Quarantined Hearts: A Coronavirus Story

Quarantined Hearts

I opened my eyes to be greeted by the darkness of my room. Moonlight, and sounds of singing spilled through my balcony window. Things sounded peaceful outside, but my chest seemed to be made of wheezing bricks every time I tried to take a full breath. The blood pulsed through my ears as the head rush turned my room into dots and swirls as I sat up to take a Tylenol. It was a time of fear in Italy, and we all denied our country's grim diagnosis, a deadly pandemic, until it was too late. I was just a single digit in the onslaught of cases on the news, a single speck in the sea of infection.

I was lost in thought, until I jumped at the low voice from my window.

"Hello, y/n."

The mysterious figure standing on my windowsill said.

He adjusted his earrings from behind his jet black hair.

"Sorry about all this."

He gestured to the pile of tissues and cough drop wrappers on my nightstand.

"This has to be a fever dream." I shook my head. "There is no way that rip-off Gerard Way is standing on my windowsill at 3AM."

"Rude." with a flourish of his wrist, my chest constricted, and I hacked up a nasty mixture of blood and mucus into a tissue.

I gasped for breath and stared up at him.

He gave me a condescending smile, and leaned against the window frame.

"Who the hell are you?" I said, my chest still heaving in my struggle for air.

"Who do you think I am?" He smirked. I was too distracted to answer.

In my state of virus induced confusion, I stared at his white striped turtleneck, and thick, chain necklaces. He wrapped himself tightly in his black trench coat and glared.

"What are you, dumb?" he spat. "Since you clearly can't put two and two together, I guess I'll have to do it for you. Such a pity. My friends call me Covid, at least the ones who haven't died."

There was a silence only filled by singing in the streets, and he shrugged.

"Sorry." he laughed, and then his face quickly went dark. "The ones who haven't died, yet."

I laughed at him, unable to take him seriously. His pale face warped into a scowl.

"Don't mock me." he said.

"Sorry," I laughed and coughed up another wad of phlegm and blood, much to his content.

"I can't believe you're sitting in bed unable to breathe, your entire country is on lockdown, and you still laugh in my face like I don't exist."

He wasn't wrong...

"What else would you want me to do?" I challenged him. "Why are you even here?"

"Don't think you're so special, y/n. I came to the first open window I saw."

"Thanks for the compliment." I rolled my eyes. "So you're lonely."

"What do you expect? People either don't acknowledge my existence, or want to get rid of me. Neither is pleasant. Just like your room. Too many dirty clothes on the floor." He turned his nose up. "I'd like to get out of here, and I'd like you to come with me. I find your company acceptable."

This was definitely a fever dream. Fuck it, I had nothing to lose by enjoying a lucid dream with the angsty teenage plague rat.

"Sure. I'm down. I have nothing to lose-" I stopped to blow my nose.

"Don't you want to know where we're going before you agree to come with me?" Covid asked.

"Nah, I couldn't care less. This is a dream, anyway."