Love In The Time Of Pandemic

Chapter 3

When I was younger, I heard a song by a rock band whose name I don't remember, and one of their songs was about the tree museum and how one day we will have no trees left in the world because of capitalistic greed, and we will have one pathetic tree in one pathetic museum, which will be the highlight of the tour and little children will ask what that is, and sad, bitter parents will talk about the days when trees used to cover the Earth in copious numbers.

This forest and this pandemic reminds me of that song. Every single time, I wonder in fear if this is what we are fated to become. If that future that their song predicted is what our world is slated to become.

It made me feel queasy in my stomach to think about it, so I ignored that thought, pretending like everything is fine.

That is what I did for the past few months as the pandemic grew larger and larger, and life as I knew it, disappeared faster and faster. It was easy to ignore the deaths at first. They were in faraway places, places that I had put on my bucket list to travel someday. Countries in Asia, and Europe. Everyone said, it won't affect North America, of course not, we are safe here.

And then it hit us. It hit us bad. It was even worse in North America than in the rest of the world.

Now, I am walking through a forest to my home unsure of when life will ever go back to normal. I had so many questions for Gordon - being the leader of our camp, he should know a lot more than I do. But I was afraid to know the truth. If he told me that this is a permanent state of life, that we can't go back, that there is nothing to go back to, I would have to get rid of all of that hope that's squeezed into my heart right now. And that could possibly kill me.

Ignorance was much better in this regard.

We walked in silence for hours, or what seemed like hours. My brain was tired with all of the thoughts swirling through it. But my body was excited. It hadn't been out of that stifling camp in the past ten days, and my cells were ecstatic at all of the movement and motion.

There was so much to observe around me. Not only have I never seen a forest in the dark like this - it was still early morning, but also, I had never had an opportunity to walk behind Gordon's beautiful body before.

I'm such a pervert, I thought to myself with glee. I have never felt ashamed about the fact that I am hornier than most. Or at least lustful more than most. There was no reason, in my opinion, to hide it. Isn't it a good thing? A sign of a virile and healthy body and mind. Why wouldn't I announce it to the world?

But I have been betrayed by lovers in the past, because of my sexuality, and my need for intimacy at a higher rate than most. I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me. Maybe I am built differently, I used to think. My hormones might be screwed up or something in my head? No matter what tests I did on myself, they all came back negative. Healthwise, I was A-Okay.

Thankfully, I decided to take it as a sign that I'm the one who's in the right. Everyone else is in the wrong. A difficult decision to make for sure.

"What are you giggling about back there?" Gordon said, turning around to look at me. "You look like a psycho standing there, smiling at your own jokes." Was he serious? Did I really look crazy right now? Well, add it to the list of 'things that are wrong with me'.

"It's just that your bum looks just delectable from where I am standing. I can't help but admire it and feel grateful to the world that created such a perfect ass."

It took him a second, but he caught on quite quickly.

"Ah, I see. You are an ass connoisseur. Good to know." He started walking again, as if the conversation were over, but I had more to say on the subject.