My Experience with Covid:

For days, I’ve been sitting like a zombie in my chair. Mouth agape, eyes glazed, staring into space, I ponder … NOTHING.

This NOTHING isn’t like the blissful gliding over the waves of my breath in meditation that take me on a journey into outer space where I blend into eternal infinity, NO. This NOTHING is truly NOTHING. And for the first time in my life, I wonder if the atheists are right – that death s the end, and then there is NOTHING.

And then I sneeze, sending jagged shards of pain into every bone. I realize this isn’t death; I am alive, and this is Covid. And as quickly as that, I feel the chair reabsorb my body, and my mouth fall agape, my eyes moist with fog. And again, I ponder… NOTHING.

I hear a low, rolling thunder, the sound I imagine elephants hear that rumbles under the earth. They speak to each other this way, communicating even miles and miles apart. I will myself to hear the wisdom that awaits me in the subtle resound. Surly my elephant sisters are speaking of hope!

And then I realize that I am moaning with each pitiful exhale. There is no profound message, no wisdom, no hope; there is only NOTHING. And again, I ponder… NOTHING .