Dispatches from Quarantine:
Young People on Covid-19

I go outside every morning, at least when it is nice out. I don’t go far, just to my backyard to walk around my pool. Sometimes I only stay outside for a few minutes, once a full hour. It’s easy to lose track of time.

I go outside to forget about what’s going on outside of my clean white fence. I lose myself in daydreams so as to not lose myself in panic. There is no virus in my backyard; there are no bodies floating in my pool. There is just the chirping of the birds and the sun on my face.

I found a swarm of ants yesterday. They were huddled under my fire pit. They wandered aimlessly in that writhing black mass, making it impossible to follow any single ant. I sat down and watched them for a bit. I was careful to sit far enough away that they wouldn’t begin climbing on to me. Over the course of the day, they moved from one side of the pit to the other, leaving nothing behind.

I told my mom about the ants. It wasn’t the first time they had shown up; we often got piles of them on our patio. I watched as she dumped pest killer over the mound. It didn’t take long before the bodies stopped moving and turned the once-frenzied scene into a graveyard.

I continued my walk around the pool, ignoring the ants every time I passed the fire pit. There were some stragglers left after the massacre. I ignored them as they made their way to the bodies, only to ingest the pest killer and die themselves. I didn’t give the ants a second thought when I went inside.

The bodies were gone by the end of the day. I try not to think about it when I pass the fire pit. I try to focus on the birds and the sun. It’s better not to think about it.