It’s an odd world we’ve entered and to keep pretend busy, I’ve started running to use up time. As the old medical mantra goes, time is brain, and TV time is destroying mine.
I lace up my shoes one afternoon while contemplating the meaning of it all. I was thinking about my most recent conversation with my grandma.
“It’s biblical,” she proclaimed, “G-d is sending us a message and we should listen.” I’m still not sure what message that is, but this situation does seem awfully Old-Testament-y. Reading CNN often feels like the passage from the Haggadah about the 10 plagues in Egypt. It starts with the loss of toilet paper, continues to the social distancing from our friends, and ends with the loss of loved ones. Life is now a modern Passover story.
I love feeling the slap of my feet on the pavement. The first few minutes of a run are always my favorite. I’m full of energy, feeling like I can run forever. I watch as the cracks in the sidewalk go by underneath me, rhythmically. My formerly white shoes reflect the sun back at my face as they bounce up and down.
The trees wave as I jog past. I don’t wave back. Waving is what I have been reduced to when I see my neighbors on my runs. Waving, and running around them at a gentle radius of 6 or so feet. This is no longer a time to stop and chat, the environment is too intense; the worry lines on everyone’s faces are too deep. I run past the usually most put together neighborhood mom. She is in sweatpants and her face is wrinkly and sullen, entirely devoid of make-up. What is happening?
I feel the first bead of sweat slowly drip down the side of my face, tracing a path to the corner of my mouth. Does coronavirus travel in sweat? Why am I scared? I definitely can’t give myself coronavirus from my own sweat. My heart is thumping in my chest. Is that from the fear or the running?
As I round a corner, two couples come into view. They are talking and smiling tightly. Well, sort of talking. One couple is standing in the middle of the street—which is an acceptable thing in our neighborhood for some reason—and the other is on the sidewalk. There is easily 15 feet of semi-mandated social distance between them. So, really, they are yelling.
“Josh used to have soccer practice every day at 3 PM and now I have to deal with him every day at 3 PM,” I can hear one lament, as I get closer.
I have to get past these couples. I glance up at their faces. They are watching me. All of them are watching me. I see uncertainty in their eyes, and I imagine they can see it in mine. One of the women is slowly rocking her child in the stroller as I approach. I feel very slow. I make the split-second decision to run between them rather than run into a tree or make an enormous circle.
As I start running through, they part. Like the red sea parted. They spread in unison for me to pass through, on both sides, smoothly. The movement is seemingly practiced and entirely unnatural. I look to either side of the canyon I’ve entered and keep running. I’m trespassing and so vulnerable.
I emerge out the other end of the pass and sigh with relief. I realize I’d been holding my breath subconsciously, for my own health as well as for theirs. I turn around to watch the waters reclose on the coronavirus chasing me. The couples now resume their former social distance, swallowing the Egyptians and Pharaoh in the closure.
My Grandma was right. There really is something deeply unusual about this whole thing. Maybe it is biblical.
Ezra Brooks is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Ezra can be reached by email at [email protected].
