Things I'm afraid of, in the beginning of the North American COVID-19 pandemic:
- I will die
- my son will die
- my spouse will die
- my siblings will die
- my parents will die
- my extended family will die
- my friends will die
- any of the above will get sick sick sick with this disease
- any of the above will get sick with this disease and be alone and suffering
- any of the above will get sick and try to call for help and help will not come
- any of the above will get sick with something unrelated—a big old lump under the armpit, say—and the health system will have to shrug and say "we just don't have the resources"
- any of the above will get sick with something unrelated, like allergies or a cold, and people will come after them with pitchforks
- any of the above will get sick with something unrelated, like allergies or a cold, and it will weaken the immune system enough for C19 to sneak in and make life awful
- I am infected and asymptomatic and therefor merrily spreading this virus among people doing important work, like grocery store cashiers and pharmacy workers, who will infect others, and we will all die in 21 days
- we will run out of food
- the grocery store will run out of food
- garden we are halfheartedly planting will be a total failure
- people take a crazed mindset at the grocery store and start stabbing each other for Lysol wipes and chicken
- the grocery store will start price-gouging and we will have to spend $40 on a bag of flour
- the produce supply chain will collapse without migrant workers and we will have nothing to eat except very expensive Ontario peaches, which I do not care for
- our electricity will be cut off and we will have no way to cook the shit in my freezer
- we have no firewood for any kind of camping fire for cooking
- all three of the propane tanks in our shed are empty
- the water will be shut off, and our tub is insufficiently clean to store water
- the kombucha I'm brewing will give everyone the runs
- I will lose my job
- my husband will lose his job
- my husband's boss will be like, "I hear children in the background!" and we'll have to stay mouse-quiet during business hours, aka the daytime, when human children are the noisiest
- We will have no money for $40 flour or rent
- we will be evicted in the middle of this
- we will have to live in a tent in the middle of the Central flats
- we don't even own a tent—should we buy a tent? In case? Maybe a yurt?
- my anxiety will flare to the point where everything feels like it's underwater and it's hard to tell what's real, which makes living in a time of deep unreality even tricksier
- all the therapists will be laid off or furloughed to work as ICU nurses
- I will become crazed for interactions with people I'm not related to by blood or marriage
- I will start drinking in the morning
- I will become agoraphobic and very fat
- my anxiety will eat my body and I'll become very skinny
- my sense of boundaries will become totally uncalibrated and I'll behave inappropriately after we're allowed to shake hands again, like a cat with a scratching post
- my son will never go back to preschool and see Miss Heather
- my son will not start kindergarten in the fall
- the library will never reopen
- I will have to learn how to homeschool, which I emphatically did not sign up for
- I will do a terrible job at educating my child, and he will enter the post-pandemic workforce stupid and illiterate
- we're heading towards some post-plague Dark Age, towards a loss of knowledge and an embrace of cultish leaders and demagogues
- we are all collectively traumatized by even this lite version of social distance and loss and grief and when it actually hits us where we live, we will be totally unable to cope
- our children will be traumatized by growing up under the shadow of this virus and become socialized to never touch, which will make middle-school hormones especially difficult to work through
- we will forget who we are and become our worst selves
- we will forget each other and how to be together in love and community
