Mutate

The email was forwarded hastily along by the head of administration. It was addressed to every member of the company, warning everyone in the office of a mandatory work-from-home policy.

Over the course of three weeks, the fear of the sickness had gone from the faint buzz of insistent news from abroad, shots from CNN of doctors drained of life and vigor fighting on the frontlines against it. The first hospital staff member who died, we learned, had been working 60 hours overtime. He’d fallen over and collapsed, flat on the cold tile floor next to his patients.

And then there was the videos. Expats wandered through empty streets, toting their luggage to stockpile supplies. We traded jokes about the Princess Diamond cruise and the other jewels of sea tourism. What started off as the passengers idea of paradise morphed into locked bunkers, air stolen in quick breaths outside on top of the crew deck, and half-eaten plates abandoned in the dining cabin.

Now, we know the virus has jumped ship. We lock eyes warily with strangers, daring them to cough or shiver. We wash our hands with vigor, humming under our breath and rolling up sleeves. The line at Costco runs out of the building and loops back again. Everyone is buying toilet paper, and patience is running dangerously thin.

The doors stay locked. We contact each other virtually now. Human nature, the foundational building block of society, has become a silent blade in the back. We cannot risk contact, exposure. We kiss behind closed doors.