I sit at my desk. It’s 6:30 am. I open the computer and it makes one of those tired sounds that people in their mid-50s make when they sit on or stand up from a couch. Aside from groaning, it sort of talks to me. Today it says: not again, man. I think it’s a bad sign. I put on my headphones. Easy 90s on Spotify (don’t judge). I start writing.

I have been writing a series of ESL coursebooks over the last month. And while it is something I have wanted to move my career into for the last few years, I have never been busier. I have taken a job that requires putting out an enormous amount of pages in a very short amount of time. Because I am a schmuck.

When I took the job I rationalized: can’t go anywhere anyway, might a well make some cash, just a month of work, then I can relax. These are all well and good, but in the throes of the work I can’t even see straight and I am not thinking about money and I also can’t remember the last time I cleaned my body in water.

At around 10:30 am the cat is standing sideways on my lap looking into the crook of my arm. She’s sort of like a statue only she growls a little if I backspace too fast. There is nothing on the Earth that will keep a cat from doing an action it has learned that it can do. About six years ago the cat realized that loud meows got me to turn on my sink faucet and so it is what I have done first thing every morning for, well, six years. And every day since she realized that she can get up on the desk from the floor, she has done just that. But it doesn’t matter, I am writing.

At noon, Burke brings a sandwich. I eat it but I can’t remember what it was and I asked for something to eat about an hour later. When I was reminded that I had just eaten a sandwich, I squinted and recalled the faint taste of mustard and chicken ham. There’s a weird mesmerized state of being one can get into when working on writing. Though I have approached this state with other work, it seems more intense with writing. It’s a small world that is quiet but for David Gray kazooing on in some distant background.

I get rather into the teacher’s book description of the lesson plan. I write it like a robot but I know exactly what’s happening and what will happen. I try to liven things up with jokes that only I will get, but I’m afraid of getting fired or, worse, being told I am not funny by someone who has to pay me. Still, things get intense. When I reach the closing section of each lesson, I feel as though we have been on a journey together, of verb noun collocations and pre-intermediate grammar boxes. When I end the lesson with the closer, I break into tears. The cat, uncomfortable with this show of emotion, barks at me. David Gray doesn’t say anything.

I wrote a book in a weekend once. Sadly, I am fairly certain that it’s the best book I have ever written and I wrote it in 70 hours. I have been working on another book for six years and it sucks the sweat off a dead wildebeast. Life isn’t fair. But it’s the only other time I have reached this level of meditative writing. I hope that when the coursebook is done and I have handed in my work I can continue working like this for myself.

By 13:30 pm, I have to teach and I speak to my students as if I am speaking through bog water. I make little sense. The cat leaves my lap, I think she’s lost interest when I’m not writing. David Gray is nowhere to be found. I have made my way to a new level of something, but I am not sure what it is. I just wish I had a sandwich.

At the beginning of class, I don my headphones, get my notebook ready, and click on the link. The link brings me to a little virtual room into which students begin aspirating with a vroom. It sounds like the magical characters in Harry Potter zooming into the ether to another location.

“Hi guys!” I say, too chipper, trying to remove the little gap of reality that sits between us all, namely the fact that we are all at home and we won’t be leaving, let alone seeing each other, for a long time. On the bright side, I think we are all wearing pajamas. After I say hello to everyone I say, “Oh, don’t forget to say hello to…”

“Hi Larry!” the group says.

Larry is our FBI guy. Well he’s my FBI guy. We are certain that he sits in on classes and listens to us discuss the unreal past, the probable future, and the unbelievably, uncannily fucked up unreal present. So, if Larry wants to sit in, why not.

Some of my students seem to be better than others. Some are quite demoralized about being cooped up in their homes for so long. Others seem fine, these are the ones usually at their family homes in the country somewhere and who, though surely a bit depressed and thrown off, have seen this as an opportunity to sit on the lawn and not do things.

When a demoralized one speaks, I just know it. There’s a voice now, a Corona voice. It has a mildly desperate plea in it that is shucking its subtly. Some might come out and say “I am not doing well.” But even if they didn’t, I’d know the Corona voice. I know because I have it. I hear it in myself when I chat with a friend or my family at home. It’s a creaky and small voice in the back of my throat that says, “Fuck man, this thing better end or I’m going to go to the zoo covered in chum and grabbing a wolf by his genitals.” I let the demoralized ones speak about being demoralized. “It’s OK,” I say, “this is only temporary.” But they can tell I’m just as demoralized as they are. They no doubt hear my Corona voice. We sort of have an unspoken support group. The Demoralized.

And who can blame them?

The world becomes Coronafied. People have it terribly bad out there and I am fortunate to be able to be locked away in a flat in Prague 6 with only occasional trips to a grocery store or a walk around the park. Still, while I get it that I have it much better than many others, I have certainly begun to descend into a mouth of miniature madness.

I have not worn pants in a month. Not even looked at them. I wonder on occasion how they’ll fit when I go to put them back on in late-May and have thus resolved to start a diet in late April. Maybe early May. Mid-May at the latest.

Going out means wiping things down, boiling a mask, hand sanitizing in a routine my hands haven’t seen since I was twelve, and dropping my clothes into a hamper at the door before I walk like a surgeon about to enter surgery until I can turn on my sink with my elbow. Therefore outside doesn’t occur that often. I spend an awful lot of time, though, staring through the window at the reckless maniacs below.

My people skills are depleting. Not only people skills, but what to do to go outside skills. A mailman rang the buzzer yesterday and I had to check three times that I was wearing pants. (spoiler alert: I wasn’t). I’m sure it’ll get better before June. In any event, I don’t think anyone else will forget to wear pants either.

I have full on conversations with my cat, who is becoming a real dick. She knows every step of my day, so the mystery is gone from our relationship and we both know it. It’s sad. We schedule the day with two meals. Breakfast-ish and dinner-ish. There’s something in between that sort of resembles lunch, but it’s not so much food as the time when I begin to wonder if it’s OK to start drinking. It usually is.

While I drink more days during the week now I find that I am rarely intoxicated. I mean, I can push through if I need to (heroically, I must add), but it usually doesn’t happen. I hope that ability comes back too. I have accepted a writing job for a series of coursebooks that are devouring all of my time. I am up at 6 am writing and at some point in the day I stop when my back hurts too much. So while people talk about Corona free time I squint and try to remember what it was like.

I guess this is going to be talked about one day. Everyone will have a “what were you doing during Corona” story. These will probably grow and become little myths. One day Max Brooks will write an oral history of it and I will read it. As long as there are zombies in it. The thing is, I don’t know if I’ll really remember what I spent the Corona time doing. I’ll remember work and not being outside and rather staring out the window at the Prague weather getting nicer. I’ll remember a ton of work and talking to my cat and the big day every week when we go out for groceries and then the twenty minutes after we get back when we clean ourselves and all of our things.

But I really hope I can get drunk after this whole thing.

How many beaches have you died on?

Three. Due to camera magic (as we call it, well as I call it) I died on Omaha Beach twice in Saving Private Ryan. Once I was blown in two and the other time I just fell down in the water. The third time was in The Pacific when I died on Peleliu. 

Which beach was your favorite to die on?

While I got to hold hands with Tom Hanks on Omaha Beach, Peleliu was a lot warmer and the hoagie tray was much better. Also I got to chat with that kid from Jurassic Park in between takes.

What movie makes you laugh no matter how often you see it?

Saving Private Ryan. Because of the times we had. You spend a lot of time laughing with guys while you’re laying in the sand and being gritty.

What’s the hardest thing you ever worked on?

A Vietnam flick I did called We Were Soldiers starring a little known gent called Mr. Mel Gibson. I played a Vietnamese soldier (I’m shortish). Napalm deaths are a bitch. Lots of flailing.  

Do you prefer dying on a beach or inland?

Great question! There are benefits to both, of course. The beach assault takes took twelve days, which means I was wet for and my underwear was full of sand for twelve days. To be honest, I would go more for an inland assault. In Band of Brothers, my character jumped into Normandy and had a few lines before he tripped a bouncing betty and got part of his face blown off. One of my fellow walking dead was a “hanger” which is what we call the paratroopers who died in the jump and were hanging there. That was the money shot, but those guys had it tough. Dangling around, genitals all bound up and cinched up, I mean, they were brought cakes all day, but not drinks so they didn’t have to pee.   

After counting on my fingers and toes, counting backwards, and consulting my computer’s desktop calendar, I have deduced (rather brilliantly) that it’s Sunday. Almost immediately I forget it, as it doesn’t mean a lot these days. We aren’t going to work and we don’t have a television that we use to watch television, but rather movies and series online or on DVD.

Truth be told, I have not been a “television watcher” for many years and I mean that literally and not in the uber-obnoxious way that some do. (I don’t even own a television.) But rather for fifteen years I have mostly watched things online. I can easily binge a sitcom if I am in need of a screen-time comfort zone. And I have a log of comfort shows and movies – Seinfeld, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Shaun of the Dead (though not recently). I can’t remember what it’s like to need to adhere to a TV schedule.

But I remember liking it. There was always something great about good TV nights. Seinfeld was on Thursdays along with Friends, The Single Guy, and the unmovable ER. And plus there’s always something brilliant about stumbling across a show rather than putting in a DVD of it. It’s like getting an extra rush of excitement. And I do think it’s why we love flipping through the channels so much. We are like primal hunters, with a remote in one hand and a box of Cheese Nips in the other, looking for the mother lode of TV that promises to be just around the corner. The first few minutes of Jaws. A replay of the Eagles Superbowl game. The very tipoff of a 10 hour M*A*S*H marathon. An episode of Columbo from the 70s. The non-remote holders might shout “For God’s sake, just stop here!” but we say “Nae! There’s something better yonder!” and beat our chests to clean our sweaters of Cheese Nips. Or something like that.

Mar 11: Day 1 of work from home. Made list today. 2 online courses. 3 novellas to tweak. Finish novel. By the time this all blows over in April, I’ll be one productive SOB.  

Mar 12: Pretty productive today. No online courses, but cleaned bathroom & organized T shirts from oldest to youngest and then again from lightest to darkest. Went to store, no evidence of panic buying, lots of available TP, milk, eggs. Interesting to note that pizza pastry and hotdogs are completely sold out. Gotta love Czech priorities. These are my apocalypse people.

Mar 13: Need a better schedule. Getting up around 7:30 but not getting to work until 9ish. Morning mostly spent drinking coffee & looking through kitchen window and watching people sneeze.

Mar 14: Having a friend for dinner, have sanitized and wiped down everything. Will decide about sanitizing friend when she gets here. Never realized how much I touch my face.

Mar 16: First day of actual quarantine. OK, know it’s not “quarantine” but who the f cares about semantics at this point? Not supposed to go anywhere at all, but if we do, we need a mask. I feel like I’ve been training for this for a decade. Need to stay alert in case something bad happens. I really need to stop touching my face so much.

This morning I awoke, made coffee and then sat down to work. It’s there that I saw my note in my notebook:

Monday  

• Brush teeth
• Wash hands and face
• Take walk & visit nature
• Finish and send article
• Pitch two more
• No Seinfeld

“Oh yeah.”

I brushed my teeth and washed my hands. Then I took a walk from my east windows to my west windows. At the west windows I watered my plants. Nature visited.

The Czech government has put us under a “full quarantine,” which, as I suspected, has its caveats. The Czechs – bless them – would never let us go without visits to the shop, visits to nature, and they would never keep us completely isolated from beer. But we have to work from home.

Introduction

The aim of this report is to outline your travel options during the end of civilization. The recommended tips and ideas comes from the U.S Bureau of Happiness, Relaxation, and Dining.

Current Situation

Since the beginning of time, the world has been slowing moving towards its end. Then Trump got elected and Alan Rickman died and that end seemed a hell of a lot more imminent than it was before. At this point, a plague is eking its way across the world and American leadership doesn’t believe in medical expertise and science as much as it does Donald Trump and an invisible man who lives in the sky. No, not Muhammed. No, not Anansi. No, not Odin. No, not Ratovantany. No, not Shiva. No, no, no, not any of the Sun Gods. No. Not Mahakala, Cautantowwit, Coyote,  Batara Kala, Zamba, or Mr. Rogers. The other god. Yes, the one with the cherubs and the beard.

To summarize: there’s a good chance humanity is fucked.

Places to Go

The end of humanity means big deals in the field of travel and leisure. People are scared to fly, so this is a good chance to cash in on some very cheap flights. The U.S. Bureau of HRD suggests getting around to places while pilots and airlines are still willing to go there. Pretty soon, Italy might be on lockdown, so there is a strong push towards taking in sights in Rome, Naples, and Venice. By the time the lockdown is overturned Venice might be for scuba diving only. If you go, get a slice of pizza at a place called Jerzy’s near the Spanish Steps.

We suggest bringing four gallons of hand sanitizer and 400,000 wipes.   

Burke: “Hey, can you find some hand sanitizer?”

Me: “Hand sanitizer? Yeah, sure, I think so.”

It was Thursday. I was on the metro, heading to a recording session for an ESL magazine. I jotted it on my list and went back to reading.

Shop List

Rice                 Beans              Lentils             Peas (green and chick)

Tuna                Frozen meat    Pasta             TP                   

Soap                Hand wipes     Hand sanitizer

I looked up at nobody and said aloud to nobody: “I’m not worried.”

And I wasn’t. But I was.

Earlier that day a buddy called and mentioned that his wife (who was vacationing in the mountains) had heard from other Czechs vacationing in the mountains that there was something of a mild, not so much panic, but let’s call it a panic to get emergency supplies at the supermarket. This, of course, was in response to the recent outbreak of the Coronavirus.

In general, the notion of dried goods and canned food around is a comforting one. If there were a snow storm warning or even the threat of pattering rain I might make sure I didn’t have to leave the house. So I took this recommendation in stride and made my list.

Since the outbreak of Coronavirus, news and information has been all over the place. Website news sources are certainly using dramatic terminology – urgent, outbreak, dramatic, panic. Donald Trump, employing his trademark brand of cool collected leadership in a time of worry, said ten sentences about Coronavirus, each contradicting the last and all of it together sounding like a person who not only was mentally unfit to be president, but not mentally equipped to be handing out cheese samples at a supermarket. Fortunately, by the end of the day, he had put his Number Two in charge, a guy whose name he hasn’t said out loud four times in three years and who also believes that science is a liberal hoax and that a man with a beard who lives in the sky created the world 6,000 years ago. So, you know, I felt safe. To cover his bases, Trump also intimated that the Coronavirus was the Democrats’ “new hoax.”   

While I do think the epidemic is being blown up sensationally, I also think it’s good practice to be careful, to err on the side of caution, and listen to the experts. They say to stay at least a meter or so away from possibly infected people (i.e. those sneezing or coughing or whose eyes are bleeding) and to consistently wash your hands. Also, avoid hand contact with your eyes. This one is tough. I love a good eye rub, and plus, once you make a body part off-scratching-limits it becomes forbidden fruit. I was done for.

I blinked a few times, rubbed my eye with the back of my sleeve and mapped out my day. I figured a quick stop to the mall supermarket and the drugstore across the mall hallway would be a jiff.