Perhaps my greatest feat today was figuring out how to ‘high contrast mode’ my PC. Thereafter, eating an orange creamsicle shortbread from SnackCamp, getting the mail, brushing my teeth. This was my day, here on quarantine day question mark. I do hope we can walk together soon.

My mind feels stunted, the air is stale! Too late to forget, too late to remember. The pink and white flowers outside strung in the thousands on a cherry-apple-blossom-hybrid feel as though they are deceiving me. “I know the weather this Monday, it isn’t spring. It isn’t my birthday tomorrow because my birthday is in spring.” Impossible to breathe this non-spring, non-birthday air.

And my feet feel swollen. I check them often but they do not look swollen. ‘Perhaps it is the steps of the stairs I climb throughout the day’ I ask. I walk to the stairs and place one foot bare slowly on each step beside the landing. I push harder than normal, investigating perceived pressure as it relates to cells that cry out in extremity.

I stop myself from walking the remaining steps, remembering that I had just configured my laptop from white to black. ‘I am so smart.’

I find this day of quarantine indistinguishable from any other day. This is a day, something along the lines of something?

Hop On Pop Google Calendar!

‘I’m sorry, I forgot’ calendar!

And the rocks. The flowers deceive me, they do not breathe spring, and the rocks haven’t said anything to me about the sun, they do nothing. Worthless stupid rocks.

Detroit, this is my home. It is the name I know the palace I reside to be called, or at least that is what I remember. I brush my hairline back, ‘was it always that far back’ – I click through my Facebook gallery on my phone to see if something has changed with my hairline. It would be a damn shame if these stupid rocks noticed something different with my hairline. ‘What would the rocks think of me if they thought this?’ My hand holds a single string of brown hair “deceiving string of hair!”

I sit back on the couch, after gathering luxuries. Mental checklist: mint shisha, six organic raspberries, three spliced organic raw brazil nuts, two fish oils capsules, five broad leafs of spinach grown down the street, a micro-needle roller for my healthy hairline, beet juice for vigor, and some reverse osmosis tap with exactly ten drops of liquid oxygen so I can think. “Ahh, everything is here” I say aloud as I log into Facebook for the question markth time.

Consuming all the luxuries, coughing a few times, and listening to songs that say things like ‘troubled’ I remember something of significance. “Yes! It was last year I sat in a Mediterranean courtyard and swatted biting flies and whips of dust away from skin and cappuccinos. Yes! It was October, I remember. Ahh, what a nice time that was.” ‘I should write that story I never wrote’ I think. I continue to reminiscence, remembering each memorable, devout moment. Playing MIKA on blast while I know these memories to be true. For a few seconds my feet do not feel swollen.

There is a rustle outside the window, and a blue figure with earbuds and loud chatter passes through my front garden. The mailman! My favorite gift bound, occasional bad news bearing public hero.

And just like that the story I never wrote, of a time I swatted dust swirls away from cappuccinos along the Mediterranean, was gone. If I could remember it again ‘I bet it wasn’t a good story to tell.’ SMH. At least I configured my PC contrast. Another success, another intelligent thing to boast when I again register joy on the faces of strangers in my home, in the mirror, in a cafe down the street. Question marks be scarce!

Will you walk with me? Walk together, close enough to know each other. Soon? A chance to breathe the air you have on the edge of your breath. I do remember the taste of shared space, shared air, your hands, shared gleeful steps while we cackle into the public sphere. And with little grins, whilst catching smiles grow on your true joy face, and with long breaths of exhale beside each other.

Walking with you.

Walking to nowhere.

To taste new breath, new love.

Soon.