One Day At A Time

I.

Hong Kong is busy and bright at night. Its twinkling December lights flicker in and out of view from my window seat. The plane hums in silence. As we lift though the sky, my cheeks rub rough against the headrest. There’s no need for a mask. 

II. 

This party is full of intimate strangers. Their bustling bodies remind me of a PTV tram caught in the middle of rush hour. Elbows jostling in motion. Flyaway hands gripping one another to remain upright. A cluster of half-formed friends lean into each other as conversation slips between bated breaths. Someone new asks me a question. Do you have coronavirus? Laughing uneasily, I shrug it off to move on. Were you insensitive or just drunk? 

III.

Why toilet paper is the first to go, I don’t know. But I do know that empty pasta shelves greet the elderly every morning and I wonder how we’ve come to be this way: hoarders of the worst kind, robbing others of the opportunity to get by. 

IV.

I’m sipping a cappuccino in a Carlton café. I was surprised when the barista turned away my keep cup. It’s their new hygiene policy. I thought, ‘Wow Melbourne, this must be serious. How privileged I must be for this to finally affect me.’ My friend I’m meeting recounts her week. She tells me that she’s weary about going out in public. We’re both Asian, so I understand. 

V. 

People on Twitter wield words like daggers, stabbing recklessly into the ether to elicit a reaction. Others are more sanguine, rejoicing at their quarantines. (#meditation #grateful #isolation anyone?). Both camps make me sick. It’s xenophobia cloaked in free speech or entitlement blinded by privilege. But then I remember, how could we expect better? Sitting in his gilded ivory tower, the self-crowned King of Twitter casts a long shadow. 

By now, no one is joking around.