Laboratory testing for viral diseases would not be available for another fifty years.
(nonfiction)
Category: Dispatches from a Pandemic
It’s become a delicate balance, this being open to joy while not in denial of the harsh reality of the magnitude of fear and suffering and death.
(nonfiction)
Why are they sitting next to one another enjoying warm, frothy cups of cappuccino?
(nonfiction)
Did I know them? No.
(nonfiction)
One of my students asked, “Is that your cat sleeping up there?”
(nonfiction)
I sighed, expecting a request to extend a deadline.
(nonfiction)
I drift through the Breakout Rooms like a digital ghost . . .
(nonfiction)
Unwrap four bundles of dry vermicelli. / Let their white locks dissolve
(nonfiction)
The abandoned garden cannot be reclaimed in a day.
(nonfiction)
In all the discussions I have been a part of over the last month, prisoners are a population that hasn’t been discussed.
(nonfiction)
The best part is, they never complained.
(nonfiction)
We’ll sleep on it before we make our final decision.
(nonfiction)
My boyfriend drank a Corona from the box in the fridge. We had bought two twelve packs back in January because it’s his favorite beer.
(nonfiction)
I tell my kids not to touch anything or anyone in the office and, immediately, my daughter touches the statue of the children, the fish tank, and is one inch away from a little girl with a mask on.
(nonfiction)
I never ever sent my kids to school hungry although they were a bit late sometimes.
(nonfiction)
We like our politicians to be bland technocrats, for obvious historical reasons, but that doesn’t mean they cannot occasionally inspire.
(nonfiction)
I found solace in that security guard’s enthusiasm, solace in Ayón’s work, and in the Chicago Cultural Center’s beauty.
(nonfiction)
Then I saw the effect the forced isolation was having on my wife.
(nonfiction)
We are talking about our lack of consistent showering, we are talking about our addictions and telling people our feelings.
(nonfiction)
Downstairs, my grandparents argue over the TV’s low volume, their voices rising and falling like a muffled opera aria.
(nonfiction)
A visual counterpart to our Dispatches from a Pandemic series
To me it was like returning to a burning house to get just one more thing—though I was afraid of what I couldn’t see rather than any blinding smoke.
The ground was frozen. Her body became the same.
(nonfiction)
We panicked all evening, clearing our throats, secretly gargling with hydrogen peroxide.
(The Loop)
“I’m doing fine. You just need to worry about me getting arrested for shooting one of these fucking turkeys who are buying up all the toilet paper.”
(nonfiction)
Maybe if I’m busy thinking about COVID-19, I won’t have room to think about the living, screaming person that will soon detach itself from my own person.
(nonfiction)
After all, as Camus reminds us, plague never really dies.
(nonfiction)
All night long I replayed the five minutes we had spent at this tourist attraction, trying to remember if I had gotten close to any strangers.
(nonfiction)
Another Chicago Magazine 