Pathogen

To Jana Cayden

Jana Cayden

82 Wooster St.

Apt. 4C

New York, NY 10012

Dear Jana,

I'm not sure if this letter, and your journal, will reach you. I hope you don't mind that I read your journal. I've run out of things to read during this epidemic. I hope you're still alive somewhere. I found your journal while walking my dog. It was covered by a pile of leaves, along with an empty water bottle. The backpack was gone. I can only assume you took it with you. Maybe you don't want this journal back. Maybe you and Dave are off somewhere disease-free, trying to start a new life.

But I'm sending it anyway, in case you have mail forwarding. By my reckoning, about three months have passed since your last entry. And I, unlike some of the people you encountered on your flight from New York City, have a conscience.

It might interest you to know, in case you're not there but get this letter with your journal anyway, that the city has reopened its tunnels and bridges. They—the ubiquitous they—don't know yet how many people perished, so it's impossible to say whether or not you and Dave would have been better off staying in New York.

I do hope wherever you are, you're well, with Dave, and that you're back to editing books. Or maybe you're writing one. That—in addition to my conscience—is why I'm paying a courier to take this journal back to you. Maybe your thoughts on dystopian novels and their authors are different now that you've survived a dystopian situation.

In case you don't want to write from your own experience, I'm including my business card with this letter. Reach out to me. In the wake of the epidemic, my neighborhood started providing for one another. We still keep our distance, but each of us grows a different crop. One of us even has chickens. We will distribute the food in equal amounts to each household when the harvest comes in. There is something about planting food, about nurturing life, that seems so necessary beyond our physical survival in times like these.

Though they say the worst of the epidemic has passed, we are still careful. There's been no confirmation that it's gone, that it's mutated out, or that we have a cure or vaccine. So we still talk from ten feet away. We all wear masks if we have to congregate. Most of us spend much of the summer day tending our new fields, which were once manicured lawns. Those who used chemicals on their lawns crafted raised beds to grow food in.

The world has changed in the short time since you had your adventure. It's a different place, to be sure, and we all still carry the fear of falling ill. But we also are moving on. Trying new ways—well, really they're old ways, aren't they?—of working together to survive and make the most of it.

It might make for a good story. Then again, so too does your journal.

Please don't feel compelled to send a reward. Reading your story was reward enough for me, knowing what you went through to get out of the city, to survive, and to be with Dave.

Be well,

A friend