Social Distancing
1. Lewis
Lewis begins his socially distant day with an enamel mug of lukewarm black coffee. He’s reading a history of Shakespeare & Company. In approximately two minutes, Aggie the cat will jump on top of the book and fall asleep, and Lewis will be unable to continue reading. He doesn’t mind - having a cat on your lap is almost as good for the soul as reading.
2. Johan
Johan has just left for his daily walk, but he couldn’t resist settling on a bench to read a poetry book that one of his neighbours left on his doormat. He doesn’t usually read poetry, but he finds himself engrossed in Sylvia Plath, until the drowsiness of days spent in quarantine overtakes him and he falls asleep.
3. Lewis
Lewis is at the window now. He looks out over the deserted Paris streets, and thinks that he can see a girl in a polka dot dress dancing on the Pont de l'Archevêché. The only sound is the chatter of birds and distant construction. The city is still.
4. Alexi
Alexi kneels on the glossy, cool ground, and listens to the echo of his mother’s voice across the hall. The other children turn cartwheels and collapse into joyful heaps, but no one comes near him. He feels as if he’s in a smooth, concrete snow globe which someone has just shaken, and all the flakes have settled metres apart.
5. Charis
Charis stands at the highest point of the cliff face above the road. The sky is dusky purple; the brush dry and fragrant and scratching at her shins. Rocks are still skittering down in tiny avalanches caused by her footfalls. If she screamed the sound would bounce across the valley like thunder, but no one would come.
6. Celina
Celina is looking at the light. It’s dim and flickering and not especially hopeful, but it’s still light, wriggling through the crack in the wall. She thinks that maybe someday we will be able to look back on this as if it were a collective dream.