As far as I can tell, that car ride I just took to the storage unit will be the last one for a while, and it might be some time.
It is 2:01 PM and about half an hour ago, the governor of New Jersey just told everyone that things have shut down and we will be told when it is over. This does not surprise me. As I live in New Jersey, I knew full well that when they would put New York City under "Stay In Place", they would have to do it for New Jersey and most likely Connecticut.
It is the waiting for the news that will change our lives that is crushing. This isn't a book or a movie. There are no jump cuts, nor the ability to read the ending pages of the book to see how it turns out our to have time moved quicker. This seems to be the beginning of Deep Real Time. No one has ever been through such a thing on this scale and everyone is making it up as they go along.
Another strange thing is that there is this constant state of humming fear and panic all over. I went out before and went to a convince store to buy milk. All the while I was in there, my mind was racing: DID I GET THE VIRUS FROM THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR WHEN I GOT THE MILK? I JUST GOT A CUP OF COFFE! WHAT ABOUT THE COFFEE DISPENSER HANDLE!? THE MILK HANDLE! DEAR LORD! WHY DID I PAY IN CASH??? IT COULD BE ON THE BILLS!!" I went to my car and sanitized my hands and went about my so-called day, but the brain is on high alert at all times.
I am old enough to have lived through the AIDS crisis in the 1980's and 1990's. I was young enough to know what was going on and remember that the illness had a distinct shadow of it being for those who, according to society's decision, for the most part, somehow deserved it. No, I am not talking about the people who got it from blood transfusions. I am talking about the drug users and homosexuals who were struck down by that plague. It pretty much seemed to boil down to this: If you got AIDS by something you did, you asked for it. I will say no more about it here except for the following memory: when my friend Seda and I went to see the AIDS Quilt at the Rutgers Athletic Center, the local diocese had a sign with a drawing of Jesus on it as He embraced what looked like a leper. It said, "Those who believe AIDS is a plague from God have not met our God." A clearer message that was not adopted by the masses (or even many people who believe in Christ) I have yet to see.
This virus is almost god-like, ghost-like to be more precise. I could be everywhere. You could have it and not know it and pass it on to some other person and have it kill them or their elderly relatives or friends or immune-compromised people of any age. There is no real morality attached to this pandemic, with the exception of the Florida Spring Break people who are, as of now, too young to get it, but able to spread it. This inversion of the Darwinian equation sets my head spinning.
All that being said, none of this has really kicked in yet. How could it? The afternoon sun is glowing in the window to my left. All of this is still theory until 9 PM tonight when it goes into effect. Even then, it will not be Marshal Law. There is just this sense of waiting in Deep Real Time to have this whole thing unfold where it will.
It is, to be sure, a nightfall to remember.
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