Static

2:30 a.m. March 16, 2020.

Some nights the crickets chirp louder than before. Some nights like tonight. I wonder why. Are they as despondent as the many humans wrapped up in one nightmare or the other?

Yesterday, I saw a kid overdose on OxyContin. And his younger brother who had found him screamed and screamed, and you could see the terror and uncertainty in his nine year old eyes. When the paramedics had arrived and rushed into his room, their mother had tried to shield the little boy from the trauma, but he had already been traumatized. He had seen it — his brother unconscious, probably dead. How do you un-see something like that? The boy woke up eventually. And when he saw his Mum and his brother waiting with him in the ICU, he cried and cried, he had been traumatized, too. I’d wanted to ask him what an OxyContin overdose felt like, and what exactly had happened to him, like maybe he choked before he passed out? maybe the choking induced the passing out? Was there even choking involved? I don’t know how OxyContin overdoses work – maybe . . . it feels like the mass of flesh that failed in the body of my neighbor’s kid. Right in his living room, close to his window, he had a full blown asthma attack. I could see it from my apartment balcony, since I was camped there, because my apartment had become quite unbearable to sit alone in (I am not complaining, though) – anyways, right there, he started flailing and heaving, and initially, I thought he had been choking, but then he fainted – pooled to the floor — and his Mum who had heard the thud, barreled toward the boy and said to someone I never got to see, “Fetch the ventilator, Kasie!” and I thought, What a sad time to have a respiratory disease, and then they saw that I had been watching and they shut their curtains. But it doesn’t really matter, it was just a book, anyway.

2.45 a.m. March 18, 2020.

“By the time the apocalypse began, the world had already ended”

The kids will be alright, at least that’s what the adults say. Maybe –

The kids will be alright –

The kids will be alright

I dunno – I dunno –

That’s what they said about little Jimmy, who lost his hand in the guillotine December of 2003, “What was a guillotine doing in their home, in the first place?” Mother had asked. I dunno. “Serves them right, those Okekes, always doing strange things and bringing strange things into this neighborhood”, she’d said. And little Cassandra, who wasn’t so little anymore, who lost her father in a fire. The Fire of '02, that’s what they called it. But Cassandra's mum had another name for it, one that drove them out of the neighborhood, a name that nobody ever wants to speak about. Mother said it’ll be alright – Mother said it’ll be alright – Mother said little Jimmy was reckless, said it was cosmic karma and little Cassandra’s, who isn’t so little anymore, father deserved it. But the kids are all right. They are all right! They have to be all right! they have to be they have to be

3:00. a.m. March 20, 2020.

I am exhausted.

3:15. a.m. March 25, 2020.

May, 2019: I moved into this apartment. Mostly to spite Dad, and everyone who said I couldn’t do anything on my own. Seems ironical, though, because they contributed to the early deposit. It doesn’t matter, it is still satisfactory – my own home, my own space. Id seen the apartment, which is on the second floor of a three story building, on my way to Phyllis’s on someday I couldn’t be bothered to remember. The building had looked fairly new, and the apartment, itself, was fairly cheap (which was the main attraction) because the landlord had been battling a rat infestation. Its walls were painted this hard, repellent shade of Yellow – that seemed to turn Orange when a certain amount of light hit it – that should have deterred anyone from considering it, but it had a fountain in its living room and that was pretty dope. The fountain wasn’t anything too lavish (some people wouldn’t even consider it a fountain) but it was enough to keep me interested; plus, I wasn’t anybody. It served its purpose. Mum almost had an aneurysm the first time she’d visited. I haven’t been to see anyone in a while. Not that im complaining but –

I should call Phyllis, check up on her.

2:35. a.m. April 1, 2020.

When it all started, the sun was bright. And the darkness that enveloped the others never really got to me. Day 22, and the greenness of the grasses have become extravagant, air is fresh, like walking into a new world, into a new reality that feels so unfamiliar, so alien. Even toilet paper has become too expensive. Happy April Fools’.

3.00 a.m. April 3, 2020.

The earth must be laughing at our misery. Har Har. The joke’s on us. Rid the world of those parasites! Breathe!

2.35. a.m. April 4, 2020.

There was a party yesterday. An Ice cream truck, parked in the middle of the street, blasted REM’s It’s The End of The World As We Know It and then gently rolled into Exit Music (For a Film) and then Cheerleader and then We've Got the Beat and finally Dancing On My Own. They all seemed appropriate yet inappropriate at the same time, which was slightly weird. Id expected people to throw tantrums and demand everything was turned off, but that didn’t happen. Everyone just danced from their balconies, laughed, took photos and made video recordings, danced some more. Seems ridiculous now, but it felt nice. Very nice. I hope it happens again.

3.15. a.m. April 5, 2020.

They said this helps, it doesn’t. Maybe someday Id reread all this and I would cringe so hard that my body crumples into itself and then disappears.

3.00 a.m. April 6, 2020.

There are no crickets tonight. Hmm . . . Will investigate later.

Midnight. April 7, 2020.

“ . . . our dear, beloved apocalypse – it drifted slowly from the trees all around us, so loud we stopped hearing it.”

Why does everything feel different at night?