?

When lives aren’t seen as valuable, we risk throwing away people who have strengths and opinions and dreams, the same as everyone else. We risk ignoring capability, choosing the obvious solution, refusing to see the truth about what a fulfilled life looks like. We risk creating a section of history that someday, people will look back on with horror. When we decide that someone isn’t worth saving because they might be a little different, we become something unimaginably cruel. We tighten the confines of what it means to be a human by drawing a line between a valuable and worthless person. We cannot allow discrimination like this to take away people who have capabilities beyond what we see when looking in from the outside. People with disabilities are not broken. Our society is broken for seeing them as such. 

My throat is tight as I write this. 

I cry as I write this. 

____________________

 

I wonder. I look up. I tilt my head back until my ears almost touch the surface of the water, until all I can hear is the bubbles, until all I can see are the stars and the moon and the smoke rising from the embers of the fire up on the hill. At this moment, the turning stops. Everything shudders to a quiet, restorative lull. I’m not thinking about ifs or whens, but I’m thinking about writing, something I haven’t been able to touch since the whole thing began. I spent the whole day baking, coaxing butter and brown sugar and vanilla and flour into something that makes my family smile. I tell my mom it’s therapeutic. I think that it’s because it demands attention. You can’t create a perfect pastry dough if you’re worried about statistics running across a screen. You can’t whip frosting into smoothness when your mind is filling your body with dread. You can’t write words when you can’t stop thinking, what if this is it? How does this end? 

After my morning shower, as I smooth body butter over my skin and pull a cream-colored sweater over my head, wet hair dripping onto my shoulders, I notice that the twitch in my eye that’s been happening for a week now is back, and worse yet, it’s the whole side of my face. Google tells me that it could be sleep deprivation, eye strain from being on screens too much, an overload of stress, seasonal allergies. I have all four of the options going on, so I don’t know what the cause is, but does it matter? Clearly it’s a product of circumstance. Maybe we’re all just a product of circumstance. 

A girl I know writes an Instagram caption about this being a trauma, about our bodies responding in unpredictable, unfortunate ways, about grief and our right to feel the pain of the things we’ve lost. I think about balance, about how I can be so productive some days and so fixated on darkness the rest. How can I feel happy, content, relaxed on nights like tonight, sitting under the moon with the ones I love most, sipping cold water as sparks crackle off the logs in front of us, but other times, feel on the brink of something—the pit in the stomach, the eye twitch, the feeling of tears ready to spill at a moment’s notice, the shaking hands? 

I think about the trauma caption, and I try to focus on ways that I feel lucky. I’m lucky to have a family I love, that provides and takes care of me and is cautious. I’m lucky we have a yard that’s huge and green and we can go outside and breathe without fear. We have groceries and I cook almost every night and challenge myself to new recipes. We have game nights and Netflix binges, golf cart rides and bonfire nights. This new normal is like a reflection of our past normal, the normal of summers and Sundays where things felt perfect. The difference, I guess, is that undercurrent of electric worry humming beneath the air, lingering in every happy moment. The anxiety I feel creates knots I can feel. 

Tonight, at least, I feel melted, boneless, weightless. I slide under the covers smelling like fire and chlorine, my hair still tied in a bun and wet against the pillow, and my little black rescue puppy curls up against my stomach, and I’m writing this while the noise machine on my nightstand plays storm sounds, and all feels okay. Writing makes me feel whole. I’ve been terrified to write creatively, focusing instead on checking off assignments and articles to be published and job applications and internship applications instead of letting my mind wander, for fear that the wandering would lead to the darkness. I think—I hope—that the wondering, the wandering, is leading me to something else. Something like hope, an open window, a breeze. 

Gray/Grey

By: Deja Ryland

 

Gray is an achromatic color, meaning that it lacks hue and saturation. It is known as the “color without color.”

The “color without color,” the perfect paradox.

If I had to describe life as a color, I’d say it was gray. Life is ultimately the biggest paradox known to mankind.

We live to die.

This is starting off a bit more depressing than I intended, but detach your connotations of gloom, cloudiness, and depression from the color gray—or keep them.

*

My world stopped twice.

The day you first stopped breathing and the day I’d come to grips with the fact that the U.S. was experiencing a pandemic.

I never imagined the day I’d witness either so soon in my lifetime.

 

March 15, 2019, I finished midterms and—after learning that you’d had a massive heart attack — started visiting the hospital every day. The hospital became hospice became the funeral home all while I still attended school. I have no recollection of completing any assignments, but somehow, I managed.

March 13, 2020, I began midterms and Kim Schatzel emailed students that classes for the remainder of the week would be cancelled—and for two additional weeks after spring break classes would be online rather than face-to-face. This was to ensure the safety of all students, faculty, and staff from contracting the coronavirus.

What scares me the most about both is this anxiety about the way life changes after it all. Finding that new “normal.”

*

My Favorite Paradox

“The mind is beautiful because of the paradox. It uses itself to understand itself.”

-Adam Elenbass

 


My Least Favorite Paradox: The News On How To Safely Protect Yourself from the Coronavirus

Just wash your hands.”

“You don’t need a mask.”

THEN,

“Gov. Hogan mandates masks in stores, on transit.”

“The coronavirus can be transmitted through your eyes.”

 

EVERYTHING THEY TELL US, THEY CONTRADICT THE NEXT WEEK.

*

I’m pretty sure that if it was something you could keep at bay by simply washing your hands then explain why:

  • Malls closed.
  • Libraries closed.
  • School campus closed and switched to online classes for the rest of the semester.
  • My job is closed. (This is the first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 16.)
  • Gatherings of more than 10 are prohibited.
  • Grocery stores and most fast food restaurants close at 8 p.m.
  • Emission Testing Areas are converted into COVID-19 testing drive-thrus.
  • Hospitals do NOT have enough masks to protect their staff.
  • Companies are sending masks to hospitals because apparently our government is

UNABLE to provide them fast enough.

  • The stock market is crashing.
  • The economy is crashing.

*

WE’RE DOOMED.

I hate watching the news but it’s now all my mother watches as we wait for updates on progress about getting COVID-19 under control. I prefer to not hear Trump speak and I turned it off completely as the President of America went on national television and referred to the coronavirus as

The “CHINESE VIRUS.”

“Did he really just say the CHINESE virus?”

 “The Chinese virus.”

*

Gray area.

an ill-defined situation or field not readily conforming to a category or to an existing set of rules.

*

It was my last day of midterms and I had a three-hour break after class before it was time for me to go to work. So, I went to Noodles & Company and it was nice out, so I sat outside to eat. The wind was blowing, and my hair wouldn’t stay out of my face, but I didn’t mind. I remember thinking to myself that the day felt a bit too perfect. It felt like I finally had a chance to really breathe, that I could really just sit and take in the world, only hours later to lose the world I had known.

Sometimes I imagine what his drive home from work would have looked like. Maybe he had his window rolled down completely and the breeze felt a little too perfect, that he was thumping his fingers against the steering wheel without a care in the world as to whether there would be traffic or not. That the sun was bouncing against his skin as his left arm was perched outside the window. He would have embodied warmth.

Today I am in the house, weary to go outside since I know I must wear a mask just to be precautious, even just to take a walk, or go to the store. I imagine everyone is thinking the same thing, that we can’t wait for things to go back to normal.

But that’s why this pandemic brings back so many memories—because now everyone will soon walk out into a world that will never fully look the same to them again.

*

A paradox, also known as an antinomy, is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one’s expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion. — Wikipedia

*

Everything they told us they contradicted the next week.

First, they said all he would need was surgery on his heart.

Then, he was flown from Carroll County Hospital to Shock Trauma at the University of Baltimore.

They had to force him into hypothermia to preserve his brain and organs.

They said that once he was reheated, he had to show us what he could do, that he should start to show signs, and the longer he didn’t then the more trauma to the brain it would show.

Weeks passed and he did not respond to being pinched. He did not respond to any pain.

They continued to tell us that we needed time.

He began to have uncontrollable seizures due to synapses in the brain not connecting. He was given medicine which sedated him even further.

They detected that he had no sleep-wake cycle.

The doctors arranged a family meeting and told us they did everything they could for him, so we had to choose between assisted living or hospice, which doctors swayed us toward due to detrimental brain injury shown.

They told us we needed time when we didn’t have it.

*

The ruins of Pompeii were buried by ash and lava after the volcano Vesuvius erupted. What’s fascinating is that not only were the town and people preserved, but by taking a plaster cast archaeologists were able to discover that bad teeth were a common problem. In addition, skeletal remains of slaves were found still chained.

Our ruins have already been exposed. America is built on colonization, genocide, capitalism, slavery, war, and is so used to being the conqueror, a “winner,” that it takes a pandemic to realize that viruses don’t recognize borders and geographic lines. That capitalism is a volcano waiting to erupt.

Toilet paper aisles were empty as people ran amok buying items in bulk, forgetting that they were not the only people in the world who needed to wipe their ass. People do not acknowledge their neighbors, do not recognize community or unity because we are following after a leader, after a nation, that fails to acknowledge it is not the only country in the world.

The coronavirus has shown that when money loses its value, America loses its mind.

*

Grey area is when you’re stuck in between

 

stuck in the middle

One choice away from being

stuck here

 

Or here.

*

I remember when I was a kid, we’d flip through channels on our box tv and you’d try to switch from VCR to cable and you’d switch to a channel that you didn’t get, and the screen would go static. The screen would be filled with grey dots bouncing, twirling and moving in all directions, giving you a clear picture of the sound of chaos. You and your siblings usually would keep the TV up, jumping up and covering your ears as the box in front of you struggled to find a signal. Beneath the scribble scrabble, if only you had a bit more connection, you’d see the screen clearly.

The coronavirus crept up a lot like that static, like everyone lost signal all at once but now we can’t change the channel. So, you can either let it consume you, struggling to find some answer, some picture within the optical illusion, or you can turn the TV off.

I think we’re always one click away from the static. We just distance ourselves from it more now because there are so many more distractions, so many more channels.

*

GRAY MATTER.

The family decided to conduct a meeting so that the neurologist could tell us what exactly the MRI of your brain was showing.

The room was white, and I could feel the tension in the room.

Me and my siblings (your kids) against your side of the family.

Faith vs. Science

Hospice vs. Assisted Living as a Vegetable.

 

We go around the table introducing ourselves, and the doctors and nurses taking care of you introduce themselves next. They said you had significant damage to your gray matter.

That the hippocampus suffered severe trauma.

 

Science was telling us that you’d lost your mind, machines were keeping your kidneys from failing. Your heart was weak—and with your body no longer able to sustain surgery, we decided that hospice was best for you.

 

Your heart would beat for two more weeks. An involuntary body function.

An involuntary rhythm.

 

Without the mind, memory and emotion, the body—ultimately the heart—still dictates life or death.

 

Machines can keep the body alive, but brain cells—literally dead memories—can’t be brought back to life.

 

I will never forget you, but how will you remember me?

*

It’s ironic that there is this twoness: that our lives consist of life and death, rich and poor, ugly and beautiful, villain and hero, good and bad, right or wrong, negative and positive.

We are defined by polarity, by oppositions, by contradictions.

A world scale that is balanced by imbalance.

When I said the world was grey right now, it’s a good thing. The world paused in a sense and this greyness allows the opportunity to look at both sides, a chance to be in the middle for a while, a chance to not have to choose.

To just be neutral, to just be.

*

 

Why Clouds are Gray

The cloud appears gray due to its thickness and height. As the cloud obtains more water droplets and ice crystals, the less light can pass through.

Nimbostratus clouds, they lack any type of uniform shape, typically resulting in rain or snow.

Altostratus clouds are thin, gray clouds that stretch out “in sheets” across the sky.

Cumulonimbus are thunderstorm clouds, they are indicators of heavy rain, tornadoes, hail and lightning.

I am currently sitting on the floor with my back hunched against my bed, and a plate that has lemon breadcrumbs on it is next to me. I have ten tabs open on my computer and decide to research clouds simply because my window is open, and I do not see any outside. The sky looks like a huge endless blank sheet.

My dad had taken us on vacation. It was my brother’s first time flying to Florida, so I remember forcing him to sit by the window. We were speeding down the lane and gradually we just started to tilt upwards. During take-off you can’t wait to reach the clouds. The plane levels and no matter how old I am, it always brings back memories of Peter Pan, like we reached Neverland, a space so disconnected from everything. You’re flying, soaring through space unmarked by civilization.

I’ve never flown through a thunderstorm before, but I imagine it’s terrifying, watching clear skies transform, dark clouds swarming, thunder ripping through the sky, lightning tearing that sky in half.

The sky draws pictures for us, as people lie out on blankets in grass with their loved ones or friends pointing at clouds that look like rabbits, or dragons, or birds.

Gray clouds show us that we all run, or try to shield ourselves from rainy days, from storms within ourselves because we don’t know whether it will be a harmless storm or if cumulonimbus clouds are swarming, that natural disasters occur internally too.

*

Pompeii’s ruins are terrifying, too, when you really think about it. People frozen in terror, their last moments before death forever preserved.

One thing that still continues to strike me is that the slaves continued to be preserved and chained even after such a catastrophic disaster.

That their bodies were still confined to their circumstances.

That bondage is a trauma, no matter how deeply buried, that encompasses individuals far beyond death.

That enslavement is a terror forever preserved, ruins that will always resurface.

*

Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.

Ring a Ring O’ Roses was a childhood game and rhyme that I’d always sing, interlocking hands with my friends or siblings as we ran or skipped in a circle, eventually collapsing to the ground.

I honestly had no idea what it meant until searching the only words I remember clearly. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” I had not the slightest clue that my eight-year-old self was singing about the plague, specifically a deadly rash. Why did parents let kids jokingly sing about kids literally dying?

My mom knew what she was doing. We forgot to do the dishes or take out the trash and she probably was thinking “yeah, sing that song.” All jokes, all jokes. That would be funny though. Anyways, it’s ironic that we turned a rhyme about death into some fun song to sing while we were playing, that we sang songs knowing absolutely nothing about its meaning.

I guess that was all just preparation and reification for a lifetime of reciting words knowing absolutely nothing about its meaning—only to discover that we chant about war and death as if those are things to build a nation to take pride in.

But hey, God Bless America, right?

*

All That I Have Left Of You

Your remains fill a purple heart-shaped urn, engraved with your initials.

The only residue left of your previous form.

Fire transformed you to ash.

*

Grey/Gray

There is no correct way to spell gray, they can be used interchangeably. You can choose which you use.

Although, there is no “correct” way to spell it, naturally you will choose.

Ultimately, this quarantine has made me think about whether neutrality can exist.

You cannot live life without making choices and even the decision to not make a choice is a choice.

So who would really choose to live in a gray world when we’ve been exposed
to colors?

It’s okay to not feel creative in quarantine

By: Bailey Hendricks, Marketing & Publicity Director

With more time on your hands during quarantine, you may feel some pressure to write a poem, make art, finish your manuscript, or generally be productive. I, for one, have been feeling some of this pressure myself.

It seems like since we are home, we should be “making the most out of this time.” If the pressure you’re feeling is not to finally finish that poem and submit it to a lit mag, maybe it’s wanting to clear out that junk drawer or finally organize all of your take-out menus. Whatever guilt you’re feeling for not being as productive as you’d like, take a moment to try to release that guilt. Understand that these are unprecedented and uncertain times. You shouldn’t add that extra pressure on yourself.

Make time to do things that give you the most comfort. Maybe that’s sipping on some tea, putting your feet up, and reading a good book. Or, maybe it’s making some chocolate chip cookies, or painting your nails, or just taking an extra-long, extra-hot shower.

Whatever activity gives you the most comfort is what you should be putting your energy into right now. We are all going through a collective traumatic experience, all around the world. It’s normal if you’re unable to focus, are sleeping more, or even are snacking more than usual. Be gentle with yourself during this time and seek comfort in the little things.