Pathogen

Tuesday Night

I always knew the virus would go airborne, and I wasn't the only one. Those images of people wearing face masks. The governments around the world all say the masks won't keep you from getting it, but I think they're just trying to keep people from creating a run on masks. Healthcare workers need them, after all. But no, they won't keep you from getting the virus. It's in the air. In everything we touch. How many times do you touch your face each day? I tried to count once, when they first issued warnings to pay attention to general hygiene. I counted twenty Mississippis when I washed my hands. I touched my cheeks seven times one morning, my nose four times, my eyes—my eyes were where I lost track. But I washed until my hands were dry. I thought of buying stock in hand lotion companies, but the stock market has been unsteady since this thing started.

We've all been counting the lost percentage points. Overall, the market is down almost twenty-five percent. We're headed for a recession, they say. I have three thousand, seven hundred, twenty-two dollars and thirteen cents in my savings account. Six-hundred, fifty-two dollars and eight cents in my checking. I don't have a retirement plan because I don't think I'll ever get to retire. I thought that even before this pandemic hit.

I don't have any symptoms, but I haven't left my apartment in three weeks, two days, six hours, and nineteen minutes. I don't count the seconds. Well, I count them when I wash my hands.

Manhattan is quiet, and it's weird. It wasn't at first. Even after the World Health Organization declared this virus a global pandemic, the city bustled on as usual. People went to work in suits, ties, dresses, heels. They skirted one another on sidewalks. The sidewalks got busier after the city stopped running the subways. Gridlock to get to the crosswalk. Taxis and even private cars were forbidden next, and people walked in the street. It was like pictures of the city back when there were horses and buggies: people everywhere.

Then the people started to thin out. I started counting them from my window because it was more intriguing than my work. I'm an editor, so I can work from home when global pandemics hit. My office shut down before the virus was declared worldwide. They said they cared about our health. They really cared about their liability. No one wants to get sued when this all blows over. This is what my boss wrote to me:

Jana,
I'm supposed to send out some boilerplate email about how the company wants to protect the health of its workers so we'll be telecommuting until further notice, possibly two weeks to disinfect the offices. We are, but make sure you take everything you'll need for the foreseeable future and beyond.
Noel

Noel is a prepper. He has a cabin upstate somewhere (he won't tell any of us where in case someone overhears and comes to steal his stuff) and a Costco membership so he can stock up on years' worth of toilet paper. I'm on my third-to-last roll and kind of wish I knew where Noel's place is. Not to steal. But I bet he'd let me have a roll.

My neighbor knocked on my door last week in black cargo pants and a black hoodie, a black backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Some of us are headed out to Central Park," he said. His name is Dave. He's a computer programmer. Also telecommutes.

"At night?" I asked.

"We're harvesting moss."

I glanced down the hall. Dave was alone. I hoped the we he talked about weren't voices only he could hear. "Why?"

"It's what people used to, you know, wipe up when they were done? In the bathroom?"

"Oh. Um, I'm all set. This is going to blow over when people realize this isn't exactly ebola we're dealing with."

Dave blew a strawberry, then apologized. He reached into his pocket, retrieved an anti-bacterial wipe, and wiped my stomach. I stepped back and he apologized again. "Hot water. Maybe color-safe bleach. You can still save that tee shirt."

"Uh, thanks."

"I'll get you some moss."

I waved my hand. I didn't need moss. Besides, would moss flush or would it back up the city sewer and the toilet? What end-of-days scenario was Dave dreaming of? He nodded and repeated the promise to bring me back some moss and then left.

I did wash my tee in hot water and color-safe bleach. Not because of the virus or because Dave told me to, but because he spit on it. I would have done it before this outbreak, I swear.

I still have the moss. Dave left a bucket of it outside my door with a note that read More where that came from. I brought it into my apartment but I'm still not sure why. I guess I could make one of those decorative moss bowls out of it? I haven't had fresh flowers in here for awhile.

Anyway, I didn't think to write about this outbreak at first. It didn't seem like a big deal, but then states started declaring states of emergency. People stopped leaving their homes unless they had to, to stock up on toilet paper and bottles of water, and when those ran out, to stock up on moss, I guess. Like I said, I haven't been out in awhile. I see pictures of empty bodega and market shelves on the news. It seems like the outbreak is all that's ever reported these days, so I don't even watch that often.

It would seem fitting I guess that one of the novels I'm editing is dystopian. Since this is my own private notebook, I guess I can spill the beans on what it's about. So there's this main character—of course she's good at archery even though she's a school teacher at a mid-western public school (I'm trying to convince the author that she doesn't have to be good at archery if it doesn't really make sense for her to be. Not to say mid-western school teachers can't be good at archery; it just seems a little convenient to me that she would be). An EMP strike takes out all the technology in the United States, and then bombs are strategically dropped. The country falls apart because some people think it was the Russians and others think it was terrorists from the Middle East. Anyway, this archer-teacher ends up leading her students to Canada and safety.

It's not the best book in the world. It's not going to win a Pulitzer or anything, but it's commercial enough to have a shot at the bestseller lists and the author is the niece of the publisher. Who you know matters.

Anyway, in the book, the apocalyptic scenario is sudden. It's severe. At least I get why minor characters are freaking out and trying to stock up. What we have going on now isn't the type of illness that kills quickly like the Spanish flu. It's not going to make you melt from the inside out. The seasonal flu is more deadly.
I'm not saying we shouldn't practice good hygiene. We should. But the closure of the subway, the semi-permanent parking of cabs, the eighteenth-century feel of the streets, the harvesting of moss that can't even really be flushed by most toilets (how much moss should one use, anyway?), the run on bottled water, the threat of sliding into an economic recession—isn't it all a little, oh I don't know, overkill?