Sarah Freligh 🔈

We locked down early in March, everything but groceries and liquor stores and cover your face if you cough, please, you over there wandering the tequila aisle. Everything closed in March, but liquor was deemed essential and it was, essentially, for me alone in my apartment. Wegmans ran out of toilet paper, another essential, all of it gone, hoarded. I walked miles without seeing anyone or I watched TV and talked to myself. Eventually Wegmans ran out of cat food so my cats ate whatever I fed them – mouse guts, bat brains – while I binged on Schitt’s Creek and knit socks. My cats licked the fur off their legs. Nerves, the vet said, and prescribed pills they were out of at Wegmans. I knit scarves and mittens to give away to my friends if I ever saw them again and cried when Schitt’s Creek ended. When I didn’t sleep for weeks, the doctor said anxiety and prescribed hot milk and no TV. My apartment silted up with raveling hats awaiting pompoms. I Zoomed with friends, little squares on a screen. Cover your mouth, I said when one of them coughed, and when the world opened up again, I stayed locked up, closed down, essentially alone.