Co•vance

/’C ʊvañcë/]

Adjective

1. A romance formed between two individuals during Covid-19

“Who said Covance was dead?”

Noun

2. A person with romantic beliefs or attitudes.

“He was a hopeless Covantic.”

It was late afternoon. I felt uneasy. My body was stiff from sitting all day. I had missed my daily morning walk. Every day for the last five years, I had walked nothing under 5kms each morning. It was my ritual, and most of my body would deteriorate if I didn’t walk. I had been diagnosed with a rare kidney disorder five years ago. Coffee would help.

As I slowly pushed down the French press. I became sad. I was a lonely old man — 89 years of age. Most of the people I knew were either too dead or old, brothers, companions, friends. All faded away. The year was 2086. I had seen the turn of the Millenium, advances in technology, and witnessed events that had changed the world. My nostalgic daydream was interrupted by a faint sniffle and woof. Kosmos, my faithful Cocker Spaniel, grey and old as I. His leash was in his mouth. It was decided then. An afternoon walk was on the cards.

After layering up, Kosmos and I set off into the green belt above my house. I had purchased him an extendable lead so that he could wander five or so meters without pulling his old man to the ground. Sniffing and pissing away, Kosmos was in his element. These walks that we shared were as therapeutic for me as for him.

Kosmos and I were retired in a peaceful estate, Belvedá, nestled by Vityazevo Beach north along the Black Sea coast. Ironic one might say that I had chosen to retire here. As a child, my family would rent in the estate and enjoy countless August afternoons picnicking on vodka, cold meats, and Zavarnoy bread by the briny black seawater. As we grew older, life had progressed. Paths differed, parents passed, and my siblings had drifted away like poorly positioned buoys — insight by far away. The majority of my life had been in Europe. Interning in a summer during my early twenties would be the steppingstone in my 40-year European stint. I had begun my life in Belvedá, and now had chosen to live out my twilight years here.

We usually would steer down right at the end of the green belt toward the jetty by the lagoon, but today Kosmos was leading me towards the forest pathway. The walk was peaceful, and one would rarely bump into fellow residents on the walk. I had spotted a Grey-headed love bird. I wasn’t entirely sure of it and had to be sure. My babushka from a young age had introduced me into the world of bird watching. I carefully took out my binoculars and focused its lens…yes, the markings were of a Grey-headed love bird. It had to be a…my observation was abruptly interrupted by Kosmos pulling violently at his leash, which resulted in a loss of grip and me stumbling after him into the overgrown pathway that Kosmos had run towards.

*nickname for my grandmother in Russian

I found him peeing against a metal pole sticking awkwardly out of a bush — damn dog. I was so huffed up because I had lost my bird sighting that I hadn’t realized where we were. My memory wasn’t sharp at all, or should I rather say my recognition of past moments wasn’t quite all there. Suddenly the Grey-headed love bird came whistling past, taunting Kosmos as he flew over the jutted pole. Both Kosmos and I stumbled after it to gather a better look. Our endeavor was cut short by a broken fence that was overgrown with vines. A fence? Why was there a fence in the middle of the green belt? Kosmos was sniffing vigorously at something by the foot of the broken fence. Covered in dust and plants, I went to inspect.

My goodness.

A sign, with “Bird Sanctuary” was printed on it.

The diameter of the sanctuary was a mere 150 square meters. It was difficult to distinguish the sanctuary boundary because the pine trees had thickened around the outskirts. Flowers of all kinds. Shrubs crawling all around. Birds chirping away. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was my memory of the birds chirping or actual birds chirping. I was immersed in a deserted memory. I became cold. Drizzle had started and seemed to saturate the greenery around me, like a preset on an editing app.

The nature around me was having a profound effect upon my senses. With each snippet of botanical aesthetic, my memory was clearing. It was as if the vegetation was providing a gateway from the present outer world to a past world of sorts. My past world. Not even a world. That was too whole. A slither. A segment. A chapter of my past.

It was like the development of a polaroid picture. Slowly fading into a clearer picture. Desperately searching for my polaroid, I trudged through the abandoned sanctuary. Bits of broken benches were found. Kosmos came across a bent bird feeder. Trickling throughout the middle was a stream of sorts. Another sign was stumbled across. It read, “No Dogs allowed. Birds mating”. I could swear Kosmos muttered, “ironic.”

Exasperated, I sat on a broken bench. What was the point of living a life full of memories when one failed to locate one of them even remotely? I closed my eyes. Rain hovered in the air with a slight scent of damp circulating around me. Come on. What had happened in this sanctuary? I gazed yonder at the trees, and my eyes found our lost bird acquaintance from earlier. A fellow Grey-headed love bird had joined. The two were perched on a branch. Nothing existed in the world other than themselves. Why were they called love birds? Were they actually capable of falling in love? While lost in my love bird conspiracy theory, the wind picked up, vastly swaying the trees in a rhythmic motion. Something wasn’t quite right. The ‘branch’ hosting Romeo and Juliet wasn’t swaying at all. Ah, it wasn’t a branch but an arch of sorts. A faded outline of a gazebo structure could barely be seen from my position, but with a closer look, it all came back. There too, under the sturdy gazebo was a bench. I sat. Yes, I remembered this place. Romeo and Juliet stayed. It was as if they wanted to hear the memory as well.

Her lips were sweet. If pink had a taste, her lips defined it. It began in a nervous fashion. Both trembling yet smoothing when our tongues familiarized themselves. It was dusk, and the lamppost behind had cast a warm amber glow over the newly kissed. I could taste the two glasses of gin that she had guzzled to calm her nerves. She hadn’t touched the baguette sandwiches that my mother had helped me make. Sweet man.

It wasn’t a normal kiss. No, this had hours of talking tension behind it. We had met a mere 12 hours prior the kiss. We had spoken over the phone every second to third night of the week. Late night conversations that felt a few minutes yet when completed clocks would read the early hours of the morning. We only called at night. It simply didn’t feel right calling during the day. It was as if the night hid our digital affair. She had insisted on not using facetime. Her voice was essentially the breadcrumbs I had been following for these past two months.

We had followed on the media of social. Silently stalking when no one was watching and gathering an idea of what the other person was like. She was a bubble wrap princess who wore pink on Wednesdays yet was grounded and did not float in Versace clouds. Fashion was her world and had sparked common ground in the early stages of our courtship. We bared similar lifestyles. We had lived luxuriously through our parents and wrote letters on our classiest moments around the globe. We also shared the age of 13.

Left and right, I swiped — finally, crossing paths on a dating app. With German efficiency, phone numbers had been exchanged. The phone calls prominently replaced the text messaging in the first week of talking. I was located in the North while her surroundings consisted of pastures that rolled into the southern coastline. Get in the car and see her. Meet her. Stop hiding behind a screen. Stop falling for a voice, a concept, a dream.

My friends started calling me Joaquin Phoenix. Not for his performance in Joker but rather his role in HER, where he falls in love with the voice of an operating system. Scarily with one airPod in the ear, I could immediately see the similarity in comparisons. Her voice was what I fell asleep too. Dreamed to but unfortunately didn’t live to.

Desperate to put a soul to a voice, we tried many angles and gaps to potentially catch a glimpse of meeting the person in ‘real-life.’ This time I couldn’t blame a drunk friend or an embarrassing family member in cock blocking me but rather a fierce new character, Mr.Covid.

Mr.Covid was the cockblocker. He didn’t go away. He planned on staying and killing everything in his path, from businesses, to people, right to potential romances. Overnight it seemed that a global pandemic supposedly caused by bats in China had circulated around the world. From Sochi, we still joked over beers at the Italians cooped up in their apartments during their lockdown period. Little than a few weeks later, Russia was too under lock and key. No socializing, traveling, and far we’ve come as a block country.

My parents had advised my brothers and I to head to our rented holiday house in Belvedá for the lockdown period. What started out as three weeks slowly progressed to an indefinite lockdown. It was at the beginning of this lockdown saga that I decided to download a dating app.

She sparked my attention from the first message. Chats with other girls seemed to dissolve. The focus had lasered in on a target. The first few weeks were littered with false-hope moments of potential meetings. Sleepless nights of sexual tension followed. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. It became a hopeless hobby as my younger brother called it. I was living Hemingway’s Old Man by the Sea, desperately chasing a fantasy Marlin. Two months had gone by. Still not meeting. We were strangers that knew each other well.

One would lose track of days in the week with Mr.Covid. I think it might have been a Tuesday. It was hot, and I was lazing by the pool, reading a Swedish crime novel. Sasha, my Siberian husky, was circling the property as if he was expecting a visitor. I retreated to the coolness of the kitchen for shade and a peanut butter sandwich. The sound of Mac Miller was floating throughout the house. An abrupt vibration interrupted the chorus of *Blue world.

*Blue world, an iconic single from Mac Millers’ last album, Circles.

A phone call or text during lockdown was always a treat.

“Dare to live a little?”, read the text. It was from an unknown number.

I foolishly looked around the room as if the messenger was sitting by the couch or in the kitchen. Laughing at the absurdity, I replied, “Sure, why not?”

I awaited in an anxious state. One min…5 mins…Buzz!

“Your gate is broken; I think you should come fix it.”

Gathering a shirt, shoes, and Sasha for security and a mask, of course, I ventured through the front door to receive an answer to this mysterious texter.

I’ve personally never taken psychedelics or tripped out on a sort of drug. The various explanations from individuals that have taken part have painted a vivid feeling that one goes through in the ‘deepest’ part of their trip. The second you fall deep in a moment that sucks you into space where nothing around you exists other than a single person, thought, or feeling.

There standing by my gate. A girl. Petite. Blue eyes. Small and delicate-featured. Pretty in a flawed, accessible way. A vulnerable quality stemmed from her presence that masked a strength even she didn’t know existed. Her hair blonde, somewhat fragile, intelligent in expression. She had a rosebud mouth. A beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties. She had a pale, milky innocence and bright blue eyes, thin and somewhat frail-looking, yet possessing an internal flame of self-disposition.

Wearing pink. Smiling away. My God. It was her in the flesh. My legs wobbled. My heart dropped harder than the match points Federer dropped in the 2019 Wimbledon final. All the social media pictures. Selfies from Whatsapp. Flowing from my gallery file into a real-life persona. Virtual was meeting real life. Word had become flesh.

She unclipped the gate and started her way towards me. I was about 2cms out of the front door. Calmly, with finesse, she flashed a Colgate smile and chuckled,

“You’re shorter than I expected.”

Her eyes blurred her greeting. They were bluer than the Santorini sea. If diamonds were a perfume, she was wearing it.

I coughed out a reply of sorts. My head started to spin. The world around me was blurring. Yip. The peanut butter had definitely been spiked with psychedelics.

The sun sank lower in the sky, the light of day draining away, giving way to the velvety dark of night — colors subdued in the fading light and buzzing of mosquitoes filled the air. The temperature had dropped. I felt the soothing cool breeze becoming absorbed in the music of crickets, letting the gentle energy of nature wash in. Twilight had fallen, the shadow of the lamppost had faded into dark of the greenery surrounding it. Only the faintest of light shone through the leaves. The lamppost, a dim orange glow, shining on Romeo and Juliet. The sky was a silver-grey. Romeo and Juliet had cuddled up closely. I envied them.

A gentle growl stemmed from Kosmos. His eyes darted towards a broken-down pine tree. The tree was submersed by dead nature that reminded me of a black hole from space. Two yellow-tinted eyes emerged from the black hole. His midnight paws smoothing the crumbled ground beneath, initiating his course. He raised his nose to the sky, a kiss of dampness hung ready to meet the tender earth. He switched his tail left to right as if to rid himself of the gathering tension that came with the hunt. Cusping a meter from the gazebo he moved towards us with the slink all true felines possess, claws still sheathed. In a vast, swift motion, he pounced up. It reminded me of an elegant Olympic gymnast. Those jumps that seem to be performed in slow motion, where one truly gains an appreciation for the professional precision of the gymnast. This time it wasn’t a landing spot but rather two Grey-headed love birds that the gymnast was aiming for. Romeo flew directly upwards while Juliet sprayed the left-wing. Both birds missing claws by inches. The birds seemed to retreat in complete opposite directions.

The black cat poised on the arch that previously inhabited love. He shot Kosmos and I a deathly, cynical glare. He knew that it was inevitable that his claws would find at least one of the Grey-headed love birds. Elegantly he positioned himself next to me on the bench. Looking up with his gold, melted eyes. I could swear he was smiling at me, like an old friend smiles at you when you are reunited.

“Hello, Mr.Covid. It’s been a while.”

Copyright © 2020 Kimon Sarandos Aylett