Welcome to Quarantine Tales. This series shares the amazing work all of you are creating during this unprecedented time in history. Social distancing and quarantine have brought up a lot – share your art, photography, poems, and short stories with us.
Quarantine Tales Week 4
COVID Stories by Julia Justo
Find more on Julia’s website
Self-quarantine, Day 23 by Samantha Slupski
I seemed to freak out about it before anyone else / while people were sunbathing in groups / I carried
hand sanitizer to use after touching every door handle / I did a poll on Instagram asking if I should
cancel my flight to California / and only one person said yes / if all of this tells me anything / it tells
me I need to trust myself more / tells me my intuition knows best / I remember feeling weird about
going on a cross-country poetry tour / but I couldn’t figure out why / and now I think my gut is a
fortune teller / I was planning a different trip for May but just couldn’t quite make the commitment /
and I can’t help but think all of my second-guessing is for the best / and sometimes / people look at it
as doubt / when really / I think it’s my body keeping itself safe before it even knows it’s in danger / I
think this is evolution / they say that evolution comes from living things having to adapt to their
environments / and what I guess I’m saying is that my body has adapted to the close-calls / but it has
also learned from the all the car crash situations of my life / that all this this anxiety is just an airbag
that deployed too early / how grateful that I am that I evolved into having all of these safety features /
because I’m scared if I didn’t / that I would be somewhere in California / having a hard time breathing
Find more on Samantha’s Website and on Instagram
Muddling by Carrie Jean Schroeder
WORLD-BUILDING Q & A FOR SPECULATIVE FICTION WRITERS & EVERYONE IN TOMORROWLAND by Derek Smith
part 1
So you’re building a new world?
mmm
Why?
cardi b demanded someone at the Pentagon “let a bitch know”
still no answer:
Who carries the coroner?
folks who attended real-life funerals via videoconference app deserve optional do-overs
What happened to the old world?
everyone wanted the comforts of conspicuous consumption
National Guardspeople in New Rochelle couldn’t scrub another Lego
Pitbull’s celebrity empowerment anthem didn’t catch like it was supposed to
soap operas ran out of episodes
What kinds of comforts will you take?
my socialized government handout / freedom payment
survival kits assembled by the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribal government
escalators good for feet to get on
the bear I sleep with
my Chromebook bc it helps me know where I stand while pacing around in underwear
Are there people you want to travel with on the way?
Gen-C quaranteam
non/essential abortions
rollerbladers acro-yogis g-ma & g-pa on iPads
Queer Eye’s Antoni if he comes through with parmaggedon, calm-lettes, and sequestered salmon
anyone sun-angled on living room carpet
How will you get there?
hiking
animals such as Egyptian tarmac geese and Japanese subway station deer
recommissioned Ride the Ducks vehicles where the driver leans over the side and scoops up water with a chalice and tosses it back
What will you leave behind?
lemme think
part 2
Ready?
kay
What will you leave behind?
the idea that the Bible is one book. Every book in the Bible should be a separate book. Acts and Psalms don’t need to lay side-by-side in multi-genre matrimony
the podcaster who suggested marginalized creatives deliver interim content during “an entrepreneurial moment”
stays here
Anything else?
clumpy nail polish
spotty pens
STDs that held on even when hoes stopped hoeing
Anything you’re unsure about as you move forward?
criminal hearings and Kimberly-Clark urinal cakes
the marauding biker who threw the first carrot in the prison cafeteria
also unsure about the idea that something is special if it’s rare
like yellow pigment from the urine of cows that only eat mango leaves and purple made from the glands of snails
nm about the biker I change my mind
part 3
Will the laws of nature and physics be the same?
don’t know
why in holy goddam fck of fcks would you ask me that?
wanna ask my top five childhood traumas
You’re angry.
well I look like a boiled potsticker
I reneged my Week 12 Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval
when I saw my city’s breath on the outside of my apt. window like reverse hotboxing
tried to align my crying to calendrical patterns
Sad.
enough of this Marina Abramovic except The Artist is Present Forever bit
when toddlers in the park won’t reach their arms to the sky
Mom is a videogame character who hits walls but keeps walking
I thought I didn’t matter and took so many baths my ball skin sloughed off
But?
but I matter
the Epidemiological Regulation and Control Center under my sink says so
Should natural and physical laws become magical laws instead?
should immunoglobulin antibodies carry scepters to prom?
part 4
How do you envision magic fitting into everything?
magic will be essential and inexhaustible for lovers
I’ve stockpiled words, life forces, and spells for this moment
every time I crawl into the Meditation & Prayer Womb Bathtub
and talk to myself about marmots termites
fog banks
foxes & ferrets
What happens?
bubbles disperse indescribable voodoos
Okay. Will there be land enough for everyone?
there’ll be space
Can you explain?
we will have been folded up for so long
going from “I’m headed to school in the literature nook”
(rolling out the whiteboard/refrigerator)
to sweet alyssum flowers and campfires
It’ll be a transition.
from social chemotherapy destroying the fabric
to fields of pink impatiens bursting when touched
space is gonna be wild
I don’t follow.
of course not, snapdragon
you haven’t taught 9- and 13-year-olds to fill ice cube trays every day for a month
or played Words With Friends 2 with my mother using an online word generator
You cheated against your mom?
I did but I’m leaving that behind
part 5
You seem ready for the new world.
I had no idea mountains could close, my mom texted me
yep, they rolled up the maps, I said, like a geography teacher who sings and raps
What did your mom say?
I said, no mom, for real, when the tulip bulbs heard the geography teacher’s Earth Day bars
“this whole hill is a Hollywood set / with a chicken wire frame and a little cement / when the Man yells, ‘Cut! That’s a wrap for now’ / they roll up the sky and the stars come down”
they sighed in their well-drained soil and turned their pointed ends sideways
You’re excited to get back to nature, though, right?
out of tablecloth cocoons
tent caterpillars crawled
whilst below them, garden trilliums
turned their ears like Ferris wheels
I assume that means yes?
lily pads used to taste like spearmint
Assuming ‘yes’ to my aforementioned question, can you tell me why you talk about the future in the past tense?
I tricked my brain
everyone talks about goals in the present tense as a way of accomplishing them, right?
Some people do.
but in the future, things were different
a paleontologist dusted off a construction beam and said Well well well looks like this Forever 21 was at one point a fossil
Will any laws and/or professions change?
have you seen the video for Lady Gaga’s “Stupid Love”?
the future will be like that and people will pay for stupid shit they did and then get back to dancing
Constellations will be visible at night.
with pink moons to howl at
Sounds like here.
shh
the tulips didn’t actually go sideways in the ground and the 88 musicians didn’t actually put their instruments down
part 6
Anything else you’d like to say?
I don’t love snake tongue but I’ve taken poison before
I’ve spent time kissing myself goodbye
how did it come down to this
scrollin through my calllllllllll list
Norton and McAfee Plus didn’t do shit
Fair.
we have teriyaki sauce on our fingers and wig hair on our shoulders but that’s the prep we’ve been doing for making irredeemable mistakes and high-altitudes changes
in the body politic
in ice
in mom’s lung
in a screaming invitation that you are worthy and we would love for you to come
Find more from Derek on their Website and Twitter
The White Horse by Jordan Cooley
There’s a man I’ve grown to worry about. He has a mustache much like my PawPaw’s — short and thick, a grey and white broom above his upper lip. Though his shoulders hunch, he has lengthy and strong arms with wide, rough hands.
I remember the night I met him, I thought the dancehall smelled much like the one I learned in, sticky spilled beer and cigarettes and sweat. It’s smaller, but large enough that there’s a side to watch and a side to dance. That night, I stood at the edge of both.
I used to know how to spin like that; used to dance with men who would flip me without asking, both of us breathless and laughing that it worked; used to have the audacity to walk up to men who danced well and drag them out onto the floor by their pearl snaps. I was drawn to the feeling of being held, knowing which step to take next, twisting and sliding around everyone else, that brief moment waiting to hear if this would be a polka or a waltz or a simple two-step, learning how they signal (gazing over my right shoulder, the gentle movement upward of their left hand, sometimes a push outwards to spin, rough, danced with too many women who couldn’t read like I can).
And yet, in this country dancehall on the east side, I almost told the old man with the broom mustache no. The first time he and I danced, he pulled me in close and asked, “Do you trust me?” Before I could answer, he spun me out, caught then dipped me. Laughed, “If so, loosen up and stay awhile.”
That night, and every night I saw him, he danced with patience. Had most women laughing at the end. When he met someone who could keep up with him, it looked easy. There was nothing to prove.
I haven’t been back to the White Horse since the start of the pandemic. Not really since January. I worry about this old man. I know nothing about him except the deep crow’s feet, how he’d spin me into a sweetheart and we’d walk the edge of everyone watching, that he’d end the dance with a wink and promise to find me later.
If and when it opens up again, will he be there, waiting? I wonder if at home, does he pull his wife close, sway to Patsy Cline, wrap his long arms around her in their living room? Does he whisper to her, “Do you trust me?” as they try not to worry about the impending tragedy. “If so, loosen up and stay with me awhile longer.”
Find more from Jordan on their website, Twitter, and Instagram.
Together Alone by Ronit Bezalel
Find more from Ronit on their website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
Essential Alcohol by Peter Prizel
You weren’t here a hundred years ago. Not out in the open.
In 1918, the Spanish Inquisition of humanity’s lungs was conducted-
Where were you?
You were locked away in the cupboard of vices
My grandfather- he had to run to some speakeasys’- when he took the train cross country
– upon being accepted to Yale-
He dropped out, chasing
some blind tigers in New York City-
Never sleeping, under their spell for the rest of his life, which
he eventually took-Me,
here I am a century later-
playing a game of Russian
Roulette, without
the same intent.
The state declares us both- essential.
Alive with the mandate to keep others sane during this crisis. To lie-
with the dying, hoping to make all okay.
I dance with them in the day- with you at night.
You are everywhere, masking misery-toasting normality.
You’re as ubiquitous as the death surrounding me- I can’t-
Even groom my whiskers- properly
soak my liver-
dehydrate my brain
it’s what you do best.
Why are you
here giving false-
ly-ing to us?
I do
not mind-
fully aware
that I’ll be- hung
Over- the same precipice
the next morning
when you are out of me.
Grandpa does not want-
me to drown
under your guise
I forego my memories
of this hellish day
when I lost five more
patients- are dying
for what?
The same reason
That you are out of the cup-board
Ing- in all the healthy people’s
Mouths- they were not
Made to be covered you know?
This much which is why I suck
you dry and cry myself
to sleep.
written snippets of emotion by Sadhika Ganguli
i am like you —
standing at the bar of
a bustling building.
you pour cocktails and
i spill my sanity…
you are looking out
into an abyss (or to a customer) —
it’s all the same!
i am gazing into the
shallow depth of myself,
trying to understand
the events that lead
to my suffering.
you are just standing
there!
in lace and with a pale
face — (apathy glazed) —
all the liquor in France
by the tips of your fingers
yet you don’t reach
for a liquid escape!
you are your own black hole!
you are God doing
cocaine on a dreadful
and deadly day!
you and i…
we’re stuck, frozen
in moments untold and forgotten.
all the dilettantes and
socialites talk of art
they wish they understood
and shout poems that
should be memorized quietly.
and we are standing there
in a daze (a haze)
some apparent lethargic,
lazy gaze at a world (a mind)
that’s been set ablaze!
you and i — redialing God’s
unplugged telephone —
getting stuck on the phrase
“call again at another time”
and we scream! people are
dying and i’m trying to
understand why i am pouring
champagne in this man’s
glass!
*Poem is based on Édouard Manet’s painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Find more from Sadhika on Instagram
The Floor is Lava by Mark Henderson
It was good training, that game we played:
The Floor Is Lava—when you can’t touch
the ground in your house, using beds, chairs,
and tables to avoid it. How far
you could jump, how well you could balance.
A fitting prelude to The Air Is
Virus—or, crueler still, The Air Might
Be Virus, falling short of certain
and driving you mad, making you learn
how to walk on your hands in latex
gloves and recycle your own carbon
dioxide for oxygen, and read
up on telepathy and astral
projection to visit your parents
who live in another state or sick
loved ones whose chances are hit-or-miss.
Some arcane martial arts might be in
order too, to fight the likes of that
kid who’d learned to make his way around
the house by making the chair he was
standing on hop; by now, he’s surely
learned telekinesis and can make
the products in the supermarket
come to him with his mind. I’ll bet he
can levitate and generate force
fields too; he was always a show-off.
Emotional Distancing by Pam Benjamin
Looking away is my only form of negotiation
no more terrorism
exploding my own heart
in some 80’s TV movie
you are not the promised virgin
coquettishly waiting among 72
versions, DNA coded on a cloud
lounging, standing, wings aflutter
6 feet becomes a canyon
The secret is knowing the difference
between butterflies and trash
but you look like an angel when you sleep
such perfect lips, this youth
I wake in terror, screaming
two white ghosts reflect behind the screen
objective vs subjective they whisper
and I am suddenly afraid of the dark
Find more from Pam on their website, Twitter, and Instagram
Say I Can’t See by Molly Flanagan
I wouldn’t call myself an Indigo child
I’d call myself a Green Child
But not NPR green (and eco-friendly!)
Or Mar-A-Lago-money green
Wouldn’t go so far as to say mossy green,
Celtic green that runs through my blood,
Just something different from Indigo
Less boho, more FOMO
My dog would call me Red-Grey-Green
If he were to suddenly confound the urge to speak
And identify me from a lineup of other petty Criminal children of the Vertigo persuasion
If my dog were a child he’d be a whiny one
He would whine up and down the halls and from
Behind his cage, something you would never find in the house of an Indigo child
Unless it was Bird Cage
Packaged mint in its original VHS tape in the dump
With all the other long-forgotten tapes, along the likes of
The Brave Little Toaster and Babes in Toy Land
Relics of that suburban wasteland we now call
“The Old Shit Pile Behind The Walmart”
Or, as I like to call it, where green babies are made
Us Green Babies we never get the chance
To live outside of our skin or in terry cloth robes
Somewhere on a beach, the first Makers of the Green Baby retired and died,
Jerry and Pat, probably, they were called
Jerry you fucked it up for the rest of us
Because now we’re Green Babies, in debt babies, no 401k babies
But at least we’re not brown babies
Can jump up and down until we’re all sore babies
Can’t hip and groove like we’re all funky jive babies
Can be color blind and broke and homeless and armed and dangerous and just going for a snack at four in the morning
Can’t be black, and blue, and green (and eco-friendly!) and masked and kneeling,
Face-planting, stemless, into the Indigo Child dream
Palm Trees and fruits I’ve never heard of and
Gun pops and the Fourth of July and
Green to buy green
Unless you’re a Dog who’s buying, or shooting, pigs
In a life jacket, floating
Drinking Malibu and praying to the 50,000-seat, all-access pass
Jesus (with special effects!)
Thanking Him and the Makers,
To Jerry and Pat and George and George and Bill and
Good Old Ron, that we weren’t
Born Indigo or Purple, or any other color of the rainbow.
Find more from Molly on their website and Instagram
Flocking to Public Space by Jocelyn Ulevicus
Find more from Jocelyn on their website
Revelation by Charles Venable
I slept in the day the world ended.
God descended from the heavens
Declaring He was done with us.
The earth shook. The seas turned red.
McDonalds offered BOGO Big Macs.
Crowds worshipped the Golden Arches.
I slept in the day the world ended.
My manager called, “Didn’t you hear?
But that’s no excuse to skip your shift.”
Already, crews of city workers mended the roads,
Billboards rose, advertising “Dasani: Red”
Crowds complained it wasn’t a public holiday
I slept in the day the world ended.
An old man stood in the middle of the road,
And He told me that He was God.
I offered Him some spare change
Pointed Him to the shelter on Fifth,
Accepting all who were no longer wanted.
Smoking Weed in Sweatpants During a Pandemic by Durell Carter
I bleed Indica on Sundays
While I scream Othello
In sweatpants I promise
I will set on fire
Someday because stains
Find homes where
Pride goes to die
And moths prove
That resurrection
Is cute in theory
But death breathes
Because she never loses
And destruction exists
Because life does sometimes
Suck the wind out of
Revivals and your grandmother’s
hallelujah and peppermint candy
gnawing grandbabies
dreams where blue is
obsidian and hope is
pending on financial standing.
Find more from Durell on Twitter
