I roll over and check Twitter. This is my wakeup ritual. I immediately spike in anxiety. This virus will stop my heart. I will die. I still have to go to work. I won’t have a job. My city will collapse. I will have no money. All civilizational suppositions are out the window. I need a better weapon. The police will cease bookings for property crimes, prostitution, drugs. The Fed is creating insane volumes of money. Stocks won’t stop falling. Everyone online is screaming. We have no information. We have some information. It contradicts the other information.
In 15 minutes of reading I get my first heart palpitation. They’re lessening day-to-day, however I’m withdrawing from caffeine, it’s day 5 or 6, and myocarditis is a symptom of COVID-19, so I’m neurotically checking my EKG on the Apple Watch. I’m convinced this disease will get me. My immune system is great, I’m relatively fit, my diet is great, and the occasional PVCs are a death sentence. Are these allergies? The snot is quite viscous. But there’s a lot of it, the coughs aren’t dry. This happens every year. But not the throat pain. Am I breathing normally? I don’t want the antihistamine, it might fuck with symptoms, I don’t know. I might not know.
I pace my living space. I put my phone down. I pick it up again and check the time. I put it down again. I check my watch for the stock market. DOW is down 1,300 points again today. I have no stocks. I don’t really know what it means. It looks bad though. Are things collapsing? How do I prepare for the future? Will I participate in coming upheaval? Will I drown on dry land? Will my heart stop?
I take off my watch, place it on its charger, and check twitter on my laptop. More information. Contradictory information. The Italian numbers look good for mortality of my age group. The Italian numbers are insane for asymptomatic infection. 50% asymptomatic? For what timeframe? Will they show symptoms?
Oh god, I work tomorrow. I work at the hotel again tomorrow. Will I catch it? There’s subsidized housing for the elderly literally across the street. I see it every day. They sit there and smoke all the time. I recognize them as I walk past. A frail looking bunch. Will they be carting out 100 corpses? Asheville drags in humans from every corner of the States, from Europe, from Asia. They’ve all been here. I’ve been touching their passports and IDs. I’ve gone straight after to eat out. Did I infect them? Am I asymptomatic? Oh no.
Okay. I’ll probably make it. PVCs aren’t necessarily from a structural cardiac issue. I’m probably fine. I’m fine. I don’t know. 10% of fatalities from people with cardiac conditions, is this a condition? None of the doctors told me to worry in the past. They all told me NOT to worry. I’ve had ECGs. But I don’t trust them. I don’t trust doctors. I don’t trust them. But I’m fine. I’m a healthy, healthy man.
It’s probably unethical for me to continue working in public. But I’m fine.
I wish I could wear gloves at work. It survives in air a while, facemasks would be nice, too.
Is this what I want to be doing? If these are potentially my last days, why am I doing this? I should write. I can’t focus on that story. Ah, what should I write? I’ll put on Netflix. I like cooking shows. I feel a little better. Okay. Okay. Cat’s in front of the minifridge. Guess I’ll break my fast with pistachios and an orange. Why the fuck am I still intermittent fasting during the apocalypse? Ah, gotta keep my BMI low enough to be considered for a ventilator when I get triaged, aahaha. Oh, man. Fuck.
Okay. Okay. Today is going to be fine. What an hour to be reading Oryx and Crake. Okay. I have insurance. I have a job. I’m young. I’m healthy. If God really wants me dead, there’s no stopping it. Ah.
Just wish I’d really tested myself. Just wish I cared more. Get Fascism a little better now, though. Hopelessness, no good information, no direction. Clear ideas, words, an outlet to plug emotions into that would create definite results. It sounds easy. It sounds like a relief of burden. Anxiety is a function of not knowing what to do next. Of being unable to weigh different versions of the future and find an answer for the next minute, hour, days, weeks.
I think I’ll make art. I think I’ll write and make art. If I can’t focus on a narrative I’ll write this. I’ll write exactly this. I’ll get it out, and I’ll start on a narrative. Alright. Sit down. Write.
