oh fuck, it's [insert date/month/time/whatever] already

A window in my apartment is broken. The one at the foot of my bed, responsible for the harsh rays of 6 a.m. sunlight that lights my sleeping figure on fire, like a slow cooker. Speaking of slow cookers, I was supposed to pick one up for $15 in downtown Brooklyn, but I was lazy and lied to the nice seller that my nonexistent roommate didn't want to buy kitchenware in the midst of the pandemic. Oh yes, my window. It fully closes, but there's a gap on its right side where the stubborn frame refuses to fit its hinge. It's cold in this apartment, then it's hot, and then it's cold again.

In my first week of living here entirely alone, I thought I was having hot flashes or a slight fever and resigned myself to the possibility that I could have the virus, but it's just the poor ventilation that's only going to get worse, rest assured, in the coming months. It's almost May, but since I paid rent this month in late April, I experience time like an iridescent blur, like I'm a character in a choppy scene of Chungking Express. I remind myself that after May comes June comes July comes August, and then it would be the anniversary of my inconsequential year in the Big Apple. Let me entertain you with a flashback scene: That first day I drove into Crown Heights from Washington, DC, hair wildly streaming out of my rental minivan, I imagined the weekend farmer's market in front of the Brooklyn Museum was a welcome celebration for me, myself, and I.

I went on a Heather Havrilesky binge today, and for once, I feel comforted by the weight of another person's words that isn't journalism, that isn't prose — just words for a friend from a friend, and I feel at ease. I worry about getting sick, but then I wonder: Do I fear the uncertainty, the potential for death, or the debilitating loneliness? Perhaps I fear everything, but it is a muted, ubiquitous fear that has seeped into my goose-bumped skin. It is a part of me, and I am comforted by this fear. This fear reminds me to wash my hands. It keeps me alive.

“When this is all over” would be a lie, so I’ve stopped saying it. I close my eyes and — don’t you dare laugh — manifest my future. I imagine myself lounging in Prospect Park, wearing that Reformation dress with the flirtatious slit, a sun hat over my long blonde hair, sipping on chardonnay. I am not afraid of people, no, I am an improved version of myself from last August, but a little older and a little wiser and a little sadder as a consequence of living. “It’s so nice out,” I’d say, but the words wouldn’t sound vapid and meaningless as they once did, when we took for granted sunny Brooklyn days and 4 a.m. subway rides, when the only time I ever thought of a pandemic was in fiction and New York apocalypse novels. This time, I’d actually mean it and my heart would feel full and swollen and alive with the gift of what America loves — freedom.