A Day in the Life of America in the Time of the Pandemic

The afternoon deployments of Coca-Cola semis
Depart from the truck yard in the time of pandemic.
I watch from the empty hotel parking lot as they pass:
The long, red trucks; reinforcements headed
For the front lines of the battlefields of a thirsty America
Now relegated to third class by a virus embedded in its soul.

A rare jet passes overhead, with few seats filled,
As the news says few are flying during this global ill
We, too, sit and wait for our chance to escape.
We expected to head north by the first day of Spring.
A late snow and the virus killed our plans to run away.

Life abruptly stopped.  Time lingers on
In its time-honored way,
Though much slower than yesterday
Which moved slower than the day before
And so on into the hurried past.
Why did we move so fast?
How cluttered our lives used to be.
Now we stretch with wonder.
Was all the rush just a blunder?

To pass time, I take a daily stroll outside our Days Inn door
For an intake of Vitamin D.
How barren and lonely a vacant parking lot can be.
It conjures up a ghostly air,
As the eerie hum of a gentle breeze
Whispers in my ears, the reckoning’s near.

Today’s sunlight sprays a sense of strange hope about to begin:
Something great and powerful in the quiet dawn hovers here.
       Perhaps Christ coming down in the clouds,
       yet there are no clouds today.
Should Christ appear now, it would only be in the minds of men.
The trees celebrate the cleaner air.
Birds replace the drone of planes with confident melodies.
The sky is bright, the earth is fair.

Yet in this rare dream there is also fear.
That hails the Promised Day is near.

-         C. S. Cholas
January 1, 2020 Tempe, Arizona

 

Meet Mr. C, an unexceptional, run-0f-the-mill common man whose life is mostly behind him. His usually tedious life has been one of working hard only when he had to for the shortest time possible and daydreaming what could be if he only had the guts to act. Mr. C has been fortunate to have a wife who keeps him well fed and appears to listen to his routine complaints about the world.  Now retired, Mr. C has reached a point in his life when he realizes it is now or never to break out of his ordinary, ho-hum existence while he still can and experience life from a different perspective. He has taken two years of pondering the pros and cons of exploring a new life from a new place, before finally filling up his mobility van with a few belongings and a full tank of gas. And on a particularly unspectacular day, Mr. C heads out with his loyal, but skeptical, wife in their rusty mobility van through the canyons of Colorado to the warmer deserts of southern Arizona.  What Mr. C does not know and cannot begin to understand is that in his new surroundings something has changed: he enters a world where few cars and trucks move along the streets; a world where jets and the vapor trails behind them no longer stream across the almost too blue sky above him; where the seldom seen pedestrians wear garments that must have come from a 1950 Sci-Fi film. The birds and the eerie breeze break the silence with their own private conversations.  As Mr. C arrives upon his new landscape, he still believes his new life will be his long-awaited well-deserved and comfortable holiday he has always hoped for.  What Mr. C will soon realize, even if it is beyond his capacity to apprehend, is that the days that await him are not taking him to a relaxing vacation but are towing him into the Skylight Zone.

During the pandemic sometime in April 2020

Clouds and Blue Sky

29 March I venture out the motel door unsure if “the sight of desolation”, or “the evidences of prosperity” will greet me. I move into the sunlight feeling something great, maybe powerful, is about to happen: maybe Christ coming down in the clouds, only today there are no clouds in the physical sky, only blue heaven raining down. Perhaps the Biblical clouds exist only in the minds of men and veiling us from the Sun. We live in a world of metaphors that beg us to search for meaning.

The trees lining the property seem to celebrate the cleaner air, oblivious of any virus. But to be fair, it is the beginning of Spring when joy transcends shadows and storms bring promises of fertile days ahead? The air is still for now, yet swells with swirling anticipation. It is raining down heaven

Sojourn in Arizona 2020

24 March I saw on the news that some US government officials are suggesting reducing restrictions for the sake of the economy even if older Americans will be at greater risk of catching the COVID-19 virus. I had a flashing thought-- WOW with fewer elderly out and about, maybe that would mean no more problems finding a disability parking stall at the big box stores Hmm... then I remembered that I am over 65. OMG They were talking about me! 🤔🤓😞

25 March The afternoon deployments of Coca-Cola semis leave their distribution warehouse in the time of pandemic. I watch them pass from where I watch on the empty hotel parking lot; their long, red trucks as if they are reinforcements heading out to those on the front lines of the battlefields. A rare jet flies overhead, perhaps with few passengers, as the news says few are flying during the pandemic. And we too sit and wait for our chance to escape. We expected to be home a week ago. Life abruptly stopped. Yet time moves forward though much slower than yesterday which moved slower than the day before that and so on into the hurried past. Now we stretch with wonder; What was the rush all about?

28 March Taking my daily Vitamin D stroll outside our apartment door onto the empty parking lot, I feel a surge of loneliness looking across the barren pavement. It conjures up a ghostly feeling, enhanced by the eerie hum of a gentle breeze whispering in my ears, "We warned you that this would happen, but you weren't listening."