The Locket

The pandemic appeared. Mayoral orders demanded that everyone lock down in hopes to escape its looming mire. Immunizations worked for a short time but strains continued to multiply. Some remained immune. Survivors did their best to cope.

Jane preferred those days. The days before the stay at home order. Every Friday afternoon at 3 pm, she took a break from work and walked to the nearby coffee shop with her coworker and friend, Lordes. She loved her friend. Everyone did. Lordes’ monthly potluck, Puerto Rican tacos, her funny stories, and her attempts to bring the office together were part of her charm.

Jane missed her Grama. She was glad that Grama passed away in the early days, during the time everyone still had hope. She never wanted her Grama to experience this. Grama was the matriarch of 11 children and a brood of grandchildren and great grandchildren. She also fed all the neighborhood children and gave counsel to the lonely, the lost, and the overly stressed. Even with this daily schedule, Grama still had time to bake cookies for a PTA meeting and brush Jane’s long curly hair to make sure all the tangles were brushed out.

Jane loved her fiancé, Mustapha. Everyone hated him. She grasped the heart-shaped locket hanging on her necklace as she bit her lip. She thought those would be the hardest days. Her most gentle, kind lover brought to his death over a disagreement in religion. What did it matter anyway? Her first year college course in Religion 101 only brought similarities not disparities to her understanding.

Jane quickly ate a slice of toast and a half can of tuna upon arriving home. It was already 8:15 pm. The time passed quickly after leaving work but she often got lost when she chose to walk passed the defunct bookstore. Piles of books were still available for the taking. Books are only on the survival list of the romantically desperate few, she thought to herself. She had rummaged again this night. She found a copy of St. Augustine’s City of God and got lost in the opening lines. “The glorious city of God is my theme in this work.” She looked around. "They want us to believe this is the City of God. This is how we must perform for the good of our fellow beings and ourselves," she told herself. The loudspeaker messages every morning at 8:30 am, while they walked to work, were definitely working on her. She felt for her fellows. She knew this was for their good. Our good.

Jane undressed quickly. It was already 8:55 pm. She heard a cat in the bookstore earlier and thought that its lonely yowl begged for friendliness and relief. She followed its call down a dark hall. She could feel the dark squeeze her neck. She went two steps further then had to retreat. Perhaps she could leave the other half can of tuna outside the bookstore’s door tomorrow to draw out a new furry friend.

Jane was ready at 9:00 pm. In her bed with blankets drawn and eyes closed, she knew relief would soon arrive. It arrived in a foghorn and a mist. The sound echoed in every nearby dwelling. The mist dispensed from a tube in the ceiling. Ah, the mist. She remembered a mountain hike she took with Mustapha, the scents and the colors. She nodded off to sleep holding her heart-shaped locket wishing for Mustapha’s comforting hand.

Jane woke at 8:05 am. She had set her alarm at 8:06 but always woke before the buzz. What an annoying reminder. She would not allow it to wake her nor rule her day. She knew she was in control as long as she could wake before the alarm blared. She used this small moment to gauge her sanity. She was aware of the moment and was still in control. Nothing would control her as long as she could account for her moments.

Jane dressed and walked to work at 8:30 am. A few others joined her walk although no one spoke nor acknowledged each other. Speaking only belonged to the loudspeakers since the virus took the survivor’s trachea. The stronger ones were in control of the loudspeakers pressing the button at regular intervals for the repetitive, positive words that kept everyone at ease. They also dispensed the calming mist at night. There were no longer choices to rise against a government, to secure a free state, nor bearing a right to keep and bear arms. There was only the choice to follow the schedule and the assigned role. The calming mist was the reward for complicity. Those who desisted lived in the streets. The homeless never received the calming mist. They yowled and screeched every night searching and fighting for food and their lives.

Jane replayed the memories she had, before the calming mist, like movies. She assigned the best 10 memories for each of her 10 fingers, opting to forget the least memorable ones. The right pointer finger’s memory was one when she was 8 years old and playing in her backyard. She danced around her cat, holding a large book. She remembered the feeling of that moment. It mirrored the feeling she felt after breathing the calming mist. She woke from her daze. She remembered the forlorn cat living among the tomes, in the abandoned bookstore. She squeezed the heart- shaped locket on her neck. After work, she will look for the cat and a large book.