Quarantine

Day 2

I froze for a minute, completely disoriented. Usually, when I was talking to myself, no one responds. That didn't seem to be the case tonight, however. I frantically looked around, terrified for a second that there was someone in my house that I didn't know about. I calmed down a few seconds later when I realised that if there had been an actual break-in, I would have--at the very least--heard the door open.

"Hello," I said quietly. "Who's there?" I was more than confused at this point. Where did that voice come from? I was pretty confident that I had never heard it before, but then again it was kind of hard to tell.

"Hey man," The voice said back. "Hope I didn't scare you too much. I'm on the other side of the wall." We hadn't had neighbours for months. So when the heck did this person move in? I hadn't seen or heard anything from this apartment since our last neighbours moved out.

"We don't have neighbours," I responded, regretting accidentally starting his conversation already.

"Well, you do now," The voice replied. My dad used to live in this apartment, but he temporarily moved out to take care of my brother. He still rents it though, because my brother only lives in the United States six months out of the year. The other six months, he lives in New Zealand with my mom. That's why you probably haven't heard from him in a while. But he's back, for now"

"And you come into this where exactly?" I asked them, not sure where they were going with this.

"I live in New Zealand with my mom. I only come back to the U.S. for a few weeks out of the year. Well, that's the plan anyway. It's not really working out too well for me at the moment."

"Because of isolation?" I asked him.

"Well, kind of; you see, New Zealand has closed its borders to all non-citizens and non-residents to try to slow the spread of the virus. So, seeing as I've only lived there for a year and a half, it doesn't look like I'll be getting home any time soon." Came the reply.

"And what about your mom?" I asked them, sort of curious now about this stranger.

"She isn't a resident or a citizen either, so they won't let me go back and live with her. But I'm sure she'll be fine, she's an essential worker anyway so it's not like she'll even have time to miss me." The story was kind of sad. The fact that whoever is on the other side of this wall has had to go through so much already scares me. I could have never even dreamed of going through something so terrifying in my lifetime, but now it's a total possibility. And the fact that people's families are being torn apart, and can't even see each other...

I didn't even wanna think about this anymore.

"Wow," I said. "I'm sorry,"

"Don't be. It happens. At least I'm still alive. There's plenty of people that have it worse than I do."

"Yeah, maybe, but still..." I was at a complete loss for words. I wasn't the type of person to comfort people anyways; in all honestly, I usually only made it worse.

"So what about you then, what's up with your life?" I hesitated for a moment before answering.

"Well, my mom is also an essential worker so..." I started, not sure why I was confiding in this strange person I had never even met before. But they seem to trust me for some reason, so I guess I might as well. And I guess we have no one to tell anyways. "At the moment she's just working from home, which is alright I guess, but it kind of sucks because it just seems like she never has time for me right now... I mean, she's always either on the phone or video chatting with someone, so I guess it just feels kind of lonely without her. And, in a few days, she has to go back to work, so I don't know if I'm going to see her at all for a while. She's probably going to be spending all of her time at the hospital, so I guess I'm just gonna have to fend for myself for a while; which has never really happened before, so I'm just a little anxious about it, is all. But it's fine, no big deal." There's nothing but silence between us for a few seconds, and I start to get nervous that I've completely overstepped my bounds. I didn't want to come across that I was ignoring what they just told me but at the same time, I just had to get that off of my chest.

"Yeah, I get that. It really sucks, what's happening right now. All we can do is wait it out, and hope it gets better somehow. But I think as long as we just take this one day at a time, we'll be okay." It kind of shocked me, how this person I had never even met before today was trying to cheer me up. They didn't have to do that, especially since they were in a much worse position than I was. It almost made me feel bad like I should be the one to try to comfort them. But I just... don't know how to. Especially at a time like this. I was never the most positive thinker in the world. Actually, I was quite cynical. And right now I wanted nothing more than to curl up under a blanket and just forget everything. It was just too much for me.

"You know, I should go," I said quietly. It's getting late, and I would like to wake up at a decent hour."

"Fair enough. Maybe it would be a good idea for me to sleep off some of this jet lag anyways. Catch you later?"

"Yeah, for sure."

That night, I lied awake for what seemed like hours, thinking about what the heck I was doing talking to a stranger on the other side of my apartment wall.