I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown (Part III) . . .
Day 74 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * *
A lock of hair catches on her dry lips and she shoves it out of the way before rolling over and burrowing back into her duvet. Even before Pooja’s eyes open she can sense that Mohit is awake. The sound of his impatient voice floats from the kitchen where’s he’s making a business call and echoes off the walls of the broom closet. She’s been falling asleep in the overcrowded cupboard beneath the stairs almost every night, waking up cramped and tired in the tiny space.
I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown (Part II) . . .
Day 63 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * * *
There is a glass cup on the side table in the office, a half-finished bottle of red wine beside the table. A pack of cigarettes calls to Vinay from the shelf; he hesitates but doesn’t take them. He glances at his wristwatch for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. It is 10 p.m., PST. It is the right time to call her. It will be 9:30 a.m. Indian Standard Time.
Carefully, resolutely, he punches in the number and waits for her to pick up the phone. Once the pleasantries are dispensed with, his mother wants to know when she’s going to see him.
I\’m a Fly on the Wall during Lockdown . . .
Day 48 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * * *
“Arjun, go get Charlie. Let’s go for a walk,” Usha calls out to her son. It’s her only thirty-minute break between virtual meetings. She ties a blue surgical mask on her face, then helps Arjun with his. Charlie scampers ahead, smelling and scratching at the fresh spring grass. Arjun tugs Charlie’s leash as Charlie spies a fat squirrel and tries hard to turn Arjun around in the opposite direction.
Did I Cause The Pandemic?
For all of January, I kept telling everyone who would listen—my silent husband or my girlfriends who would give me half a second to speak and only because they’d paused to take a long slurp of the last bottle of Bordeaux wine from Marchesi di Barolo vineyards culled from the hostess’ most recent trip to Italy. Half a second, mind you, because I’d usually be surrounded by a dozen garrulous Indian girlfriends who’d think nothing of jumping in and interrupting me in mid-flow.
“Tsk, tsk,” I’d fume silently. None of my American girlfriends behave like this. They listen politely, courteously waiting their turn to talk.
News from the trenches: A week of coronavirus isolation
March 16
After a blast of cheery emails and messages on WhatsApp, Twitter, FB, Instagram, and Tumblr on how many people have recovered from coronavirus, what meditation apps to download, where to buy hand sanitizer, and where not to go for empty shelves of toilet paper rolls, a short simple notification shows up on Nextdoor:
“I can’t stop eating!”
Six days later, and the post is still trending. I want to hold up an emphatically guilty hand. A long-time believer in the intermittent fasting way of life, I usually have no problem fasting for sixteen hours straight. Now, I’m eating for sixteen hours straight!
Why can I not stop binging? Could I have been exposed to a mutated version??