Featured Artwork: ‘La Miseria’ (Misery) by Cristóbal Rojas Poleo

I have cried three times this week.

On Sunday, the state of California extended the shelter in place indefinitely. School has been suspended and will resume online. My little sister will not have a prom or a graduation ceremony.

Small sacrifices for millions of lives.

On Monday, every store had been stripped down to its spine. People are mean under duress. Some are kind. They do the right thing by helping out the elderly and doing what they can.

But most, most are mean.

It is Tuesday and my life is crumbling into cardboard boxes. I am terrified. Terrified that I will never see my boyfriend again. That I am a carrier and will infect my parents who have sacrificed everything for me only to repay them in death.

I will have no sense of normality ever again.

–

I barely see the sun anymore. I do hear the birds chirp, so I know it is still there and rising as I sleep.

–

My terror is reasonable.

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There is a woman three floors above me who collects strays. There is a blue wooden bridge above my head that descends into the garden and it stresses when they wander the building. She doesn’t ever follow them. I think she is afraid of reaching the bottom step.

I wonder if she can see the sun.

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I am dramatic. Grocery stores can restock. Sick people get better. Mean people get kinder. The sun rises again and again and the dead come back to life,

right?

–

Maybe these are dramatic times.