sonora2sonoma

I just awoke from a dream where I was around bunches of people, in close quarters, who seemed completely oblivious to the fact we’re immersed in a viral storm in which such behavior could easily spell disaster.

I had caught wind of a casting call back in my old stomping grounds, Columbia, where some sort of western movie was going to be filmed. I was informed of the date place to appear, a week or two in the future, and to show up dressed, as well as my wardrobe would allow, in western garb. From the way the announcement made it sound, it was almost more like an appointment than a casting call. I informed my wife and she agreed to accompany me to the foothills on the appointed day.

We showed up in Columbia on a bright and sunny morning, where we were supposed to meet the movie folks at the old jail. En route, we were passed, and then followed, by a couple on a motorcycle who were following us impatiently and who finally passed us just inside the town limits, cutting too close to our car in the process.

Just about then, I recalled that I couldn’t remember exactly where the jail was located, so I pulled up in front of the St Charles Saloon and asked a docent, dressed in period garb, where it was. She was obviously working in the saloon as she had just walked out the door to carry something in from a vehicle parked beside the door. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her name. Apparently concluding we were there for the casting call, the woman told us everyone was to assemble inside, informing us that everything was running late and they had no actual idea how long it would be until the movie people showed up, adding that the response to the casting call had been much greater than they had expected.

We were directed into a room around twenty feet by twenty that sat adjacent to another room, similar in size, that served as a historical display depicting a scene inside a home from the middle 1800s. The two rooms were separated by an interior wall that ran around 2/3 of the way from the front entrance and then stopped, allowing people to pass from that room to the other one. We were instructed to wait. The building no longer bore any resemblance to the saloon, as happens often in my dreams, and old-fashioned chairs were placed around its edges to allow seating for around ten to twelve people.

The chairs were occupied by half a dozen or so people, a few familiar-looking faces among them, but again, I was unable to come up with names for anyone. There was no social distancing. No one seemed to be aware of the virus that’s become such a scourge on the country, as everyone was going about the business of congregating in numbers in small spaces, just like they always have. It was as if my wife and I had been thrown back to a time, considered perfectly normal not all that long ago, that contrasted darkly with our experience of late, where masking, sequestration and fear of grocery delivery has become the new normal.  

Michelle had gone outside for what I had thought would only be a few minutes, and I, after securing a cup of the coffee someone had offered me, settled at first into one of the few chairs that provided a little separation from the others in the room. I sat for a bit and pondered what I had learned upon arriving about the unexpected numbers of people who were showing up for what would in all likelihood be only a few parts at best as well as the prospect of waiting an unknowable period of time before the selection process would commence. I thought about the small bus that was waiting outside, presumably to take us to some other location where I imagined we would be interviewed for possible selection to appear in the movie about to be filmed. I remember pondering the risks involved, given the crowded circumstances, and wondered if the entire enterprise might have been ill-conceived, at least in terms of our having chosen to pursue this “opportunity,” given the above considerations.

About that time, I remembered that Michelle had gone off and had still not returned. I headed outside to look for her, but doing so necessitated passing through the other room, which now had mysteriously relocated itself beyond the outer wall—as if the arrangement of the rooms had been transposed when I wasn’t looking—where I found her engaged in playing some kind of card game with a couple of other women seated across a small table from her. She was happily sipping tea and was fully caught up in her goings-on, signaling as much to me as she returned her focus to her newfound friends.

As I was headed back to the room where I had originally taken a seat to wait for the movie folks to appear, I became caught up, still outside, in conversation with two women dressed as docents. I remembered them both from the time when I used to live there but, again, could not produce names to correspond with their faces. One of the women offered us pieces of a cupcake, which she cut into two halves, giving one to each of us wrapped in paper napkins. As I looked down at the piece of cake in my hand, it struck me that, here I was, sitting in very close proximity to another person, while holding a piece of cake in my hands that had just been given to me by the other person after she had handled it with her bare hands, after being sequestered from everyone but Michelle since February—going on 5 months now—with all the attendant masking, gloving, hand-washing, etc., that we’ve both assiduously practiced since the onset.  I knew nothing of the provenance of the piece of cake, knew nothing of whatever standards the two women practiced in their daily lives to protect themselves and their loved ones from contracting Covid-19, save that they were not masked, were obviously not social-distancing, and seemed blissfully unaware of the invisible killer stalking the country.

I then became mindful that I had by that point in the morning experienced a handful of other close encounters of the potentially final kind with people also gathered awaiting the arrival of the movie folks. About this time, it dawned on me that thinking I could participate in such a gathering (or any gathering, for that matter), regardless of the reason for doing so, and hoping thereby to remain safe from possible exposure to the virus was nothing but a fool’s errand, and that I  must have been off my meds to even consider such a venture possible. The odds of exposure increase exponentially when one mingles with others and the odds become even worse when no one wears masks or observes social distancing. Trying to play it safe while ignoring the directives of responsible health officials makes about as much sense as betting your house on the chance you might strike it rich at the roulette table.

The old notion about sexually transmitted disease commonly expressed back in the 80s “when you sleep with someone, you’re also sleeping with everyone else they’ve ever had sex with” applies equally well to the current pandemic, only in this one all you need do is breathe around the wrong person. And, thanks to asymptomatic transmission (a word entirely foreign to my vocabulary a few short months ago), that wrong person could be literally anyone since the usual warning signs of sickness needn’t be present.

And, sorry to be the nag, but masks don’t prevent exposure; they only reduce the odds. The safer bet is social distancing, but that’s no panacea either. And, given our natural human proclivity to mix socially, remembering to remain separate while mixing socially is about as easy as remembering to not scratch your nose when it itches. It’s remarkable how plain things become when you throw out the all the surrounding bullshit and reduce them down to their essence. The only way to avoid contact is to avoid contact, period!

My so-called opportunity to score a part in a movie had become a nightmare! I had squandered all the months of effort Michelle and I had invested in gaining the peace of mind that we were doing everything in our collective powers to keep ourselves safe and whole during this trying and frightening time. And for what???

At that realization, I awoke from my nightmare, back into my regular daytime nightmare of living in the time of Covid.

As much as I’d like to blame everything–from the state of the country to the leg cramps that kept me awake much of last night–on our miserable excuse of a president, I can rightfully  blame him for nurturing the conditions that are leading the country down the disastrous path of our current health emergency. Not only has he failed to act meaningfully to mobilize the country’s resources to stem the growth of the pandemic, he continues to do so, and, worst of all, he is doing it willfully.

Of all the truly awful things he has done since he took office, trying to wish away this virus while many continue to lose their ability to wish for anything is undoubtedly the president’s crowning achievement in infamy . . . so far.

For a man whose use of superlatives has long become both spurious and redundant, few would question his claim were he to boast “nobody’s ever seen anything like it!”

Tim Konrad

2020.07.15