Socially Distanced: A Quarantine Novella

Prologue: Day 1

I wake with sore limbs and a throbbing head. As I slowly open my eyes to unfamiliar surroundings, I know exactly what’s happened.

I bolt upright in the bed covered in sterile white sheets. Racing to the door, I reach for the handle only to find that there isn’t one. I run my hands over the solid door, but there is no way to open it from this side. At the base of the door is a plexiglass box about the size of a briefcase. I kneel to examine it. On the left side of the box is a blinking red light, and at the back is a closed slot. I see no way of opening it.

I stand again, knees wobbling. All the blood in my body feels like it’s pooling at my feet. I glance around again. In the main room, I see the bed on which I awoke, a dresser with a small television, a round table and one chair. On the dresser is a small pamphlet marked “REGULATIONS.” Anther door, also without a handle, is next to the dresser. Along the far wall is a sliding glass door leading to a balcony, and behind me is a small bathroom.

It’s a hotel room.

The mirror over the sink reflects my bloodshot eyes, a couple of days’ worth of bristly stubble, and a drab grey-green T-shirt I’ve never seen before.

I glance back at the main door, fighting against the desire to pound my fists on it, scream obscenities, and make as much of a ruckus as I can until someone comes. I could yell and kick and stomp all day long, but I don’t. I already know no one will come.

Next to the door is a small, framed note.

Meals delivered at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm

Selection of luxury items available monthly

Television provided

No outside contact permitted

I’ve been quarantined.

Chapter One: Day 128

I lean against the balcony rail, inhaling deeply on my cigarette and then blowing the smoke into the misty air. I look down on the empty city streets below and contemplate what they looked like just a few months ago.

Six months ago, I was on a subway, laughing and spending quality time with my family.

A family trip with my parents and my little brother, who had just turned twenty-one. My brother had been in the drama club in high school, and his favorite thing to do was to watch amateur theatre productions, especially if they were put on by kids. He was studying to be a theatre teacher. We took the subway to see a play.

The subway. The crowded, stinking, disease-infested subway. The subway we took so we didn’t have to deal with parking fees. The subway that would allow us to drink if we wanted to and not have to worry about a designated driver.

It’s amazing how much can change in such a short time. What should be busy city streets are barren. My active social life, family, and a job that I didn’t hate too much are all things of the past now. I turn around, my back against the rail, and look through the open glass door into the hotel room that is now my home.

The basics have been provided. I have shelter, three meals a day delivered through the airlock at the bottom of the door, and a new book every week on my e-reader. Twice a day, I get running water for thirty minutes. Every month, I get a choice of luxury items, which is why I have cigarettes now.

Could be worse, right?

I turn again, trying not to think about what “worse” could mean. I have to actively stop myself from thinking about those I loved—those that are gone now. My shirt is starting to get wet from the misting rain, so I take a half step back and just look out at the quiet, dark office buildings around me.

My father had worked in an office building much like the one across from me. He’d been a stern man but not unreasonable. My sister Julia never got along with him, which turned out to be in her best interest. She hadn’t been on the subway when the rest of us had been contaminated. She sill lives up in the mountains somewhere in her secluded little cabin. At least, I think she does.

Here in quarantine, reliable news is as readily available as social interactions.

In the beginning, the hotel balconies were full of other quarantined carriers like me. Though we were distanced from each other, we could still talk. Now, I only occasionally see people on other balconies, and most of them are far away. We can wave at each other, but the distance is too great for any kind of conversation. For a while, I had a neighbor named Jake in the next room. Though the concrete wall between our hotel balconies separated us by about six feet, we could still talk. It was better than nothing, which is what I have now. I wouldn’t consider myself an extrovert by any means, but having no interactions with anyone for over a month now is starting to take its toll.

If I’m here, and no one hears me, do I still exist? If I do, what’s the point?

I don’t regret the decisions that brought me here, but I’m tempted more and more often to just throw myself off this balcony and be done with it. My room is on the seventeenth floor, and it shouldn’t take that long for it to be over.

How long would my body lie there before someone discovered it? I look down again, checking for any signs of life on the streets I can see from the balcony but find very little. Occasionally a police car or delivery van drives through the empty streets but not often. When was the last time I saw a person down there? All of the downtown shops in major cities had been closed a month before I was detained. I recall a black, unmarked van driving by once, but that was weeks ago. At least, I think it was.