As It Was

How am I supposed to do this?

I open the door to my house and step outside. Trepidation immediately floods my bones. I stumble back inside and practically slam the door. Stop this. You're just being paranoid. My mini pep talk does nothing to calm my nerves. I take a deep breath. I release it and I let the sound become my anchor to sanity. 

I don’t even know why I’m so scared? Well, that’s a lie. I do know why I'm scared. I look out my window. How is no one else struggling? How can they all go back to life as it was before? I can barely even remember before. It feels more like a figment of my imagination than reality.

I focus on the world around me. A couple is running together and they stop to talk to another couple they meet. After a minute they all start off together, talking animatedly. A woman walks her dog. I see a man getting into his truck loaded with tools.

And what am I doing? Cowering in my living room over something that is clearly over. I take another breath. Come on. Everyone else has moved on. You can too. Since when have you ever been afraid of a sickness?

I think of my bookstore. If I don't come back there will be repercussions. Anyways, now that the government isn't giving us money I really need to stay at my job. I tell myself to suck it up and I plunge out the door before my mind can tell me otherwise.

I pull out my keys as I near my car, fumbling with them a little in my shaking hands. I slide in and shove the key in the ignition. The car cranks up perfectly. I'm surprised since it hasn't been used in five years. As I drive I observe almost every person I see. They all look so... normal. How can that be? How are they not feeling the effects? Surely I'm not the only one who is trepid about being out for the first time after a five-year pandemic. The pandemic that instilled fear into all of us. That stole our lives.

I almost think that in the wake of us all being out they will tell us all to go back inside 'Where it's safe.' This all seems too good to be true. When I look around nothing seems changed. It all seems to be as it was.

I pull into my bookstore. It was my life five years ago. I wonder what it will look like now? I'll need to do some serious cleaning.

But when I walk in everything is spotless. Just as it was my last day in here. I think back to that day.

I stare at the TV in shock. They can't be serious. We can't all go into lockdown for who knows how long? How will I make a living? We'll all go stir-crazy. I look at my colleagues. They all seem to be taking the news in stride. As if they got some preliminary warning that failed to reach my ears. When they notice me looking at them weirdly I quickly turn away.

When closing comes I pull the front door to my shop closed and lock it. Something clicks in me along with the lock. I have a feeling nothing will ever be the same again.

And it wasn't. I stayed locked up with my supplies and stepped not a foot out of the house for five years, three months, and twenty-two days. Just like everyone else has. How am I the only one that seems different from what I was before. Everyone else just keeps carrying on like the pandemic never happened.

I walk around through my shelves, occasionally running my hand over a few spines. How I've missed this place. I had forgotten what it was like to be immersed in the smell of books. Still, the nagging at the back of my mind won't quit. How does it look this good?

The front bell jangles and I hurry back to the front. The man is looking at some children's books when I find him. He spots me and immediately asks what I think his eight-year-old son would like. I give him a few suggestions keeping a good distance from him. Just in case. He eyes me weirdly at this but has the decency to say nothing. After he selects a couple books for his son I meet him at the checkout. After I take his money I quickly excuse myself to wash my hands.

***

As life goes on I find my normal again. I had forgotten what it was like before. I guess I'm still finding my way. But I'm more comfortable around people again and I can feel myself loosening up with the sanitation. As each day passes I get fewer looks. I'm still inwardly confused on why no one seems to have any problems, but I've started to come to terms with the fact that maybe everyone was so desperate to get back to normal that's just what they did.

I start to realize that as I shift that I was craving things to be as it was before along with everyone else. I think my shift went pretty well. My sales are great and I feel the love I had before flooding in - no crashing through to my heart. Every time a question pops up in my mind I shove it away like everyone else. My questions don't matter. No one is stuck in their rooms worrying about what disaster the next day will bring. I'm done worrying over what may never again be. Everything is as it was.

***

Even as I struggle to push my questions away, though, they still come, unbidden, into the recesses of my heart. No one who stops by the store mentions the pandemic. I thought there would have been at least one who isn't afraid to talk about it. Are they all so eager to forget it that they moved on like it was nothing? I push the question away for the millionth time.

I help a customer pick out a nonfiction book and we make small talk at some point I say, "Sure is good to be back isn't it?"

The person gives me such a strange look that I quiet down and ring them up as quickly as possible. After they leave I open a box under the counter to find some new books

I immediately go to start shelving them. I flip through a couple of them, loving the feel of the pages under my fingers.

My mind suddenly flashes back to before. I remember placing an order for some books. They came in the day of the announcement. What in the world?

No. Stop this. Your mind's probably just making stuff at this point. You're just borrowing trouble.

I ignore the thought and finish my day out without another hitch.

***

More questions enter my mind than those that leave. Every week I try mentioning the pandemic to people, just in case there is that one person who will acknowledge it. Every single person gives me the same look.

I decide to turn the TV on one night. They talk about the lingering effects of the pandemic. Lingering effects? Guess it must be different in larger cities?

I have forced myself to come to terms with the fact that everyone else has moved on. I shouldn't be hung up on the past.

Even as the thought enter my mind I think to myself, But shouldn't we still acknowledge what has happened so that we can come out better for it? We shouldn't just forget. Right?

A theme I have seen often in my books is moving on but never forgetting. For those whose loved one have died in the pandemic, they are never forgotten. But we do learn how to move on without them. We ought to move on as a people, but we should never just forget what we've gone through together.

***

One night I have the weirdest dream. I'm starting my day like usual, but the pandemic never happened. I get ready and leave the house like nothing's going on. I walk into the bookstore and grab the box of new books. I start shelving them. I help customers throughout the day. It's fairly busy.

I finish my day and go home. I lay down in my bed. I close my eyes and just a few seconds later I bolt upright. I gasp. No...

I hurry into my bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I pinch myself. I even slap myself. I think back to the pandemic. Coming out of the pandemic. It all feels like a blur. This can't be true?

But as the thought pushes into my mind and reality punches me in the face. I hurry to my laptop and search for the pandemic. Nothing. I think back to the people at the shop, seeming to have no clue why I've been so sanitary. I slap myself one more time for good measure.

My breath whooshes out of my lungs. I've been mixing dream and reality this entire time. The pandemic. It was never real. I've dreamt up five years that never existed.

If this is true, which I now know that it is... then everything really is, and always has been... as it was.