T.L., 61, full-time employee in Perth, Australia
“Of course those on high incomes feel like their throats have been cut, but it’s been a godsend for the low paid, young people and typically marginalised.”
“Of course those on high incomes feel like their throats have been cut, but it’s been a godsend for the low paid, young people and typically marginalised.”
“I live with Mom, Dad, Sissy and Bubba // on a street full of families and their pets. // Our pet is me, a boxer. I answer to Bob. // I don’t know why or what happened, but // everybody stayed home one day, all day //and every day since. I am one lucky dog!”
“We imagined summers and kayaking and a garden filled with ferns without leaving the car. But that’s not the drive that we use to fill our time. Rather, we fill the drive with one document after another. For the students, nothing exists but deadlines.”
“My pre-quarantine self was drunk on a deluded, inflated mirage of a functional mind and body. It took COVID-19 for me to realize that it was but a delusion.”
“As the days go by it seems as if all the days are merging together into one big day which has made it quite difficult to stay on track.”
“On paper this quarantine shouldn’t have affected an introverted nerd like myself…”
“How odd it is that in our first picture together her uncle is wearing a mask, at a distance…”
“I didn’t want to mention toilet paper but I think that might be the biggest story of this whole event. Shortages started to happen before the virus even arrived in Australia.”
“I looked at my credit card in hesitation. All the information from the news ran through my mind. How long can coronavirus stay on plastic?I hurried and passed her the card that she grabbed with a glove, swiped then gave back to me along with the glove. Now, I must have her germs instead, I thought…”
“…With the lockdown, I had the time to notice that the Navajo Willow tree in my front yard was sick. Had I not been stuck at home under this pandemic, I would not have noticed the smell—foul vegetable and yeast— from the tree. […] If not for the lockdown, I would never have had the time to observe the arrival of Spring…”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
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