A Free Place

Breath. It came in short, sharp gasps that had long been muffled by the familiar cloth covering. If you listened to the news, the air was poisonous and you has to be careful. The truth was probably less severe than that, but nobody seemed to have the answer. Don’t breathe unless you have to. Out of an abundance of caution.

It was hard. The weight on my chest was too much and you could see exhaustion carved into the features of everyone you passed. From a distance, of course. Life felt like it weighed a million pounds, and the minutes and hours were charged with the futility of preparation.

We did what we always did because we didn’t have anything else to do.

Today was just like all of the other ones. Stay inside, but get outside because you need sunshine. Things are getting better. But they’re also going to get worse, so be prepared. Don’t hoard food, but you should also be able to feed your family for a month so stock up. Don’t go out. Unless you have to go out, and then you can go out. Today, I had to get out.

The rules were useless, and nobody really enforced them anymore anyway. Yet, we “prepared.” Even though we had no idea what we were actually preparing for. Hushed voices talked about the supply chain breaking down. Would we be able to get meat anymore? Local farmers had begun building their own mini-supply chains, getting things to people on a semi-regular basis.

The house still looked like it did before. The door and the flower planters were painted a cheery yellow, full of lush plants that were defying the bleak atmosphere of the world around them. Dense greens surrounded the house, tall trees swaying above, completely unaffected. I had never wished to be a tree before, but I suppose I hadn’t wished a lot of things I’d found myself wishing recently.

When I looked down the driveway at the perfectly manicured lawn across the street, the sprawling lawns and hedges down the tree-lined street. Looking out the window, everything was eerie in it’s conventionality. You’d never know things were crumbling. The cars seemed to come and go less. More people walked up and down the street. Nothing had really changed. But everything was different.

Scraggly loblollies swayed heavily. Finn always said one of them was going to fall some day and crush the west side of the house. I always told him that was my bathroom remodel plan. I smirked a little as a pine cone tumbled out of a tree and crashed into the skylight. I never got my bathroom remodel.

I’d miss Finn. I hoped he would find us.

Now seemed like as good a time as any to disappear. When better than when everybody was so busy hiding inside, worrying about themselves?

I just couldn’t prepare anymore. The bruises left by the erratic gravity of the last few months were deep, and nothing was going to change. The tiny foot lodged firmly in my ribcage served as a sort of internal spur, guiding me out the somewhat dated brick entrance of the firmly middle class subdivision. Pangs of fear rose up in my gut, gnawing at the resolve that had taken me months to build.

This was right. I needed to find one of the free places. Some day, we would be together there. I removed the covering from my face. A small part of me expected the air to taste different. Expected my lungs to burn with the first inhale.

Nothing happened.