Through the City

I warm my hands with water from the faucet. Not as warm as I'd like, but not many public restrooms have burning hot water anymore. I squeeze out as much soap as possible, rubbing my palms. First, I rub the right palm over the back of my left hand, interlacing my fingers. I clench one fist and scrub the back of my fingers against the opposite palm, then move to polish my thumb. My fingers, the back of my hands, and my palms turn red as I rinse. Not trusting when the paper was last replaced, I take out my own, meticulously drying each finger, getting under the nails, tracing the lines of my palm. Dry. I use the paper to turn off the faucet.

The door opens, and an older man enters the restroom. His scarf is pulled up over his nose, his gloves tucked into his jacket. We lock eyes in the mirror and he immediately backs out. I sigh with relief, feeling my pulse slow down.

I step out of the restroom to the near empty bus station, faintly lit by betting signs at the kiosk. Only one person is standing at the bus stop, and I make sure to keep meter's distance as I pass her. The metallic voice echoes through the speakers of the station.

“We remind you of the curfew in effect. Passengers are advised to contact customer service regarding canceled departures. Please adhere to public health advice.”

Bathed in the light from the betting sign, we’re waiting for the bus we hope arrives.

“Do you think the bus will run?” I ask, my voice muffled through my scarf. She’s three meters away, frowning when she doesn’t catch what I say so I lift my buff ever so slightly. I ask again but she only shrugs. Checking my watch I see the bus is already late. I was already late.

“I heard it might not go all the way,” she suddenly says. “Some bus stops closer to the city are in the red zone, so the buses don't go to the ending stop anymore.”

“They’re not going all the way to the city?”

“Maybe not,” she says, pulling out hand sanitizer, rubbing it into her hands, gasping as it stings her cracked cuticles. A noise fills the empty space, the rumble of an engine, and the bus lights illuminate the dark station. We both board at the back to protect the driver, even though the new buses have boxed them in plexiglass. The driver announces through his microphone, his voice static and muffled so it’s hard to understand.

“Tickets, please,” he says, and we raise our tickets above the seats for him to see. I sit closest to the exit of the bus as she takes a seat on the opposite row behind me. I calculate. At least three meters.

The bus drives out of the station, out into the world and the sky above us is surprisingly blue. It’s almost funny how the sky cleared after the factories shut down, after the planes landed, and the cars were parked. How life around us flourished, how things grew, how they survived when we couldn’t. Our loss was the universe's gain.

The landscape shifts from scattered small houses to long stretches of coastline. The rugged terrain, the moors, and the archipelago melds into one trip. The road winds around the high cliffs on the narrow roads. I glance back at the young girl sitting half-asleep. Through the sound of the engine I can hear her stomach rumbling. I hesitate before pulling my packed lunch from my backpack.

“Do you want some?”

She just stares at me, more hesitant of receiving than I am of giving.

“Relax, it’s sealed,” I say, showing her. Hunger wins over her fear and she changes seats to the opposite of mine. I calculate again. It must be under two meters, but I say nothing. I hand her the packed lunch, which she unwraps with her gloves on. When she gets to the food, she removes the gloves and begins eating the stacked sandwiches.

“Is this real jam?” she asks, and I can see an internal gastronomic joy spread through her body.

“Yes, I have strawberries in my garden,” I say.

“You’re leaving a garden full of strawberries?”

I give a little laugh and she asks if I’m not going to eat some.

“I’m not hungry,” I say, leaning back in the seat, careful not to touch the handles, careful not to rest my head against the window so many have leaned on before me. The girl looks from me to the bread, back to me, and shrugs, stuffing the rest of the meal into her mouth, chewing like life depends on it. She still looks like a well-fed teenager. But the way she devours the bread tells she hasn’t had a proper meal in a long time.

“Where are you going?” I ask when I catch her looking out at the landscape the bus took us through. It’s vast and she seems so young and a little lost.

“We’ll see,” she says, swallowing the last crumbs, making sure with her tongue that everything’s chewed and swallowed.

“You don’t have anywhere to go?”

“Not everyone has a strawberry garden to enjoy,” she says and deflects the conversation. “Why are you leaving your garden behind?” she asks.

“My family will tend to them, don’t worry.”

“Are you leaving your family? Why?”

She sounds almost angry on behalf of my choices and I tell her I’m meeting someone. She snorts as she packs up the trash of the finished sandwiches.

“Worth getting sick for?”

“She is.”

“Hope she’s worth dying for as well then.”

I laugh and tell her that the someone will be worth it. She shakes her head in disbelief.

“Someone who makes you give up a strawberry heaven to sit in a hole and die of sickness isn’t someone worth meeting,”

“She didn’t ask me to come, I just didn’t hear the last of her sentence,” I say and she asks what sentence.

“She said... I wish that...”

The girl sat quietly for a few seconds, waiting. When she realizes that’s it, she laughs.

“That’s it?”

“Her internet has been down since.”

“She probably just wanted to say something like, I wish there were good movies on TV or I wish I’d bought more noodle packs before the stores started closing down.”

“Maybe,” I say but start talking about the last time we met face to face, our last date. We went to the movies, before the cinemas closed. We had to sit every other seat when it was still just an advisory to keep a meter's distance. The distance grew over time. The place was nearly empty as people had already started to leave. We sat with an empty seat between us, sipping soda through straws from sealed bottles. They had stopped selling popcorn, and we couldn’t have shared a box anyway for fear of touching.

In the middle of the highway the bus stops and the bus driver says that this is the last stop. He’s not going any further. Stranded at the bus stop three meters apart, I turn to the girl with only her small backpack.

“Are you going to be safe?”

She looks down a smaller road than the one leading into the city.

“I don’t know. You hear so many stories. People forced away from their lifelong homes, people fighting over resources in the forest, in the cities, at sea... No place seems safe. And where there’s no sickness, there’s fear, and that’s just as dangerous,” she says.

I ask if she wants to follow me, but she refuses. She’s not seeking the sickness. I respect that and look toward the highway with the city name pointing the way.

“Good luck?”

“You too?”

Placing a hand on our chests we bow slightly toward each other. She starts heading towards the narrow road but before she disappears completely she turns around.

“How did it go, anyway?” she shouts from a distance.

“With what?” I shout back.

“With the date! How did it go after the movie?”

The smile in her voice is contagious, and I felt my buff rise with my mouth corners. I raise my arm, showing a thumbs-up.

“After the film, we parted ways, put on our masks, and turned to leave. She kissed me on the cheek, mask off.”

“A love story for our time,” she shouts, and I hear the smile fade as the distance takes her voice away.

“Good health,” I shout, and hear her catch the words before sending them back.

“Good health to you too,” she says, turning away for real this time. I start walking along the highway, where not a single engine can be heard on the empty roads, leading toward the city. I’m glad I didn’t tell the girl I never kissed her back.

The city is empty when I finally reach it. I say empty, but there are people still, there are things, it just has become something else. A different kind of city. People are no longer walking on the sidewalks, on their way to work, sitting in cafés and hanging out on street corners. The few venturing outside now are those with no other choice. They line up in long queues waiting for food, the few still employed hurries across streets with scarves pulled up or masks if they still have them. From a sealed-off building people in hazmat suits exits, carrying clothes and toys they threw in a barrel set on fire to prevent spread.

Most shops are closed up, windows secured with large grates, boarded up with planks, barricaded. Gangs have started to gather in the dark, whispering about hand sanitizer and toilet paper at a cheap price.

Sirens begin to wail, a new one we’ve become accustomed to, not the bomb sirens that were occasionally tested before. A new sound for a new problem. It’s the curfew being announced. Fifteen minutes before people have to be off the streets. I’m at least twenty minutes away, so I start running. Past the empty playgrounds, empty sidewalks, empty stores, empty intersections with traffic lights still lighting up for the ghost traffic. Past buildings filled with people looking out, past the abandoned cars on the side of the road and the long lines for food where people start getting agitated, forgetting to keep their distance.

I round the corner of her place, the red brick layed on top of each other through the whole abandoned street. Only forgotten papers, bags, bikes and discarded contagious clothes are left. I run past them all, knock at her door, but no one is answering. I call on all of the doorbells, knowing most are home, but no one is answering. I call to the fifth floor towards her window, but no one comes to the window.

The curfew is called and the last sound of the alarm shrieks. A man comes rushing through the streets, groceries in hand. He looks at me and pulls his scars he breathes heavily through.

“Forgot my key,” I say as he’s scowling at me, looking back. He still opens the door and lets me through.

“Strange times,” he says as the door closes behind us, locking us in. The darkness seems to follow us and the last rays of sun disappear behind the red bricks.

“You go ahead. I need a couple of seconds to catch my breath,” he says and bows. I put my hand on my chest and bow back.

“Thank you. Good health to you.”

“Good health to you too, boy,” he says and watches me as I start ascending the stairs. A strange feeling suddenly hit me. The strangers on the way through the city were the last humans I would ever meet. It’s a strange feeling, like knowing it’s the last time you’ll do something.

My chest is burning as I almost crawl up the last steps. Her name is on the door, bringing me out of the dream, silencing the chaotic mapping of where I am in the world. I can hear something moving inside of the doors of the floor, hearing the flaps on the peeping hole at the neighbors as they try to see what is going on in the hallway.

“Mirian, I know you're in there,” I say when I hear the clicking of her peeping hole. I can see the door move with the weight of her body leaning into it. It finally clicks from the lock and the door opens. Miriam is standing in the doorway, so much thinner, frailer since I saw her last. Before she can say anything I get in and close the door. She tries to hide her cough.

“What are you doing here?” she asks and tucks her blanket around her neck. I pull up the bag and smile.

“I brought the tea you like,” I say and give it to her. Sighing she takes it but makes sure she doesn’t touch me. First then I remember I’m wearing gloves and the buff.

“Why did you come?” she asks again as I take off the buff exposing my throat, pulling off my gloves, exposing my hands.

“Because you’re here.”

“You should go, it’s dangerous,” she says before another coughing fit takes over. I count three drops of blood on her paper towel. She tries to hide it. When I take a step toward her she takes one backwards. I reach my hand out and she tries to stop me.

“Don’t,” she says, but I don’t listen and hold my bare hand on her forehead, feeling the fever warm it up. She closes her eyes and leans into my hand for a moment.

“I mean it, I’m sick, I can’t promise-”

“What were you going to say? That time we lost connection. What did you want to say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says as I come closer. She steps back.

“What were you going to say?” I ask and she hits the wall with her back and gives up, teary eyed giving in.

“I wish you were here,” she says and I pull her toward me, feeling her breath in my neck, her burning hot skin against mine. Her body aligns with mine and I feel the warmth take over.