text: March 12 I’ve decided to start keeping a journal. Why? Because my friend Matt keeps insisting that we’re witnessing a historical moment and how privileged we are to be doing so. I’m not really sure of the importance of it but ever since I was a little girl I’ve always wanted to keep one, so I thought, why not? I guess this is one of those: hit two birds with one stone, scenarios. My name is Anna, I’m 23 years old, I’m witnessing, supposedly, one of the most important events in the history of the world and I shall be your guide through it. Now, I’ve mentioned this event 3 times already, 4 times now. What is it and why it’s so important? It’s not, really, I just see it as a nuisance honestly, something that upsets Matt deeply, heh, which in turn amuses me immensely. Matt’s my friend and colleague. We work together for CSS, that’s Cyber Security Services, the biggest IT company in the world and we’re working on one of the most important projects in the world. What project? It’s top secret! March 13 Ok, now you know who I am and what I do, I guess I should speak a bit about what’s this world altering event I keep mentioning. Here I go: A couple of weeks ago people started to get sick in some 3rd world countries and several of them have died, well, when I say several, I mean several thousands. In any case, it spread pretty fast and now we’re in lockdown, like locked in our houses lockdown. They say it’s for our own protection, but reports on the wireless show the numbers rising every day so I’m not sure “protect” is the right word here. March 15 Yesterday I forgot to write, nothing interesting happened though. Nothing interesting ever happens anymore since we’re all locked in. Supposedly we’re allowed to go outside for two hours each day and we can either go shopping or walking, as long as we’re alone. We need to do everything alone these days, more or less. What’s the catch? We need to schedule every outing through an annoying government app. We need to give all sorts of details like where why, and most importantly, whatever we do we need to keep five feet apart from each other. All the time! Two hours sound like enough time right? Wrong! Everybody’s desperate to go outside, it’s like they’ve been locked inside forever. And since apparently no one has anything important to do, those two hours per person seldom happen, you either get a chance to walk around the block or the one next over. It’s not worth the effort to be honest. March 16 Guess what happened today? That’s right! Nothing! March 17 I am getting so bored! It’s been almost a week now since the lockdown started and I feel like crawling up the walls. Tomorrow I think I’ll treat myself to something special. March 18 I got a new blouse today. It’s pink. I love pink. They’ll deliver it tomorrow. March 19 One week today since the lockdown started, and all I’ve done so far was to witness the importance of getting bored over and over again in my own home. I hope my grandkids won’t find me in here. Wait, can I still get grandkids if I’m in here? March 26 I know, I know! You’ve missed me! Shucks! What happened? Well, I’ve decided to write only once a week since nothing ever happens anymore. So what happened in the last seven days? Nothing. I’ve worked and worked and then worked some more. Matt keeps saying that what we’re witnessing is very important but I still don’t see it. Anyway, it seems that the disease is still spreading and that more people are dying. Idiots, why can’t they just be careful?! April 2 They’ve reduced the time we’re allowed to go outside to 1 hour now, on the wireless they keep saying that more and more people are dying. Not that many, and not in our country anyway. Yeah! It’s sad. April 9 I’ve been spending more time on the wireless lately. Until recently most of the deaths occurred in poor countries but now it’s happening everywhere. The government is thinking of doing a complete lockdown to see if the situation improves. April 14 It’s happened. We’re not allowed to go out anymore!!! Words cannot describe the immensity of my idiocy. I should’ve gone out while I still had the chance and now I’m forced to stay indoors for lord knows how long. I am truly, truly, stupid!!! I really hope this will be over soon. April 20 I can’t believe how stupid I was! I’ve been stuck in this damn house for 2 months now and I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t wait for this damn disease to be over. I can’t believe people are still getting sick and dying. I mean, come on, how can you still get infected. Everybody is sitting in their damn house. Everything is so damn stupid and pointless. I can’t believe I’ve been sitting in this damn house for two months. May 10 They’re introducing rations now. Can you believe it? Rations! It seems that because of all the deaths there’s nobody to produce essentials anymore and we need to be careful or we’re all going to die. Great! That’s just great. Goodbye life! June 1 Matt’s been driving me crazy. He’s been raving about world wide conspiracies and the end of human civilization as we know it. All I know is that if this doesn’t end soon human civilization will lose my sanity. June 18 Matt’s gotten sick. I don’t really understand what happened, he’s been in lockdown just like me. One day he’s fine, he’s telling me how everything’s just a big conspiracy to lock us up and bla bla, get us all to stay inside and work and be good citizens and the next he’s off the grid. Apparently he got infected through the grocery deliveries or something. There have been more and more cases just like Matt’s and the government has started an investigation. June 25. One of the major food distributors in the country was found responsible for the recent outbreak. I guess Matt was right, we are at a pivotal time in history. I’m curious where it will take us. June 27 Matt is dead. July 17 I met someone today. He smiled at me. He has a really nice smile. I don’t think I’ve seen someone smile for a long time now. I hope it happens again. July 20 His name is Brett. Ever since the Food Court incident, the government has taken food deliveries into their own hands. They take extra precautions to make sure that everything is done by the book in regards to packaging and delivery. Brett’s one of thousands of government employees across the country risking their lives every day to take sure that we are fed and safe. He’s so brave! July 21 It seems that whatever the government’s been doing is working. The number of confirmed cases has been steadily decreasing and there are fewer deaths each day. They say that they’ve been working on a vaccine all this time and that it will soon be released. July 23 Brett brought me a flower today. I’m not sure what I should do with it. I forgot they even existed. July 24 I decided to press the flower in the journal for save keeping. This way I can enjoy it forever. July 27 Brett’s brought me an extra yogurt today, we’re only allowed three per delivery. I think I’ll wear the leather skirt next time he comes around. July 30 You should have seen the look on his face when I opened the door. His jaw just dropped! I was so nervous, the way he looked at me, I could see the fire in his eyes. Hmmmm, now that I think about it more, it was rather embarrassing. He was all clumsy and stiff. Idiot! August 2 I’m happy. For the first time since this damn thing started, I’m happy. I don’t wish for it to stop. October 5 Has it really been so long since I last wrote? Come to think of it, I haven’t really felt these past months go by. It’s been like a haze, a sort of bad dream. First, Brett stopped showing up. He was replaced by this old, ugly man. When I asked him about it he just looked at me and left. I haven’t spoken with Brett ever since, it’s like he simply vanished. I can’t understand what happened. Work has been slow, I have a new colleague, Donna. She’s nice! Quiet. I had to do her training, it helped me keep my mind of things. The situation is still bad around the world. Over one hundred million people have died because of the disease and there are wars raging in several countries. I guess I should count myself lucky. October 8 I’ve been thinking about my childhood a lot lately, about my parents. I miss them very much. We’ve started talking more, I think Mom’s gotten thinner and Dad’s hair is all white now. They look sad, worried. They say that they’re worried about me but I don’t know, I think they don’t know how to be happy anymore. October 20 Winter’s around the corner. I look outside the window and all I see is death. When I was little I used to love autumn. I don’t think I can do that anymore. There’s a tree in front of my apartment building, I think it’s called a buckthorn. For the past few weeks I’ve been looking at it, at the way the leaves turn from green to yellow, from yellow to pink, then red and by the time they’ve fallen they’re a sickly purple. Purple used to be my favorite color. I can’t stomach it anymore. November 3 The last leaf has fallen from the tree. I feel very, very sad. November 10 They’ve started construction of some sort of delivery system. It’s supposed to bring all your shopping directly to your door. Well, technically, past the door. It’s some sort of lift that goes on the outer wall of the building. I’m glad I won’t be seeing old and ugly anymore, he reminded me too much of Brett. December 15 Winter is horrible. It’s not even snowing. It’s just cold. Everything feels cold outside, cold and dead. February 1 We’re no longer getting groceries. The government is sending us already prepared meals. They say it’s safer this way, less chance of getting infected. Honestly it looks like crap and it tastes even worse. February 22 They’ve discovered a vaccine. The government is doing tests to see if it works, I don’t think I care anymore. Nothing really matters anymore. I’m glad I can still work. February 27 I threw away Brett’s flower today. I hated looking at it. March 12 Happy Birthday!!! We’ve been together for one year and I’ve been such a good girl that I even got a treat. What, you ask? I got two pieces of bacon at lunch instead of one and it was delicious. Someone, somewhere loves me. I wonder if I’ll get anything tomorrow?!