Outside, the snow finally gone, with the sun splashing around the low blue sky people are out in hordes. Families with children on scooters, couples arm in arm, old people with canes, the joggers, the people on bikes and me. This is why I want to stay inside, even if I have gained 20 pounds in the last year. I wear a good mask and keep my distance. I do not see a single person taking a precaution. A few eye me, as if I am a leper that broke out of the hospital on this perfect Sunday afternoon.
The numbers are bad here, one in 400 dies from the virus. But at the same time, all you can see are people at work, people acting in packed theatres, children galloping around every playground, schools chock-full of students. On the one hand, there are denials - that the virus is both a hoax and exaggerated but true in the same breath. Something like 4% of the country is vaccinated with the only vaccine available (the local one). My head swims every time I step outside our apartment door. But who am I am to pass judgement? Who am I but an exception, not even a minority here. I am a blip, a smudge, a gnat.
I am sure people feel the same way walking around Florida, the same madness of one - this stomach-churning dread that you are alone with your beliefs, a pimple, a sore spot and nothing more. I do not find it comforting to imagine someone walking in Miami between scooters and snot-nosed children with the same fear. This is simply our world.
People like to say that we create our own reality, that we rationalize instead of analyze. I don't think it matters, because a clash of realities or a clash of rationalizations lead to the same grim result - people die. Who dies, what percentage, it does not seem to matter because they are all strangers.
I pass the faces, bland and peaceful as I navigate the crowds, walking in the opposite direction and ask myself if any of these people care about who they brush shoulders with, if their claim on this sunny hour, this sweet breeze that wraps around all of us - that they deserve it more than someone else? Or, do they simply take what they want, and damn the consequences? Yes, they do. Gambling with other people's lives is nothing new.
One in 400, no - not a problem.
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