Have you noticed how the streets lay barren, soundless, and entirely dead? Have you noticed how the intersections look haunted, devoid of any cars or pedestrians as the light turns green, yellow, and red over and over and over again? Have you noticed also the way the snow melts off the rooftops and silently drips off the side, onto the empty sidewalks?

Perhaps you’ve also noticed the way convenience stores have unusually large signs that announce that they are open and not, in fact, closed, in hopes that a stray human would walk in to replenish their depleting supply of salt or milk or diapers.

Have you, then, noticed the way the mall’s parking lot is deserted? There used to be a time when finding one empty parking spot was a relief. Now, finding a lone car in the midst of hundreds of empty lots makes ones skin crawl, makes the heart skip a beat and makes the brow break into a sweat.

Perhaps you can then look inwards. You say you are in quarantine. You say it’s day fourteen. You say it’s getting long, you say you want normalcy. But, my love, you have been in quarantine all your life. You have been quarantined in the system, you have been quarantined in the social construct of time, in this rat race of money making. Your quarantine began the day your mother gave birth to you. You were quarantined long before you knew it.

Do you, then, realize that perhaps you have just been freed from quarantine? That perhaps your quarantine has ended?

Is this really quarantine – the silent roads, the human unshackled and freed from the construct of time, of 9-5 slavery.

Is this really quarantine – the boisterous homes, the families eating on the same dinner table three times a day, the children seeing their parents for more than just a few hours in the evening, before night falls.

If this is quarantine, my love, I want this quarantine, with all the health and with all the joy that this world has to offer.