COVID STORIES

 

Friday, March 13^th, 2020 was the last normal day.

I knew the world was coming to a stop when I got to my editorial class. Editorial was a fourth-year capstone course for the journalism program and the closest thing to a real newsroom I had experienced. We were twelve students – twelve new friends – who pitched, wrote, shot and created content for the Calgary Journal under the guidance of our professor, Sean.

The atmosphere that day was nothing like the high-energy newsroom I had grown to love. The long table where we did our planning was half-empty. Easy-going Isaiah was wearing a protective mask. Calm and collected Daniel was furiously rearranging the whiteboard. Always put-together Sarah had traded her cardigans and lipstick for a plain hoodie. But most concerning was Sean, along with several other classmates, participating from the screen of a laptop.

Days earlier, Sean had been in contact with someone who had been exposed to COVID-19. He was now self-isolating. Several other classmates had either been exposed or were experiencing symptoms. Nobody had to say it; I knew immediately that even though our issue wasn’t set to be released until May, this would be the last time our group would ever meet.

“Here is what I am proposing,” said Sean. “We’re gonna need to do the layout and make all the cuts today. We have to fast-track this and prepare for worst-case scenario.”

We all nodded in agreement. Layout for the last issue took an hour-and-a-half, and cutting stories felt severe when we were supposed to have another week to work on them, but the world was not the same as it was when we created the last issue.

“My story will need three pages.”

“The school board hasn’t called me back yet, so you can cut mine.”

“Let’s open with the society section.”

“Laura, are you cool with being the closer?”
It couldn’t have taken more than thirty minutes to slap together what would wind up being the May/June issue of the Calgary Journal. No one was particularly pleased with the result, but no one was disappointed, either. We were not privy to the luxury of disappointment.

When it was all said and done, Sean gave us one last farewell. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we would never see him again.

We were free to go, but we were in no rush. The seven of us who had made it to class simply sat in a circle, reflecting on how far we had come, acknowledging that this class was not what we had in mind. “This feels like the ending to some stupid teen movie,” Andrea said, and we all laughed.

But under that laughter lurked fear. Fear of losing our jobs, our internships. Fear that commencement would be cancelled, that grad school would be off the table. Fear of being the first person to leave our circle.

Fear that Friday, March 13^th, 2020, would be the last normal day.

We were right about all of it.

 

We got the announcement in the car. Two hours into our twelve-hour trip from Georgia to Arkansas to spend the weekend with her family.

We started our spring break early—7 a.m. Thursday. We swallowed a road trip breakfast—greasy hash browns, a chicken biscuit, instant oatmeal with prepackaged raisins and apples. We stopped to fill the tank and our snack supply. We called our moms to let them know the trip was going smoothly.

Once the sun rose, we rose with it. Now fully awake, we screamed the lyrics to 2000s pop classics and scream-mumbled nonsense to songs in Korean, sure to give our all to the one English lyric in the choruses.

My phone vibrated. A text from my university. She turned the music down. I read the text out loud. Spring quarter would be completely online. Check email for details.

I opened the email. I read the details out loud. My voice felt like it was sitting in the backseat, saying words I didn’t know how to comprehend. Online classes. Consolidation of dorms. Housing refund. Move out. Go home. They needed our decision by Sunday.

I needed to decide if I would stay or leave. I needed to decide if I would pack everything to be moved to another dorm or if I would pack everything to send 865.6 miles home, from Georgia to Illinois. I needed to decide if I wanted to keep the life I’d created or return to the life I’d grown out of. I needed to decide if I wanted to be with my family or the friends I loved like family. I needed to decide all of this in four days.

My phone buzzed again. My job wanted to know by that night.

She called her family, friends, explaining over and over and over again what had happened.

All I heard were muffled noises, like a scene rendered in chalk. I watched the gray road roll endless beyond us. My eyes burned on the highway like the sun on our backs. I gripped the door handle but there was nowhere I could go. I could do nothing but sit and think and fight not wanting to think.

This demanded to be thought about. An issue I thought of as too far to matter was now directly in front of me, mattering more than ever. A problem I thought was someone else’s to handle was now mine to handle too.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I blinked away my daze, realizing her last phone call had ended minutes ago. “Yeah,”

“Are you sure? Because you don’t look it.”

“Just…processing.”

I didn’t want to admit that I’d already processed everything. I already knew what the most logical decision was. I was desperately seeking alternatives where I didn’t have to leave everything and everyone I loved.

She watched the road and I watched her. I realized what would be hardest to leave and cried.