Alone in a Covid World

 As Oregon cases skyrocket, as protesters gather to scream against any restrictions, as hospital beds fill across the country, to overflowing in some parts, I sit alone, watching it happen on my computer screen with little input from the real world.  

The holidays approach and they will pass with me still sitting here, waiting, in the dark mostly, since it gets dark so early in the winter.  I am waiting for a vaccine to free me from isolation, from talking to myself, from trying to think up more projects to do, or from digging under beds and through bookshelves for some book I may not have read.

I am over and done with pretending.  I'm not going chant the Portland news slogan in my head, since there's nobody anywhere near to hear anyway, "We're in this together."  We are certainly not in "this" whatever "this" is, together.   Half the country still believes the virus is a hoax.  

It's darn lonely, is what it is.  I punch numbers on the phone screen but no one answers.  I uselessly cruise facebook but the people on facebook aren't people I even know.

That's life I guess and this may go on for months longer.  Nobody paid the virus any attention here in the states, particularly our dear soon to be former leader, which is why we find ourselves, why I find myself once again tonight---alone, in the dark, waiting.

When I get that vaccine, finally, I'm going to celebrate. Then I I'll wave around that vaccine paper proof and say "Come on over" to anyone I want.