The malady has hit the world hard.
And that is one of the understatements of the year.
Experiencing a real pandemic is surreal because all those Hollywood movies don't really prepare you for it, do they? Outside my window, the street looks as innocent as it did a month back, and all the more inviting because the first time in forever, a million vehicles are not constantly trying to run you over. And yet the outside is my enemy. Somewhere in the air lurks a deadly virus, and it takes just the slightest touch of human skin to kill a person. If that's not dystopian science fiction, I don't know what is.
How am I keeping sane? Well, truth be told, I have changed over the years. I don't care about travelling around the world anymore. I don't long for adventures. What I really long for these days is a room of my own - where no one else is allowed to enter. In that context, the lock-in is almost ideal. It would have been completely ideal had people outside not been dying by the thousands every day.
I've been doing what I always do. I've been writing more pages. It's painful to focus, especially because I feel like it no longer matters if I finish the book or not. Still, if we all end up dying, at least I'll die with a fleeting sense of accomplishment.
The book isn't all that sunny either. My next book (if we come out the other side of the tunnel) will be a happier book. That's a promise to me.
And that is one of the understatements of the year.
Experiencing a real pandemic is surreal because all those Hollywood movies don't really prepare you for it, do they? Outside my window, the street looks as innocent as it did a month back, and all the more inviting because the first time in forever, a million vehicles are not constantly trying to run you over. And yet the outside is my enemy. Somewhere in the air lurks a deadly virus, and it takes just the slightest touch of human skin to kill a person. If that's not dystopian science fiction, I don't know what is.
How am I keeping sane? Well, truth be told, I have changed over the years. I don't care about travelling around the world anymore. I don't long for adventures. What I really long for these days is a room of my own - where no one else is allowed to enter. In that context, the lock-in is almost ideal. It would have been completely ideal had people outside not been dying by the thousands every day.
I've been doing what I always do. I've been writing more pages. It's painful to focus, especially because I feel like it no longer matters if I finish the book or not. Still, if we all end up dying, at least I'll die with a fleeting sense of accomplishment.
The book isn't all that sunny either. My next book (if we come out the other side of the tunnel) will be a happier book. That's a promise to me.
