Story: Quarantine

The story below is a work of fiction.

Top link in my news story feed was a travel blogger having to file for unemployment because of COVID-19. Imagine being an “influencer.” Calling yourself that. What to put on the census, what do you tell people at parties. Practice saying it in front of the mirror so you come off a sane adult but ignore the uptalk or vocal fry. Is this what we call low-level prostitution now. Overpriced seaside hotels are the new street corners. Boobs and filters. Ass implants and Anavar. Make normal women feel like shit as they scroll down deeper into depression. Getting shat and pissed upon for $50,0000 by a Saudi oil prince and his thirteen cousins. All named Mohammed, spelled the same. At least one of them was decent looking like that one turban guy in Bloodsport. That scene was the only way a man should be allowed to white knight for strange pretty women. They tore down Kowloon Walled City because they couldn’t top that movie.

The blogger had a Youtube channel. She actually cried into the cat in her lap for 10 minutes in her latest video. Full body asthmatic actress Netflix death scene heaving. Alright. At least she didn’t tell me “stay safe” as if I wasn’t doing everything every ambitious dick politician or surgeon doctor health professional nerd is insisting I do. Recommended videos were for some reason all about “challenges.” Everything is a challenge now. Communism black death trench warfare Pol Pot but how many successful water bottle flips you can do in a minute is this generation’s Waterloo. The prize for winning is the coronavirus. What if she got the corona. Make a few final cleavage cash-ins before croaking from respiratory complications. Cat ate her corpse’s arm before she was found. What if I got it. I’d live but end up a jobless pariah having to boil dandelions and tree bark into a reduction paste to survive in the New Normal. Cajun seasoning makes anything taste decent. She got off easy.